COMMON ATTACK PATTERN ENUMERATION AND CLASSIFICATIONLive MITRE record
CAPEC-653
Use of Known Operating System Credentials
An adversary guesses or obtains (i.e. steals or purchases) legitimate operating system credentials (e.g. userID/password) to achieve authentication and to perform authorized actions on the system, under the guise of an authenticated user or service. This applies to any Operating System.
Abstraction
Standard
Typical severity
High
Likelihood of attack
High
Understand the attack
What is this attack pattern?
An adversary guesses or obtains (i.e. steals or purchases) legitimate operating system credentials (e.g. userID/password) to achieve authentication and to perform authorized actions on the system, under the guise of an authenticated user or service. This applies to any Operating System.
Extended description
This attack can be extremely harmful when the operating system credentials used are for a root or admin user. Once an adversary gains access using credentials with elevated privileges, they are free to alter important system files which can effect other users who may use the system or other users on the system's network.
Execution flow
How does the attack proceed, step by step?
Explore
Acquire known operating system credentials
The adversary must obtain known operating system credentials in order to access the target system, application, or service within the domain.
Techniques used
- An adversary purchases breached operating system username/password combinations or leaked hashed passwords from the dark web.
- An adversary leverages a key logger or phishing attack to steal user credentials as they are provided.
- An adversary conducts a sniffing attack to steal operating system credentials as they are transmitted.
- An adversary gains access to a system/files and exfiltrates password hashes.
- An adversary examines outward-facing configuration and properties files to discover hardcoded credentials.
Experiment
Attempt authentication
Try each operating system credential against various systems, applications, and services within the domain until the target grants access.
Techniques used
- Manually or automatically enter each credential through the target's interface.
Exploit
Impersonate
An adversary can use successful experiments or authentications to impersonate an authorized user or system, or to laterally move within the network
Spoofing
Malicious data can be injected into the target system or into other systems on the network. The adversary can also pose as a legitimate user to perform social engineering attacks.
Data Exfiltration
The adversary can obtain sensitive data contained within system files or application configuration.
Requirements
What does the attack require?
Prerequisites
- The system/application uses one factor password-based authentication, SSO, and/or cloud-based authentication.
- The system/application does not have a sound password policy that is being enforced.
- The system/application does not implement an effective password throttling mechanism.
- The adversary possesses a list of known user accounts and corresponding passwords that may exist on the target.
Skills required
- Low: Once an adversary obtains a known credential, leveraging it is trivial.
Resources required
- A list of known credentials for the targeted domain.
- A custom script that leverages a credential list to launch an attack.
Detection
What are the indicators of the attack?
Authentication attempts use credentials that have been used previously by the account in question.
Authentication attempts are originating from IP addresses or locations that are inconsistent with a user's normal IP addresses or locations.
Data is being transferred and/or removed from systems/applications within the network.
Suspicious or Malicious software is downloaded/installed on systems within the domain.
Messages from a legitimate user appear to contain suspicious links or communications not consistent with the user's normal behavior.
Impact
What does a successful attack lead to?
Gain Privileges
Affected scopes: Confidentiality, Access Control, Authentication
Read Data
Affected scopes: Confidentiality, Authorization
Modify Data
Affected scopes: Integrity
Defence
How is it prevented and mitigated?
1
Leverage multi-factor authentication for all authentication services and prior to granting an entity access to the network.
2
Create a strong password policy and ensure that your system enforces this policy.
3
Ensure users are not reusing username/password combinations for multiple systems, applications, or services.
4
Do not reuse local administrator account credentials across systems.
5
Deny remote use of local admin credentials to log into domain systems.
6
Do not allow accounts to be a local administrator on more than one system.
7
Implement an intelligent password throttling mechanism. Care must be taken to assure that these mechanisms do not excessively enable account lockout attacks such as CAPEC-2 .
8
Monitor system and domain logs for abnormal credential access.
Real world
MITRE example instances
Example instance 1Detail
Adversaries exploited the Zoom video conferencing application during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic to exfiltrate Windows domain credentials from a target system. The attack entailed sending Universal Naming Convention (UNC) paths within the Zoom chat window of an unprotected Zoom call. If the victim clicked on the link, their Windows usernames and the corresponding Net-NTLM-v2 hashes were sent to the address contained in the link. The adversary was then able to infiltrate and laterally move within the Windows domain by passing the acquired credentials to shared network resources. This further provided adversaries with access to Outlook servers and network storage devices. [ REF-575 ]
Example instance 2Detail
Mimikatz, a post-exploitation Windows credential harvester, can be used to gather and exploit Windows credentials. This malware has been used in several known cyberattacks, such as the Petya Ransomeware attacks. [ REF-576 ]