ATT&CK coverage › Technique
Access Token Manipulation: Token Impersonation/Theft T1134.001
Adversaries may duplicate then impersonate another user's existing token to escalate privileges and bypass access controls. For example, an adversary can duplicate an existing token using `DuplicateToken` or `DuplicateTokenEx`. The token can then be used with `ImpersonateLoggedOnUser` to allow the calling thread to impersonate a logged on user's security context, or with `SetThreadToken` to assign the impersonated token to a thread.
Events covered
10 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.
Authoring guide
Patterns shared across the 13 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 (19 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 (87 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 (7 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 9 rules
- HackTool - Impersonate Execution
- HackTool - Koh Default Named Pipe
- HackTool - NoFilter Execution
- HackTool - SharpDPAPI Execution
- HackTool - SharpImpersonation Execution
- Meterpreter or Cobalt Strike Getsystem Service Installation - Security
- Meterpreter or Cobalt Strike Getsystem Service Installation - System
- Potential Access Token Abuse
- Potential Meterpreter/CobaltStrike Activity