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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IAM-15 | Passwords Management | mitigates | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control requires both CSP and CSC to independently enforce strong password management practices to protect authentication credentials and reduce the risk of unauthorized access. For example, credential access protection mitigation focuses on implementing measures to prevent adversaries from obtaining credentials, such as passwords, hashes, tokens, or keys, that could be used for unauthorized access.
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| IAM-14 | Strong Authentication | mitigates | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control requires both CSP and CSC to independently enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all non-console administrative, remote, sensitive data, and third-party access, implement secure centralized authentication systems and digital certificates, protect credentials, monitor authentication activity, and ensure strong, risk-based authentication measures are consistently applied and reviewed.
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| I&S-05 | Production and Non-Production Environments | mitigates | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control maintains separation of production and non-production environments, which can prevent the introduction of exploitable weaknesses and avoid exposure of sensitive information. Ensure that production environments do not store sensitive data or credentials insecurely (e.g. plaintext credentials in code, published credentials in repositories, or credentials in public cloud storage) to mitigate adversaries from obtaining credentials of existing accounts.
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| IAM-07 | User Access Changes and Revocation | mitigates | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
This control focuses on the secure deprovisioning of user access by automating account removal, detecting and revoking inactive accounts. These mitigative actions reduce the risk of lingering or inappropriate access following employee termination, role changes, or security incidents.
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| DSP-07 | Data Protection by Design and Default | mitigates | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
Comments
Data protection by design and default is emphasized in this control, requiring proactive integration of security and privacy measures at every stage of the SDLC and across all components. Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of existing accounts as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. In terms of mitigations, ensure that applications do not store sensitive data or credentials insecurely. (e.g. plaintext credentials in code, published credentials in repositories, or credentials in public cloud storage). Applications and appliances that utilize default username and password should be changed immediately after the installation, and before deployment to a production environment.
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| Technique ID | Technique Name | Number of Mappings |
|---|---|---|
| T1078.002 | Domain Accounts | 1 |
| T1078.004 | Cloud Accounts | 11 |
| T1078.003 | Local Accounts | 5 |