Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of existing accounts as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Compromised credentials may be used to bypass access controls placed on various resources on systems within the network and may even be used for persistent access to remote systems and externally available services, such as VPNs, Outlook Web Access, network devices, and remote desktop.(Citation: volexity_0day_sophos_FW) Compromised credentials may also grant an adversary increased privilege to specific systems or access to restricted areas of the network. Adversaries may choose not to use malware or tools in conjunction with the legitimate access those credentials provide to make it harder to detect their presence.
In some cases, adversaries may abuse inactive accounts: for example, those belonging to individuals who are no longer part of an organization. Using these accounts may allow the adversary to evade detection, as the original account user will not be present to identify any anomalous activity taking place on their account.(Citation: CISA MFA PrintNightmare)
The overlap of permissions for local, domain, and cloud accounts across a network of systems is of concern because the adversary may be able to pivot across accounts and systems to reach a high level of access (i.e., domain or enterprise administrator) to bypass access controls set within the enterprise.(Citation: TechNet Credential Theft)
View in MITRE ATT&CK®Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
PR.IR-01.05 | Remote access protection | Mitigates | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This diagnostic statement implements security controls and restrictions for remote user access to systems. Remote user access control involves managing and securing how users remotely access systems, such as through encrypted connections and account use policies, which help prevent adversary access.
References
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DE.CM-03.03 | Privileged account monitoring | Mitigates | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This diagnostic statement implements mechanisms and tools to mitigate potential misuse of privileged users and accounts. Continuous monitoring of role and attribute assignments and activity is essential to prevent and detect unauthorized access or misuse.
References
|
PR.PS-06.01 | Secure SDLC process | Mitigates | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This diagnostic statement provides for secure system development, which includes ensuring that applications do not store sensitive data or valid account credentials insecurely (e.g., plaintext credentials in code, published credentials in repositories, or credentials in public cloud storage).
References
|
PR.AA-05.02 | Privileged system access | Mitigates | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This diagnostic statement protects against Valid Accounts through the use of privileged account management and the use of multi-factor authentication.
References
|
DE.CM-06.02 | Third-party access monitoring | Mitigates | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This diagnostic statement protects against Valid Accounts through the use of privileged account management. Employing auditing, privilege access management, and just in time access protects against adversaries trying to obtain illicit access to critical systems.
References
|
PR.AA-02.01 | Authentication of identity | Mitigates | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This diagnostic statement provides protection from Valid Accounts through the implementation of privileged account management controls to limit account access. Employing limitations to specific accounts, provisioning accounts, access control mechanisms, and auditing the attribution logs provides protection against adversaries attempting to use existing accounts.
References
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PR.PS-01.07 | Cryptographic keys and certificates | Mitigates | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This diagnostic statement protects against Valid Accounts through the use of revocation of keys and key management. Employing key protection strategies for key material used as part of multi-factor authentication for valid accounts, limitations to specific accounts along with access control mechanisms provides protection against adversaries attempting to use valid accounts.
References
|
PR.AA-05.03 | Service accounts | Mitigates | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This diagnostic statement describes how the organization establishes security standards based on industry guidelines to institute strict controls over service account (i.e., accounts used by systems to access other systems).
References
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PR.AA-01.02 | Physical and logical access | Mitigates | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This diagnostic statement describes how the organization ensures users are identified and authenticated before accessing systems, applications, and hardware, with logical access controls permitting access only to authorized individuals with legitimate business needs. Logical access controls in relation to systems can refer to the use of MFA, user account management, and other role-based access control mechanisms to enforce policies for authentication and authorization of user accounts.
References
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PR.AA-03.01 | Authentication requirements | Mitigates | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This diagnostic statement describes how the organization implement appropriate authentication requirements, including selecting mechanisms based on risk, utilizing multi-factor authentication where necessary, and safeguarding the storage of authenticators like pins and passwords to protect sensitive access credentials.
