August 29, 2025

Monitoring Lateral Movement Paths in Active Directory Lateral movement is what happens after an attacker (or rogue insider) gets an initial foothold: they pivot from one machine/account to another until they reach high-value targets like file servers, application tiers, and ultimately Domain Admin or Tier-0 assets. In Active Directory (AD), lateral movement succeeds not…

Canary tokens are deliberate “tripwires”: objects, credentials, or breadcrumbs that should never be touched in normal operations. When an attacker (or an automated tool) interacts with them, you get a high-signal alert that something is wrong—often early, before full domain compromise. This guide focuses on practical canary patterns that work well in Active Directory…

Tracking Use of Default Domain Admin Credentials (Built-in Administrator & Domain Admins) “Default Domain Admin credentials” usually means the built-in domain Administrator account (the well-known account with SID ending in -500) and/or “obvious” privileged identities (members of Domain Admins) that attackers love to target because they’re…

Deploying Deception Techniques in Active Directory (AD): A Practical Defender’s Playbook Deception in Active Directory is about placing high-signal, low-risk traps where real attackers naturally go—so you detect early, confirm intent faster, and reduce time-to-contain. Done well, deception doesn’t replace monitoring; it amplifies it by turning attacker curiosity into reliable alerts.

Top 10 Audit Logs for Threat Detection in Active Directory Active Directory (AD) doesn’t get “hacked” in a single step—attackers authenticate, escalate, move laterally, and persist. Your best early-warning system is a carefully chosen set of audit logs, collected consistently from the right hosts (especially domain controllers). On this page …

LSASS (Local Security Authority Subsystem Service) is the Windows process that handles interactive logons and manages authentication-related secrets in memory. Because it sits at the center of Windows authentication, attackers often try to access or dump LSASS memory to steal credentials or reusable secrets. This guide focuses on defensive detection, triage, and response—what to look…

1) What is a “shadow admin” in AD? A shadow admin is any user, group, or service principal that can achieve admin outcomes—such as modifying privileged group membership, controlling GPOs, resetting admin credentials, or replicating directory secrets—without being a direct member of obvious privileged groups. Why they’re hard to spot They hide in structure…

Responding to AD Security Incidents in Real Time (Active Directory IR Playbook) Active Directory is both your identity backbone and (when compromised) your blast radius amplifier. “Real-time response” in AD isn’t about heroics—it’s about making fast, reversible, evidence-safe moves that stop privilege spread while you preserve the truth of what…

Analyzing DCSync Attack Patterns: Detection Signals, Baselines, and Response (Active Directory) Threat Detection AD Security Incident Response Replication Abuse DCSync is one of those attacks that feels “too quiet for how catastrophic it is.” It doesn’t need malware on a domain controller, and it can look like normal…