T1078 Valid Accounts Mappings

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 and remote desktop. 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.

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®

NIST 800-53 Mappings

Capability ID Capability Description Mapping Type ATT&CK ID ATT&CK Name Notes
AC-2 Account Management Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
AC-3 Access Enforcement Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
AC-5 Separation of Duties Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
AC-6 Least Privilege Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
CA-7 Continuous Monitoring Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
CA-8 Penetration Testing Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
CM-5 Access Restrictions for Change Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
CM-6 Configuration Settings Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
IA-12 Identity Proofing Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
IA-2 Identification and Authentication (organizational Users) Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
IA-5 Authenticator Management Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
PL-8 Security and Privacy Architectures Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
RA-5 Vulnerability Monitoring and Scanning Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
SA-10 Developer Configuration Management Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
SA-11 Developer Testing and Evaluation Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
SA-12 Supply Chain Protection Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
SA-15 Development Process, Standards, and Tools Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
SA-16 Developer-provided Training Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
SA-17 Developer Security and Privacy Architecture and Design Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
SA-3 System Development Life Cycle Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
SA-4 Acquisition Process Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
SA-8 Security and Privacy Engineering Principles Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
SC-28 Protection of Information at Rest Protects T1078 Valid Accounts
SI-4 System Monitoring Protects T1078 Valid Accounts

VERIS Mappings

Capability ID Capability Description Mapping Type ATT&CK ID ATT&CK Name Notes
action.hacking.variety.Use of backdoor or C2 Use of Backdoor or C2 channel related-to T1078 Valid Accounts
action.hacking.variety.Use of stolen creds Use of stolen authentication credentials (including credential stuffing) related-to T1078 Valid Accounts
action.hacking.vector.Backdoor or C2 Backdoor or command and control channel related-to T1078 Valid Accounts

AWS Mappings

Capability ID Capability Description Mapping Type ATT&CK ID ATT&CK Name Notes
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
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
aws_iot_device_defender AWS IoT Device Defender technique_scores T1078 Valid Accounts
aws_iot_device_defender AWS IoT Device Defender technique_scores T1078 Valid Accounts
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
amazon_cognito Amazon Cognito technique_scores T1078 Valid Accounts
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 (1 of 4).
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_single_sign-on AWS Single Sign-On technique_scores T1078 Valid Accounts

ATT&CK Subtechniques

Technique ID Technique Name Number of Mappings
T1078.004 Cloud Accounts 33
T1078.001 Default Accounts 16
T1078.002 Domain Accounts 14
T1078.003 Local Accounts 20