ATT&CK coverage › Technique
OS Credential Dumping: Security Account Manager T1003.002
Adversaries may attempt to extract credential material from the Security Account Manager (SAM) database either through in-memory techniques or through the Windows Registry where the SAM database is stored. The SAM is a database file that contains local accounts for the host, typically those found with the <code>net user</code> command. Enumerating the SAM database requires SYSTEM level access.
Events covered
20 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.
Authoring guide
Patterns shared across the 26 rules above: which fields they filter on, what specific values they look for, and what they exclude. Field names are normalized across vendors so Sigma's Image, Elastic's process.name, and Splunk's process_name collapse into one row. Each rule contributes at most once per row.
Fields filtered most (23 distinct)
The fields most rules look at when detecting this technique. The How column shows the operators authors use (eq, wildcard, regex_match, match) and how often each appears. Sample values are concrete examples to start from, not an exhaustive list.
Top indicator values (210 distinct)
Specific (field, operator, value) combinations the rules check for, ranked by how many rules under this technique use each one. The Corpus reach column counts how many rules across the entire catalog (any technique) check the same combination. High numbers point to widely-used indicators that are likely noisy on their own; combine them with another condition for useful signal. Blank means the combination is specific to rules under this technique.
Common exclusions (1 distinct)
Field/operator/value combinations that rules under this technique routinely exclude (top-level not() clauses). These are the false-positive paths the community has learned to filter out. A new rule that ignores the high-count entries here will likely fire on the same noisy paths.
Rules under this technique
Every rule in the catalog tagged with this technique, grouped by vendor. Click a rule title for its full predicates, exclusions, and indicators.
Sigma 22 rules
- Copying Sensitive Files with Credential Data
- Crash Dump Created By Operating System
- Cred Dump Tools Dropped Files
- Credential Dumping Tools Service Execution - Security
- Credential Dumping Tools Service Execution - System
- Critical Hive In Suspicious Location Access Bits Cleared
- Dumping of Sensitive Hives Via Reg.EXE
- Esentutl Volume Shadow Copy Service Keys
- HackTool - Credential Dumping Tools Named Pipe Created
- HackTool - Mimikatz Execution
- HackTool - Pypykatz Credentials Dumping Activity
- HackTool - Quarks PwDump Execution
- HackTool - QuarksPwDump Dump File
- NTDS.DIT Creation By Uncommon Process
- Possible Impacket SecretDump Remote Activity
- Potential SAM Database Dump
- PowerShell SAM Copy
- Shadow Copies Creation Using Operating Systems Utilities
- Transferring Files with Credential Data via Network Shares
- Volume Shadow Copy Mount
- VolumeShadowCopy Symlink Creation Via Mklink
- VSSAudit Security Event Source Registration