September 27, 2024 at 10:21AM
Government agencies from the Five Eyes countries have provided guidance on threat actor techniques targeting Microsoft Active Directory. These techniques exploit the directory’s vulnerabilities, making it a prime target for bad actors. The guidance recommends prioritizing privileged access security and implementing a tiered model. It also outlines common compromise techniques and suggests using canary objects for detection.
From the meeting notes, it is clear that government agencies from the Five Eyes countries have published guidance on the techniques used by threat actors to target Active Directory and have provided recommendations on mitigating these threats.
The guidance emphasizes that Active Directory is a valuable target for bad actors due to its susceptibility to compromise, primarily because of its large attack surface and permissive default settings.
The top priority for organizations in mitigating the harm of Active Directory compromise is securing privileged access, ideally through the use of a tiered model such as Microsoft’s Enterprise Access Model. Implementing this model can make many techniques utilized against Active Directory significantly more difficult to execute and render some of them impossible.
The document lists various common Active Directory compromise techniques, including Kerberoasting, AS-REP roasting, password spraying, and many others. It also acknowledges the difficulty in detecting such compromises and suggests the use of canary objects in AD as an effective method.
The guidance provided in the meeting notes highlights the importance of understanding and effectively addressing the security challenges associated with Active Directory, and it offers specific recommendations for mitigating these threats.