References
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PR.AA-05.04 | Third-party access management | Mitigates | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This diagnostic statement includes implementation of controls for third-party access to an organization’s systems. Conditional access policies can be used to block logins from non-compliant devices or from outside defined IP ranges.
References
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PR.AA-01.01 | Identity and credential management | Mitigates | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This diagnostic statement protects against Valid Accounts through the use of hardened access control policies, secure defaults, password complexity requirements, multifactor authentication requirements, and removal of terminated accounts.
References
|
PR.PS-06.07 | Development and operational process alignment | Mitigates | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This diagnostic statement protects against Valid Accounts through the use of DevSecOps, secure development lifecycle, and application developer guidance. Exploitable weaknesses can be mitigated through secure code, reduced vulnerabilities, and secure design principles.
References
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Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
action.hacking.variety.Backdoor | Hacking action that creates a backdoor for use. | related-to | T1078 | Valid Accounts | |
action.hacking.variety.Use of stolen creds | Use of stolen or default authentication credentials (including credential stuffing) | related-to | T1078 | Valid Accounts | |
action.hacking.vector.Backdoor | Hacking actions taken through a backdoor. C2 is only used by malware. | related-to | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
microsoft_sentinel | Microsoft Sentinel | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control provides partial coverage for all of this technique's sub-techniques and a number of its procedures, resulting in an overall score of Partial.
References
|
defender_for_storage | Microsoft Defender for Cloud: Defender for Storage | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control provides minimal detection for its procedure examples. Additionally, it is able to detect only one of its sub-techniques (Cloud Accounts) resulting in a Minimal Coverage score and consequently an overall score of Minimal.
References
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advanced_threat_protection_for_azure_sql_database | Advanced Threat Protection for Azure SQL Database | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control only provides alerts for a set of Azure database offerings. Databases that have been deployed to endpoints within Azure or third-party databases deployed to Azure do not generate alerts for this control.
References
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ai_security_recommendations | Microsoft Defender for Cloud: AI Security Recommendations | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control's recommendations about removing deprecated and external accounts with sensitive permissions from your subscription can lead to mitigating the Cloud Accounts sub-technique of this technique. Because this is a recommendation and has low coverage, it is assessed as Minimal.
References
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alerts_for_azure_cosmos_db | Alerts for Azure Cosmos DB | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control's detection is specific to the Cosmos DB and therefore provides minimal overall detection coverage for Valid Accounts resulting in a Minimal score. A relevant alert is "Access from an unusual location to a Cosmos DB account".
References
|
alerts_for_windows_machines | Alerts for Windows Machines | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control is able to detect some of this technique's sub-techniques resulting in a Partial Coverage score and consequently an overall score of Partial.
References
|
azure_policy | Azure Policy | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control can protect against abuse of valid accounts.
References
|
azure_role_based_access_control | Azure Role-Based Access Control | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control only provides protection for one of this technique's sub-techniques while not providing any protection for its procedure examples (due to being specific to Azure AD) nor its remaining sub-technqiues. Consequently its coverage score factor is Minimal, resulting in a Minimal score.
References
|
defender_for_azure_sql_databases | Microsoft Defender for Azure SQL Databases | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control can protect against abuse of valid accounts.
References
|
Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
artifact_analysis | Artifact Analysis | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
Artifact Analysis scans container images uploaded to Artifact Registry or Container Registry (deprecated) for vulnerabilities that could potentially be used to escalate privileges, such as default accounts with root permissions in Docker containers. Due to the medium threat protection coverage and scan results being available 48 hours after completion, this control was scored as partial.
References
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mandiant_digital_threatmon | Mandiant Digital Threat Monitoring | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
Mandiant Digital Threat Monitoring continually monitors for compromised credentials and data leaks on both the open and dark web. This control may protect against credential abuse by alerting on leaked credentials. Since this control must depend on accessible sources for dumps, it does not protect against credentials that have been collected for a campaign but never posted, so the score is partial.
