Adversaries may create an account to maintain access to victim systems.(Citation: Symantec WastedLocker June 2020) 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®| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PR.IR-01.05 | Remote access protection | Mitigates | T1136 | Create Account |
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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| PR.PS-01.01 | Configuration baselines | Mitigates | T1136 | Create Account |
Comments
This diagnostic statement provides for securely configuring production systems. This includes hardening default configurations and making security-focused setting adjustments to reduce the attack surface, enforce best practices, and protect sensitive data thereby mitigating adversary exploitation.
References
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| PR.PS-01.02 | Least functionality | Mitigates | T1136 | Create Account |
Comments
This diagnostic statement provides for limiting unnecessary software, services, ports, protocols, etc. Ensuring systems only have installed and enabled what is essential for their operation reduces the attack surface and minimizes vulnerabilities, which mitigates a wide range of techniques.
References
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| PR.AA-05.02 | Privileged system access | Mitigates | T1136 | Create Account |
Comments
This diagnostic statement protects against Create Account through the use of privileged account management and the use of multi-factor authentication.
References
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| PR.AA-02.01 | Authentication of identity | Mitigates | T1136 | Create Account |
Comments
This diagnostic statement provides protection from Create Account through the implementation of privileged account management controls to limit credential access. Employing limitations to specific accounts, access control mechanisms, and auditing the attribution logs provides protection against adversaries attempting to create accounts.
References
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| PR.PS-01.03 | Configuration deviation | Mitigates | T1136 | Create Account |
Comments
This diagnostic statement provides protection from Create Account through the implementation of security configuration baselines for OS, software, file integrity monitoring and imaging. Security baseline configuration of the Operating System and integrity checking can help protect against adversaries attempting to compromise and elevate privileges.
References
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| PR.PS-01.07 | Cryptographic keys and certificates | Mitigates | T1136 | Create Account |
Comments
This diagnostic statement protects against Create Account through the use of revocation of keys and key management. Employing limitations to specific accounts along with access control mechanisms provides protection against adversaries attempting to create accounts.
References
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| PR.AA-03.01 | Authentication requirements | Mitigates | T1136 | Create Account |
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.IR-01.01 | Network segmentation | Mitigates | T1136 | Create Account |
Comments
This diagnostic statement is for the implementation of network segmentation which helps prevent access to critical systems and sensitive information. Limit access to critical systems and domain controllers to provide protection against adversaries attempting to create accounts.
References
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| PR.IR-01.06 | Production environment segregation | Mitigates | T1136 | Create Account |
Comments
This diagnostic statement provides protections for production environments. Measures such as network segmentation and access control reduce the attack surface, restrict movement by adversaries, and protect critical assets and data from compromise.
References
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| PR.AA-01.01 | Identity and credential management | Mitigates | T1136 | Create Account |
Comments
This diagnostic statement protects against Create Account through the use of hardened access control policies, secure defaults, password complexity requirements, multifactor authentication requirements, and removal of terminated accounts.
References
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| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| attribute.integrity.variety.Created account | Created new user account | related-to | T1136 | Create Account |
| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ai_security_recommendations | Microsoft Defender for Cloud: AI Security Recommendations | technique_scores | T1136 | Create Account |
Comments
This control's "Immutable (read-only) root filesystem should be enforced for containers" recommendation can mitigate a sub-technique of this technique. Due to its Minimal coverage, its score is assessed as Minimal.
References
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| alerts_for_linux_machines | Alerts for Linux Machines | technique_scores | T1136 | Create Account |
Comments
This control is only relevant for Linux endpoints, and it provides partial coverage for the only sub-technique relevant on Linux endpoints, Local Account.
References
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| alerts_for_windows_machines | Alerts for Windows Machines | technique_scores | T1136 | Create Account |
Comments
This control's detection is specific to a minority of this technique's sub-techniques resulting in a Minimal Coverage score and consequently an overall score of Minimal.
References
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| azure_role_based_access_control | Azure Role-Based Access Control | technique_scores | T1136 | Create Account |
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 factor is Minimal, resulting in a Minimal score.
References
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| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| advanced_protection_program | Advanced Protection Program | technique_scores | T1136 | Create Account |
Comments
Advanced Protection Program enables the use of a security key for multi-factor authentication. Enabling Advanced Protection Program for all users at an organization can prevent adversaries from maintaining access via created accounts because any accounts they create won't have the required security keys for MFA.
References
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| google_secops | Google Security Operations | technique_scores | T1136 | Create Account |
Comments
Google Security Ops is able to trigger based on suspicious system event logs, such as newly created local user accounts on Windows machines.
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/threat_hunting/windows/detects_local_user_creation.yaral
References
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| identity_platform | Identity Platform | technique_scores | T1136 | Create Account |
Comments
Identity Platform multi-tenancy uses tenants to create unique silos of users and configurations within a single Identity Platform project. It provides provides secure, easy-to-use authentication if you're building a service on Google Cloud, on your own backend or on another platform; thereby, helping to mitigate adversaries from gaining access to systems.
References
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| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| aws_config | AWS Config | technique_scores | T1136 | Create Account |
Comments
This control provides partial coverage for one of this technique's sub-techniques, resulting in an overall score of Minimal.
References
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| Technique ID | Technique Name | Number of Mappings |
|---|---|---|
| T1136.001 | Local Account | 25 |
| T1136.002 | Domain Account | 29 |
| T1136.003 | Cloud Account | 30 |