Adversaries may use alternate authentication material, such as password hashes, Kerberos tickets, and application access tokens, in order to move laterally within an environment and bypass normal system access controls.
Authentication processes generally require a valid identity (e.g., username) along with one or more authentication factors (e.g., password, pin, physical smart card, token generator, etc.). Alternate authentication material is legitimately generated by systems after a user or application successfully authenticates by providing a valid identity and the required authentication factor(s). Alternate authentication material may also be generated during the identity creation process.(Citation: NIST Authentication)(Citation: NIST MFA)
Caching alternate authentication material allows the system to verify an identity has successfully authenticated without asking the user to reenter authentication factor(s). Because the alternate authentication must be maintained by the system—either in memory or on disk—it may be at risk of being stolen through Credential Access techniques. By stealing alternate authentication material, adversaries are able to bypass system access controls and authenticate to systems without knowing the plaintext password or any additional authentication factors.
View in MITRE ATT&CK®Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
AC-02 | Account Management | Protects | T1550 | Use Alternate Authentication Material | |
AC-03 | Access Enforcement | Protects | T1550 | Use Alternate Authentication Material | |
AC-05 | Separation of Duties | Protects | T1550 | Use Alternate Authentication Material | |
AC-06 | Least Privilege | Protects | T1550 | Use Alternate Authentication Material | |
CM-05 | Access Restrictions for Change | Protects | T1550 | Use Alternate Authentication Material | |
CM-06 | Configuration Settings | Protects | T1550 | Use Alternate Authentication Material | |
IA-02 | Identification and Authentication (organizational Users) | Protects | T1550 | Use Alternate Authentication Material | |
DEF-SecScore-E3 | Secure Score | Technique Scores | T1550 | Use Alternate Authentication Material |
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
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DEF-SecScore-E3 | Secure Score | Technique Scores | T1550 | Use Alternate Authentication Material |
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
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DEF-SECA-E3 | Security Alerts | Technique Scores | T1550 | Use Alternate Authentication Material |
Comments
Microsoft Defender security alerts explain the suspicious activities detected by Defender for Identity sensors on your network, and the actors and computers involved in each threat. Alert evidence lists contain direct links to the involved users and computers, to help make your investigations easy and direct.
Defender security alerts are divided into the following categories or phases, like the phases seen in a typical cyber-attack kill chain. Learn more about each phase, the alerts designed to detect each attack, and how to use the alerts to help protect your network using the following links:
Reconnaissance and discovery alerts
Persistence and privilege escalation alerts
Credential access alerts
Lateral movement alerts
Other alerts
License: A Microsoft 365 security product license entitles customer use
of Microsoft Defender XDR.
References
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DEF-LM-E5 | Lateral Movements | Technique Scores | T1550 | Use Alternate Authentication Material |
Comments
Defender for Identity LMPs are visual guides that help you quickly understand and identify exactly how attackers can move laterally inside your network. The purpose of lateral movements within the cyber-attack kill chain are for attackers to gain and compromise your sensitive accounts using non-sensitive accounts. Compromising your sensitive accounts gets them another step closer to their ultimate goal, domain dominance. To stop these attacks from being successful, Defender for Identity LMPs give you easy to interpret, direct visual guidance on your most vulnerable, sensitive accounts.
References
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DEF-IR-E5 | Incident Response | Technique Scores | T1550 | Use Alternate Authentication Material |
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 use alternate authentication material attacks due to Incident Response monitoring for third-party application logging, messaging, and/or other artifacts that may use alternate authentication material, and suspicious account behavior across systems that share accounts.
License Requirements:
Microsoft Defender XDR
References
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DEF-SIM-E5 | ATT&CK Simulation Training | Technique Scores | T1550 | Use Alternate Authentication Material |
Comments
M365's Defender Attack Simulation Training allows organizations to automate the simulation of benign real-world cyberattacks. These simulation automations feature social engineering techniques, payloads, and can start on an automated schedule. This detection focused security control partially improves organizations security posture by continuously conduct attack simulations that fine tune analytics, and provide hands-on training for users and cyber professionals to improve response capabilities.
The following social engineering techniques are available:
Credential Harvest: Attempts to collect credentials by taking users to a well-known looking website with input boxes to submit a username and password.
Malware Attachment: Adds a malicious attachment to a message. When the user opens the attachment, arbitrary code is run that helps the attacker compromise the target's device.
Link in Attachment: A type of credential harvest hybrid. An attacker inserts a URL into an email attachment. The URL within the attachment follows the same technique as credential harvest.
Link to Malware: Runs some arbitrary code from a file hosted on a well-known file sharing service. The message sent to the user contains a link to this malicious file, opening the file and helping the attacker compromise the target's device.
Drive-by URL: The malicious URL in the message takes the user to a familiar-looking website that silently runs and/or installs code on the user's device.
OAuth Consent Grant: The malicious URL asks users to grant permissions to data for a malicious Azure Application.
License Requirements:
Microsoft 365 E5 or Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2.
References
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DEF-SIM-E5 | ATT&CK Simulation Training | Technique Scores | T1550 | Use Alternate Authentication Material |
Comments
M365's Defender Attack Simulation Training allows organizations to automate the simulation of benign real-world cyberattacks. These simulation automations feature social engineering techniques, payloads, and can start on an automated schedule. This detection focused security control partially improves organizations security posture by continuously conduct attack simulations that fine tune analytics, and provide hands-on training for users and cyber professionals to improve response capabilities.
The following social engineering techniques are available:
Credential Harvest: Attempts to collect credentials by taking users to a well-known looking website with input boxes to submit a username and password.
Malware Attachment: Adds a malicious attachment to a message. When the user opens the attachment, arbitrary code is run that helps the attacker compromise the target's device.
Link in Attachment: A type of credential harvest hybrid. An attacker inserts a URL into an email attachment. The URL within the attachment follows the same technique as credential harvest.
Link to Malware: Runs some arbitrary code from a file hosted on a well-known file sharing service. The message sent to the user contains a link to this malicious file, opening the file and helping the attacker compromise the target's device.
Drive-by URL: The malicious URL in the message takes the user to a familiar-looking website that silently runs and/or installs code on the user's device.
OAuth Consent Grant: The malicious URL asks users to grant permissions to data for a malicious Azure Application.
License Requirements:
Microsoft 365 E5 or Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2.
References
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DEF-AIR-E5 | Automated Investigation and Response | Technique Scores | T1550 | Use Alternate Authentication Material |
Comments
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 includes powerful automated investigation and response (AIR) capabilities that can save your security operations team time and effort. As alerts are triggered, it's up to your security operations team to review, prioritize, and respond to those alerts. Keeping up with the volume of incoming alerts can be overwhelming. Automating some of those tasks can help.
AIR enables your security operations team to operate more efficiently and effectively. AIR capabilities include automated investigation processes in response to well-known threats that exist today. Appropriate remediation actions await approval, enabling your security operations team to respond effectively to detected threats. With AIR, your security operations team can focus on higher-priority tasks without losing sight of important alerts that are triggered. Examples include: Soft delete email messages or clusters, Block URL (time-of-click), Turn off external mail forwarding, Turn off delegation, etc.
Required licenses
E5 or Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2 licenses.
References
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Technique ID | Technique Name | Number of Mappings |
---|---|---|
T1550.003 | Pass the Ticket | 12 |
T1550.004 | Web Session Cookie | 4 |
T1550.002 | Pass the Hash | 10 |
T1550.001 | Application Access Token | 18 |