Permission Groups Discovery

Adversaries may attempt to discover group and permission settings. This information can help adversaries determine which user accounts and groups are available, the membership of users in particular groups, and which users and groups have elevated permissions.

Adversaries may attempt to discover group permission settings in many different ways. This data may provide the adversary with information about the compromised environment that can be used in follow-on activity and targeting.[1]

ID: T1069
Sub-techniques:  T1069.001, T1069.002, T1069.003
Tactic: Discovery
Platforms: Azure AD, Containers, Google Workspace, IaaS, Linux, Office 365, SaaS, Windows, macOS
Contributors: Daniel Prizmant, Palo Alto Networks; Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC); Yuval Avrahami, Palo Alto Networks
Version: 2.5
Created: 31 May 2017
Last Modified: 15 April 2023

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
G0022 APT3

APT3 has a tool that can enumerate the permissions associated with Windows groups.[2]

S0335 Carbon

Carbon uses the net group command.[3]

G1016 FIN13

FIN13 has enumerated all users and roles from a victim's main treasury system.[4]

S0483 IcedID

IcedID has the ability to identify Workgroup membership.[5]

S0233 MURKYTOP

MURKYTOP has the capability to retrieve information about groups.[6]

S0445 ShimRatReporter

ShimRatReporter gathered the local privileges for the infected host.[7]

S0623 Siloscape

Siloscape checks for Kubernetes node permissions.[8]

C0024 SolarWinds Compromise

During the SolarWinds Compromise, APT29 used the Get-ManagementRoleAssignment PowerShell cmdlet to enumerate Exchange management role assignments through an Exchange Management Shell.[9]

G0092 TA505

TA505 has used TinyMet to enumerate members of privileged groups.[10] TA505 has also run net group /domain.[11]

S0266 TrickBot

TrickBot can identify the groups the user on a compromised host belongs to.[12]

Mitigations

This type of attack technique cannot be easily mitigated with preventive controls since it is based on the abuse of system features.

Detection

ID Data Source Data Component Detects
DS0015 Application Log Application Log Content

Monitor for logging, messaging, and other artifacts provided by cloud services.

DS0017 Command Command Execution

Monitor executed commands and arguments acquired through Windows system management tools such as Windows Management Instrumentation and PowerShell.

DS0036 Group Group Enumeration

Monitor for an extracted list of ACLs of available groups and/or their associated settings.

Group Metadata

Monitor for contextual data about a group which describes group and activity around it.

DS0009 Process Process Creation

Monitor for newly constructed processes and/or command-lines for actions that could be taken to gather system and network information. System and network discovery techniques normally occur throughout an operation as an adversary learns the environment. Data and events should not be viewed in isolation, but as part of a chain of behavior that could lead to other activities, such as Lateral Movement, based on the information obtained.

References