References
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cloud_asset_inventory | Cloud Asset Inventory | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control may be able to detect when adversaries use valid cloud accounts to elevate privileges through manipulation of IAM or access policies. This monitoring can be fine tuned to specific assets, policies, and organizations.
References
|
cloud_endpoints | Cloud Endpoints | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
The Cloud Endpoints capability provides support for multiple authentication methods, including API keys and Google ID tokens. Implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA) across account types, including local, domain, and cloud accounts, can prevent unauthorized access even if credentials are compromised.
References
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cloud_identity | Cloud Identity | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control can be used to mitigate malicious attacks of cloud accounts by implementing multi-factor authentication techniques or password policies.
References
|
gke_enterprise | GKE Enterprise | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
GKE Enterprise incorporates the Anthos Config Management feature to create and manage Kubernetes objects across multiple clusters at once. PodSecurityPolicies can be enforced to prevent Pods from using the root Linux user. Based on the medium detection coverage, this was scored as partial.
References
|
google_secops | Google Security Operations | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
Google Security Ops is able to trigger an alert based on RDP logons from non-private IP ranges.
This technique was scored as minimal based on low or uncertain detection coverage factor.
https://github.com/chronicle/detection-rules/blob/783e0e5947774785db1c55041b70176deeca6f46/soc_prime_rules/active_directory_security/security/remote_desktop_from_internet__via_audit.yaral
References
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identity_and_access_management | Identity and Access Management | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control may mitigate the impact of compromised valid accounts by enabling fine-grained access policies and implementing least-privilege policies. MFA can provide protection against an adversary that obtains valid credentials by requiring the adversary to complete an additional authentication process before access is permitted.
References
|
identity_aware_proxy | Identity Aware Proxy | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
IAP applies the relevant IAM policy to check if the user is authorized to access the requested resource. If the user has the IAP-secured Web App User role on the Cloud console project where the resource exists, they're authorized to access the application. This control can mitigate against adversaries that try to obtain credentials of accounts, including cloud accounts.
References
|
identity_platform | Identity Platform | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
Identity Platform lets you add Google-grade authentication to your apps and services, making it easier to secure user accounts and securely managing credentials. MFA can provide protection against an adversary that obtains valid credentials by requiring the adversary to complete an additional authentication process before access is permitted.
References
|
policy_intelligence | Policy Intelligence | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of a cloud account by gaining access through means of Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Policy Intelligence role recommendations generated by IAM Recommender help enforce least privilege principals to ensure that permission levels are properly managed.
References
|
resource_manager | Resource Manager | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
Adversaries may attempt to obtain credentials of existing account through privilege escalation or defense evasion. IAM audit logging in GCP can be used to determine roles and permissions, along with routinely checking user permissions to ensure only the expected users have the ability to list IAM identities or otherwise discover cloud accounts.
References
|
vpc_service_controls | VPC Service Controls | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control is able to mitigate against abuse of compromised valid accounts by restricting access from those accounts to resources contained within the VPC perimeter the account belongs to. Resources and services contained in other VPC networks also cannot be accessed by user accounts that are not within the VPC network perimeter.
References
|
Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
amazon_cognito | Amazon Cognito | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control provides partial protection for one of this technique's sub-techniques and a few of its procedure examples resulting in an overall Minimal protection score.
References
|
amazon_guardduty | Amazon GuardDuty | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
GuardDuty implements a finding that flags occurrences unattended behavior from an IAM User in the Account.
