Detection rules › Splunk

Windows Steal Authentication Certificates Certificate Request

Author
Michael Haag, Splunk
Source
upstream

The following analytic detects when a new certificate is requested from Certificate Services - AD CS. It leverages Event ID 4886, which indicates that a certificate request has been received. This activity is significant because unauthorized certificate requests can be part of credential theft or lateral movement tactics. If confirmed malicious, an attacker could use the certificate to impersonate users, gain unauthorized access to resources, or establish persistent access within the environment. Monitoring and correlating this event with other suspicious activities is crucial for identifying potential security incidents.

MITRE ATT&CK coverage

TacticTechniques
Credential AccessT1649 Steal or Forge Authentication Certificates

Event coverage

ProviderEvent IDTitle
Security-Auditing4886Certificate Services received a certificate request.

Stages and Predicates

Stage 1: search

search EventCode=4886

Stage 2: stats

stats BY dest, name, Requester, action, Attributes

Stage 3: search

search

Stage 4: search

search

Stage 5: search

search `macro`

Indicators

Each row is a field, operator, and value that the rule matches. The corpus column counts how many other rules in the catalog look for the same combination: high numbers point to widely-used, community-vetted indicators. Blank or 1 shows that the indicator is specific to this rule.

FieldKindValues
EventCodeeq
  • 4886