T1136 Create Account Mappings

Adversaries may create an account to maintain access to victim systems. With a sufficient level of access, creating such accounts may be used to establish secondary credentialed access that do not require persistent remote access tools to be deployed on the system.

Accounts may be created on the local system or within a domain or cloud tenant. In cloud environments, adversaries may create accounts that only have access to specific services, which can reduce the chance of detection.

View in MITRE ATT&CK®

Mappings

Capability ID Capability Description Mapping Type ATT&CK ID ATT&CK Name Notes
AC-02 Account Management Protects T1136 Create Account
AC-20 Use of External Systems Protects T1136 Create Account
AC-03 Access Enforcement Protects T1136 Create Account
AC-04 Information Flow Enforcement Protects T1136 Create Account
AC-05 Separation of Duties Protects T1136 Create Account
AC-06 Least Privilege Protects T1136 Create Account
CM-05 Access Restrictions for Change Protects T1136 Create Account
CM-06 Configuration Settings Protects T1136 Create Account
CM-07 Least Functionality Protects T1136 Create Account
IA-02 Identification and Authentication (organizational Users) Protects T1136 Create Account
IA-05 Authenticator Management Protects T1136 Create Account
SC-46 Cross Domain Policy Enforcement Protects T1136 Create Account
SC-07 Boundary Protection Protects T1136 Create Account
SI-04 System Monitoring Protects T1136 Create Account
SI-07 Software, Firmware, and Information Integrity Protects T1136 Create Account
ME-RBAC-E3 Role Based Access Control Technique Scores T1136 Create Account
Comments
The RBAC control can generally be used to implement the principle of least privilege to protect against account creation. For the given product space, this control helps protect against only against Cloud Account creation, and none of this technique’s other sub-techniques or procedures. Due to overall Minimal coverage, it receives an overall score of Minimal. License Requirements: ME-ID Built-in Roles (Free)
References
ME-PIM-E5 Privileged Identity Management Technique Scores T1136 Create Account
Comments
The PIM control provides significant protection against Create Account: Cloud Account, but not against the technique's other sub-techniques. An overall score of Partial is provided, although overall coverage for the across the sub-techniques is minimal. License Requirements: Microsoft Entra ID P2 or Microsoft Entra ID Governance
References
DEF-SecScore-E3 Secure Score Technique Scores T1136 Create Account
Comments
Microsoft Secure Score is a measurement of an organization's security posture, with a higher number indicating more recommended actions taken. It can be found at Microsoft Secure Score in the Microsoft Defender portal. Following the Secure Score recommendations can protect your organization from threats. From a centralized dashboard in the Microsoft Defender portal, organizations can monitor and work on the security of their Microsoft 365 identities, apps, and devices. Your score is updated in real time to reflect the information presented in the visualizations and recommended action pages. Secure Score also syncs daily to receive system data about your achieved points for each action. To help you find the information you need more quickly, Microsoft recommended actions are organized into groups: Identity (Microsoft Entra accounts & roles) Device (Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, known as Microsoft Secure Score for Devices) Apps (email and cloud apps, including Office 365 and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps) Data (through Microsoft Information Protection)
References
DEF-IR-E5 Incident Response Technique Scores T1136 Create Account
Comments
An incident in Microsoft Defender XDR is a collection of correlated alerts and associated data that make up the story of an attack. Microsoft 365 services and apps create alerts when they detect a suspicious or malicious event or activity. Individual alerts provide valuable clues about a completed or ongoing attack. Attacks typically employ various techniques against different types of entities, such as devices, users, and mailboxes. The result of this is multiple alerts for multiple entities in your tenant. Piecing the individual alerts together to gain insight into an attack can be challenging and time-consuming, Microsoft Defender XDR automatically aggregates the alerts and their associated information into an incident. A typical Incident Response workflow in Microsoft Defender XDR begins with a triage action, next is the investigate action, and finally is the response action. Microsoft 365 Defender Incident Response responds to Create Account attacks due to Incident Response monitoring for newly executed processes associated with account creations. License Requirements: Microsoft Defender XDR
References

ATT&CK Subtechniques

Technique ID Technique Name Number of Mappings
T1136.001 Local Account 11
T1136.002 Domain Account 15
T1136.003 Cloud Account 21