PenTest:IAMUser/KaliLinux, PenTest:IAMUser/ParrotLinux, PenTest:IAMUser/PentooLinux, Policy:IAMUser/RootCredentialUsage, PrivilegeEscalation:IAMUser/AdministrativePermissions, UnauthorizedAccess:IAMUser/ConsoleLogin, UnauthorizedAccess:IAMUser/ConsoleLoginSuccess.B, UnauthorizedAccess:IAMUser/MaliciousIPCaller, UnauthorizedAccess:IAMUser/MaliciousIPCaller.Custom, UnauthorizedAccess:IAMUser/TorIPCaller, Policy:S3/AccountBlockPublicAccessDisabled, Policy:S3/BucketAnonymousAccessGranted, Policy:S3/BucketBlockPublicAccessDisabled, Policy:S3/BucketPublicAccessGranted, CredentialAccess:IAMUser/AnomalousBehavior, DefenseEvasion:IAMUser/AnomalousBehavior, Discovery:IAMUser/AnomalousBehavior, Exfiltration:IAMUser/AnomalousBehavior, Impact:IAMUser/AnomalousBehavior, Persistence:IAMUser/AnomalousBehavior, Recon:IAMUser/MaliciousIPCaller, Recon:IAMUser/MaliciousIPCaller.Custom, UnauthorizedAccess:IAMUser/InstanceCredentialExfiltration
References
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aws_config | AWS Config | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control provides significant coverage for one of this technique's sub-techniques, resulting in an overall score of Minimal.
References
|
aws_identity_and_access_management | AWS Identity and Access Management | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
|
aws_identity_and_access_management | AWS Identity and Access Management | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
|
aws_iot_device_defender | AWS IoT Device Defender | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control provides partial detection capability for one of this technique's sub-techniques and a few of its procedure examples resulting in an overall Minimal protection score.
References
|
aws_iot_device_defender | AWS IoT Device Defender | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control provides partial protection for one of this technique's sub-techniques and a few of its procedure examples resulting in an overall Minimal protection score.
References
|
aws_organizations | AWS Organizations | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control may protect against malicious use of cloud accounts but may not mitigate exploitation of local, domain, or default accounts present within deployed resources.
References
|
aws_security_hub | AWS Security Hub | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
AWS Security Hub detects suspicious activity by AWS accounts which could indicate valid accounts being leveraged by an adversary. AWS Security Hub provides these detections with the following managed insights.
AWS principals with suspicious access key activity Credentials that may have leaked AWS resources with unauthorized access attempts IAM users with suspicious activity
AWS Security Hub also performs checks from the AWS Foundations CIS Benchmark and PCI-DSS security standard that, if implemented, would help towards detecting the misuse of valid accounts. AWS Security Hub provides these detections with the following checks.
3.1 Ensure a log metric filter and alarm exist for unauthorized API calls 3.2 Ensure a log metric filter and alarm exist for Management Console sign-in without MFA 3.3 Ensure a log metric filter and alarm exist for usage of "root" account 3.4 Ensure a log metric filter and alarm exist for IAM policy changes 3.6 Ensure a log metric filter and alarm exist for AWS Management Console authentication failures [PCI.CW.1] A log metric filter and alarm should exist for usage of the "root" user
By monitoring the root account, activity where accounts make unauthorized API calls, and changes to IAM permissions among other things, it may be possible to detect valid accounts that are being misused and are potentially compromised.
This is scored as Minimal because it only supports a subset of the sub-techniques.
References
|
aws_single_sign-on | AWS Single Sign-On | technique_scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
|
Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
EID-CA-E3 | Conditional Access | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
Multiple conditions along can be combined to create fine-grained and specific policies that partially enforce access controls to account resources that adversaries may attempt to abuse: conditional access to Cloud APIs, blocking legacy authentication, requiring multi-factor authentication for users, block access by location, block access to unsupported devices, failed login attempts, account lockout policies, etc.. These features may require Microsoft Entra ID P2.
References
|
EID-CA-E3 | Conditional Access | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control only provides minimal protection for this technique's procedure examples along and also only protects one of its sub-techniques resulting in an overall Minimal score.
References
|
EID-CA-E3 | Conditional Access | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control only provides minimal protection for this technique's procedure examples along and also only protects one of its sub-techniques resulting in an overall Minimal score.
References
|
EID-CA-E3 | Conditional Access | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control only protects cloud accounts and therefore its overall coverage is minimal resulting in a Minimal respond score for this technique.
