OS Credential Dumping: DCSync

Adversaries may attempt to access credentials and other sensitive information by abusing a Windows Domain Controller's application programming interface (API)[1] [2] [3] [4] to simulate the replication process from a remote domain controller using a technique called DCSync.

Members of the Administrators, Domain Admins, and Enterprise Admin groups or computer accounts on the domain controller are able to run DCSync to pull password data[5] from Active Directory, which may include current and historical hashes of potentially useful accounts such as KRBTGT and Administrators. The hashes can then in turn be used to create a Golden Ticket for use in Pass the Ticket[6] or change an account's password as noted in Account Manipulation.[7]

DCSync functionality has been included in the "lsadump" module in Mimikatz.[8] Lsadump also includes NetSync, which performs DCSync over a legacy replication protocol.[9]

ID: T1003.006
Sub-technique of:  T1003
Platforms: Windows
Permissions Required: Administrator
Contributors: ExtraHop; Vincent Le Toux
Version: 1.0
Created: 11 February 2020
Last Modified: 22 April 2021

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
C0027 C0027

During C0027, Scattered Spider performed domain replication.[10]

G1006 Earth Lusca

Earth Lusca has used a DCSync command with Mimikatz to retrieve credentials from an exploited controller.[11]

G1004 LAPSUS$

LAPSUS$ has used DCSync attacks to gather credentials for privilege escalation routines.[12]

S0002 Mimikatz

Mimikatz performs credential dumping to obtain account and password information useful in gaining access to additional systems and enterprise network resources. It contains functionality to acquire information about credentials in many ways, including from DCSync/NetSync.[13][8][14][15][16]

C0014 Operation Wocao

During Operation Wocao, threat actors used Mimikatz's DCSync to dump credentials from the memory of the targeted system.[17]

C0024 SolarWinds Compromise

During the SolarWinds Compromise, APT29 used privileged accounts to replicate directory service data with domain controllers.[18][19][20]

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M1015 Active Directory Configuration

Manage the access control list for "Replicating Directory Changes" and other permissions associated with domain controller replication.[5][21]

M1027 Password Policies

Ensure that local administrator accounts have complex, unique passwords across all systems on the network.

M1026 Privileged Account Management

Do not put user or admin domain accounts in the local administrator groups across systems unless they are tightly controlled, as this is often equivalent to having a local administrator account with the same password on all systems. Follow best practices for design and administration of an enterprise network to limit privileged account use across administrative tiers.

Detection

ID Data Source Data Component Detects
DS0026 Active Directory Active Directory Object Access

Monitor domain controller logs for replication requests and other unscheduled activity possibly associated with DCSync.[1] [2] [3] Note: Domain controllers may not log replication requests originating from the default domain controller account.[22]

DS0029 Network Traffic Network Traffic Content

Monitor and analyze traffic patterns and packet inspection associated to protocol(s) that do not follow the expected protocol standards and traffic flows (e.g extraneous packets that do not belong to established flows, gratuitous or anomalous traffic patterns, anomalous syntax, or structure). Consider correlation with process monitoring and command line to detect anomalous processes execution and command line arguments associated to traffic patterns (e.g. monitor anomalies in use of files that do not normally initiate connections for respective protocol(s)).

Network Traffic Flow

Monitor network data for uncommon data flows. Processes utilizing the network that do not normally have network communication or have never been seen before are suspicious.

References

  1. MSTIC, DART, M365 Defender. (2022, March 24). DEV-0537 Criminal Actor Targeting Organizations for Data Exfiltration and Destruction. Retrieved May 17, 2022.
  2. Deply, B. (n.d.). Mimikatz. Retrieved September 29, 2015.
  3. Grafnetter, M. (2015, October 26). Retrieving DPAPI Backup Keys from Active Directory. Retrieved December 19, 2017.
  4. The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), the New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre (NZ NCSC), CERT New Zealand, the UK National Cyber Security Centre (UK NCSC) and the US National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC). (2018, October 11). Joint report on publicly available hacking tools. Retrieved March 11, 2019.
  5. Strategic Cyber LLC. (2020, November 5). Cobalt Strike: Advanced Threat Tactics for Penetration Testers. Retrieved April 13, 2021.
  6. Dantzig, M. v., Schamper, E. (2019, December 19). Operation Wocao: Shining a light on one of China’s hidden hacking groups. Retrieved October 8, 2020.
  7. Microsoft 365 Defender Team. (2020, December 28). Using Microsoft 365 Defender to protect against Solorigate. Retrieved January 7, 2021.
  8. MSTIC, CDOC, 365 Defender Research Team. (2021, January 20). Deep dive into the Solorigate second-stage activation: From SUNBURST to TEARDROP and Raindrop . Retrieved January 22, 2021.
  9. CrowdStrike. (2022, January 27). Early Bird Catches the Wormhole: Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign. Retrieved February 7, 2022.
  10. Microsoft. (n.d.). How to grant the "Replicating Directory Changes" permission for the Microsoft Metadirectory Services ADMA service account. Retrieved December 4, 2017.
  11. Schroeder, W. (2015, September 22). Mimikatz and DCSync and ExtraSids, Oh My. Retrieved December 4, 2017.