gMSA

Service Account Design in Architecture (gMSAs, SPNs, Delegation, and Real-World Patterns) Service accounts are rarely “just accounts.” They’re long-lived identities that sit at the junction of authentication (Kerberos vs NTLM), authorization (AD ACLs), and operational reliability. That combination makes them both critical and dangerous: …

How to Detect Golden Ticket Attacks in Active Directory A Golden Ticket attack is one of the most damaging post-compromise techniques in Active Directory: an attacker forges a Kerberos Ticket Granting Ticket (TGT) using the KRBTGT account secret, then impersonates any user (often Domain Admin) to access domain resources while blending into “normal”…

Detecting Kerberoasting with PowerShell and Logs Kerberoasting is an Active Directory attack technique where an attacker requests Kerberos service tickets (TGS) for accounts that have Service Principal Names (SPNs), then cracks the ticket offline to recover the service account password. Because it uses legitimate Kerberos flows, the key to detection is understanding what…

Identifying Insecure SPN Configurations in Active Directory (Detection + Fix Runbook) Service Principal Names (SPNs) are a core part of how Kerberos knows which service you’re trying to reach and which account should decrypt the service ticket. That also makes SPNs a high-signal control point for both security and reliability: weak service-account hygiene, legacy…

Mitigating Unconstrained Delegation Vulnerabilities in Active Directory Unconstrained delegation is one of those “it worked in 2006” features that becomes a high-impact breach path in modern AD environments. This guide gives you a field-ready plan to find it, remove it safely, migrate to better models (constrained delegation / RBCD), and set…

Designing AD for Zero Trust: Practical First Steps Designing AD for Zero Trust (practical first steps) means reshaping your on-premises Active Directory (AD) so that every access request is explicitly verified, least-privileged, and resilient to compromise. Zero Trust is a security model that assumes no implicit trust—inside or outside your network—and continuously validates identity…