References
|
EID-CA-E3 | Conditional Access | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control only protects cloud accounts and therefore its overall coverage is minimal resulting in a Minimal respond score for this technique.
References
|
EID-CAE-E3 | Continuous Access Evaluation | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
Entra ID's continuous access evaluation is a security control implemented by enabling services to subscribe to critical Microsoft Entra events. Those events can then be evaluated and enforced near real time. This process enables tenant users lose access to organizational SharePoint Online files, email, calendar, or tasks, and Teams from Microsoft 365 client apps within minutes after a critical event is detected. The following events are currently evaluated:
User Account is deleted or disabled
Password for a user is changed or reset
Multifactor authentication is enabled for the user
Administrator explicitly revokes all refresh tokens for a user
High user risk detected by Microsoft Entra ID Protection
License Requirements:
Continuous access evaluation will be included in all versions of Microsoft 365.
References
|
PUR-AUS-E5 | Audit Solutions | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
Microsoft Purview auditing solutions provide an integrated solution to help organizations effectively respond to security events, forensic investigations, internal investigations, and compliance obligations. Thousands of user and admin operations performed in dozens of Microsoft 365 services and solutions are captured, recorded, and retained in your organization's unified audit log. Audit records for these events are searchable by security ops, IT admins, insider risk teams, and compliance and legal investigators in your organization. This capability provides visibility into the activities performed across your Microsoft 365 organization.
Microsoft's Audit Solutions protects from Valid Account attacks due to Audit Solutions providing the visibility to allow admins to regularly audit user accounts for activity and deactivate or remove any that are no longer needed.
License Requirements:
Microsoft 365 E3 and E5
References
|
DEF-SECA-E3 | Security Alerts | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
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
|
DEF-CAPP-E5 | Defender for Cloud Apps | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control can identify anomalous behavior such as geographically impossible logins and out-of-character activity.
Relevant alerts include "Activity from anonymous IP address" , "Activity from infrequent country", "Activity from suspicious IP address", "Impossible Travel", and "Activity performed by terminated user".
References
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DEF-SSCO-E3 | Secure Score | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
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
|
EID-IDPR-E5 | ID Protection | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control provides partial detection for some of this technique's sub-techniques and procedure examples resulting in an overall Partial detection score.
References
|
EID-IDSS-E3 | Identity Secure Score | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control provides recommendations that can lead to protecting against the malicious usage of valid cloud accounts but does not provide recommendations for the remaining sub-techniques Additionally, it provides limited protection for this technique's procedure examples. Consequently, its overall protection coverage score is minimal.
References
|
EID-IDSS-E3 | Identity Secure Score | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control provides recommendations that can lead to the detection of the malicious usage of valid cloud accounts but does not provide recommendations for the remaining sub-techniques Additionally, it provides limited detection for this technique's procedure examples. Consequently, its overall detection coverage score is minimal.
References
|
DEF-AIR-E5 | Automated Investigation and Response | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
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
|
DEF-IR-E5 | Incident Response | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
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 valid account attacks due to Incident Response monitoring for newly constructed logon behavior that may obtain and abuse credentials of existing accounts.
License Requirements:
Microsoft Defender XDR
References
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PUR-PAM-E5 | Privileged Access Management | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
Microsoft Purview Privileged Access Management allows granular access control over privileged admin tasks in Office 365. It can help protect your organization from breaches that use existing privileged admin accounts with standing access to sensitive data or access to critical configuration settings. Privileged access management requires users to request just-in-time access to complete elevated and privileged tasks through a highly scoped and time-bounded approval workflow. This configuration gives users just-enough-access to perform the task at hand, without risking exposure of sensitive data or critical configuration settings. Microsoft 365 configuration settings. When used with Microsoft Entra Privileged Identity Management, these two features provide access control with just-in-time access at different scopes. (e.g., Encryption, RBAC, Conditional Access, JIT, Just Enough Access (with Approval).
License requirements: M365 E5 customers.
