T1649
Steal or Forge Authentication Certificates
Windows · Linux · macOS · Identity Providernothing on this site yetT1649 on attack.mitre.org
Adversaries may steal or forge certificates used for authentication to access remote systems or resources. Digital certificates are often used to sign and encrypt messages and/or files. Certificates are also used as authentication material. For example, Entra ID device certificates and Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) certificates bind to an identity and can be used as credentials for domain accounts.
If this is happening now
Checklists and playbooks to open while the alert is still live.
Playbook for this stage
Cloud account compromise
Impossible travel, an unrecognised inbox rule, or a reported invoice-fraud attempt.
how MITRE says to see it
Detection Strategy for Steal or Forge Authentication Certificates
- Monitor for abnormal certificate enrollment and usage activity in Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS), registry access to certificate storage locations, and unusual process executions that attempt to export or access private keys.
- Monitor for file access to certificate directories, commands invoking OpenSSL or PKCS#12 utilities to export or modify certificates, and processes accessing sensitive key storage paths.
- Monitor for security commands and API calls interacting with the Keychain, as well as file access attempts to stored certificates and private keys in ~/Library/Keychains or /Library/Keychains.
- Monitor for abnormal certificate enrollment events in identity platforms, unexpected use of token-signing certificates, and unusual CA configuration modifications.
what reduces it
- M1047 Audit. Check and remediate unneeded existing authentication certificates as well as common abusable misconfigurations of CA settings and permissions, such as AD CS certificate enrollment permissions and published overly permissive certificate templates (which define available settings for created certificates).
- M1015 Active Directory Configuration. Ensure certificate authorities (CA) are properly secured, including treating CA servers (and other resources hosting CA certificates) as tier 0 assets. Harden abusable CA settings and attributes. For example, consider disabling the usage of AD CS certificate SANs within relevant authentication protocol settings to enforce strict user mappings and prevent certificates from authenticating as other identifies.
- M1042 Disable or Remove Feature or Program. Consider disabling old/dangerous authentication protocols (e.g. NTLM), as well as unnecessary certificate features, such as potentially vulnerable AD CS web and other enrollment server roles.
- M1041 Encrypt Sensitive Information. Ensure certificates as well as associated private keys are appropriately secured. Consider utilizing additional hardware credential protections such as trusted platform modules (TPM) or hardware security modules (HSM). Enforce HTTPS and enable Extended Protection for Authentication.