ATT&CK coverage › Technique

Valid Accounts: Domain Accounts T1078.002

Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of a domain account as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Domain accounts are those managed by Active Directory Domain Services where access and permissions are configured across systems and services that are part of that domain. Domain accounts can cover users, administrators, and services.

Events covered

11 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.

ProviderEvent IDTitle
Sysmon1Process creation
Security-Auditing4624An account was successfully logged on.
Security-Auditing4662An operation was performed on an object.
Security-Auditing4738A user account was changed.
Security-Auditing4742A computer account was changed.
Security-Auditing4768A Kerberos authentication ticket (TGT) was requested.
Security-Auditing4769A Kerberos service ticket was requested.
Security-Auditing4781The name of an account was changed.
Security-Auditing5136A directory service object was modified.
Security-Auditing5137A directory service object was created.
PowerShell4104Creating Scriptblock text (MessageNumber of MessageTotal).

Authoring guide

Patterns shared across the 19 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 (22 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.

FieldRulesHowSample values
EventID5eq 54781, 4769, 4768, 5137, 5136
Properties3match 31131f6ad-9c07-11d1-f79f-00c04fc2dcd2, 1131f6aa-9c07-11d1-f79f-00c04fc2dcd2, DS-Replication-Get-Changes-In-Filtered-Set, b7ff5a38-0818-42b0-8110-d3d154c97f24, 612cb747-c0e8-4f92-9221-fdd5f15b550d
AttributeLDAPDisplayName3eq 3dSHeuristics, msDS-ManagedAccountPrecededByLink, displayName, gPCFileSysPath
OldTargetUserName3eq 2, ends_with 1"*$", $
ScriptBlockText3match 2, eq 1CN=, .Put("msDS-ManagedAccountPrecededByLink, New-ADServiceAccount, -path, -CreateDelegatedServiceAccount
AttributeValue2match 1, ne 1[0-9]{15}([1-9a-f]).*, "New Group Policy Object"
ObjectClass2eq 2msDS-DelegatedManagedServiceAccount, groupPolicyContainer
EventType2eq 2renamed-user-account, changed-computer-account
user2starts_with 1, ne 1Admin, "*$"
NewTargetUserName2ne 2"*$"
ObjectDN1starts_with 1CN=AdminSDHolder,CN=System
NewUACList1eq 1USER_DONT_REQUIRE_PREAUTH
AccessMask1eq 10x100
user.id1starts_with 1S-1-12-1-, S-1-5-21-
DnsHostName1starts_with 1??

Top indicator values (57 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.

FieldKindValueRules (here)Corpus reach
PropertiesmatchDS-Replication-Get-Changes-In-Filtered-Set2
PropertiesmatchDS-Replication-Get-Changes-All2
Propertiesmatch1131f6ad-9c07-11d1-f79f-00c04fc2dcd222
Propertiesmatch1131f6aa-9c07-11d1-f79f-00c04fc2dcd222
Propertiesmatch89e95b76-444d-4c62-991a-0facbeda640c22
PropertiesmatchDS-Replication-Get-Changes2
OldTargetUserNameeq"*$"22
EventIDeq478122
NewTargetUserNamene"*$"22
Propertiesmatch612cb747-c0e8-4f92-9221-fdd5f15b550d1
Propertiesmatchb7ff5a38-0818-42b0-8110-d3d154c97f241
Propertiesmatchb3f93023-9239-4f7c-b99c-6745d87adbc21
Propertiesmatchb8dfa744-31dc-4ef1-ac7c-84baf7ef9da71
ObjectDNstarts_withCN=AdminSDHolder,CN=System1
AttributeLDAPDisplayNameeqdSHeuristics1
AttributeValuematch[0-9]{15}([1-9a-f]).*1
AttributeLDAPDisplayNameeqmsDS-ManagedAccountPrecededByLink1
ObjectClasseqmsDS-DelegatedManagedServiceAccount1
NewUACListeqUSER_DONT_REQUIRE_PREAUTH1
AccessMaskeq0x10013

Common exclusions (6 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.

FieldKindValueRules excluding
userends_with$2
userstarts_withMSOL_2
AccessMaskin0x01
SubjectUserSideqS-1-5-181
AccessMaskin0x1001
NewTargetUserNameends_with$1

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 4 rules

Elastic 10 rules

Splunk 5 rules