References
|
EID-RBAC-E3 | Role Based Access Control | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
The RBAC control can be used to implement the principle of least privilege for account management, reducing the potential actions that can be taken with Valid Default and Cloud Accounts. Although RBAC can limit the actions the adversary can take if a Valid Account has been compromised, it does not protect against different variations of the technique's procedure. Due to overall Minimal coverage, it receives an overall score of Minimal.
License Requirements:
ME-ID Built-in Roles (Free)
License Requirements:
ME-ID Built-in Roles (Free)
References
|
DEF-ATH-E5 | Advanced Threat Hunting | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
Advanced hunting is a query-based threat hunting tool that lets you explore up to 30 days of raw data. Advanced hunting in Microsoft Defender XDR allows you to proactively hunt for threats across: Devices managed by Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Emails processed by Microsoft 365, Cloud app activities, authentication events, and domain controller activities. With this level of visibility, you can quickly hunt for threats that traverse sections of your network, including sophisticated intrusions that arrive on email or the web, elevate local privileges, acquire privileged domain credentials, and move laterally to across your devices. Advanced hunting supports two modes, guided and advanced. Users use advanced mode if they are comfortable using Kusto Query Language (KQL) to create queries from scratch.
Advanced Threat Hunting Detects Valid Account attacks due to the IdentityLogonEvents table in the advanced hunting schema which contains information about all authentication activities related to Microsoft online services captured by Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps which monitors for newly constructed logon behavior.
License Requirements:
Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 plan 2
References
|
DEF-LM-E5 | Lateral Movements | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
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
|
DEF-APGV-E5 | App Governance | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
App governance in Defender for Cloud Apps is a set of security and policy management capabilities designed for OAuth-enabled apps registered on Microsoft Entra ID, Google, and Salesforce. App governance delivers visibility, remediation, and governance into how these apps and their users access, use, and share sensitive data in Microsoft 365 and other cloud platforms through actionable insights and automated policy alerts and actions. App governance also enables you to see which user-installed OAuth applications have access to data on Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and Salesforce. It tells you what permissions the apps have and which users have granted access to their accounts. App governance insights enable you to make informed decisions around blocking or restricting apps that present significant risk to your organization
App Governance Detects Valid Account attacks due to App Governance monitoring aggregated sign-in activity for each app and tracking all risky sign-in's.
License Requirements:
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps
References
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EID-MFA-E3 | Multifactor Authentication | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control only protects cloud accounts and therefore its overall protection coverage is Minimal.
References
|
EID-PWP-E3 | Password Policy | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
Accounts should have complex and unique passwords across all systems on the network. Passwords and access keys should be rotated regularly.
License Requirements:
Microsoft Entra ID Free, Microsoft Entra ID P1, or Microsoft Entra ID P2
References
|
EID-PWPR-E3 | Password Protection | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
Accounts should have complex and unique passwords across all systems on the network. When a password is changed or reset for any user in a Microsoft Entra tenant, the current version of the global banned password list is used to validate the strength of the password. This validation check results in stronger passwords for all Microsoft Entra customers.
License Requirements:
Microsoft Entra ID Free, Microsoft Entra ID P1, or Microsoft Entra ID P2
References
|
EID-PIM-E5 | Privileged Identity Management | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control only provides protection for one of this technique's sub-techniques while not providing any protection for the remaining and therefore its coverage score is Minimal, resulting in a Minimal score.
References
|
EID-PIM-E5 | Privileged Identity Management | Technique Scores | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
The PIM control supports an Access Review feature, which can partially be used to avoid stale role assignment for Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts. The control does not protect against this technique's other sub-techniques, resulting in a Minimal coverage score, for an overall score of Minimal.
License Requirements:
Microsoft Entra ID P2 or Microsoft Entra ID Governance
References
|
Technique ID | Technique Name | Number of Mappings |
---|---|---|
T1078.001 | Default Accounts | 33 |
T1078.002 | Domain Accounts | 30 |
T1078.004 | Cloud Accounts | 83 |
T1078.003 | Local Accounts | 31 |