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.
What “deception in AD” really means
In AD environments, deception is the controlled deployment of decoy identities, decoy resources, and baited configurations that:
- Look valuable to an attacker (credible “loot”),
- Are safe to touch (no real privilege granted),
- Are instrumented to generate unmistakable telemetry (high confidence alerts).
Think of it as building tripwires inside the identity plane: attacker recon, enumeration, and lateral movement start in AD, so that’s where your deception should live.
Why deception works so well in AD
Attackers repeatedly follow predictable workflows in Windows estates: enumerate users and groups, hunt for privileged paths, inspect ACLs, probe GPOs, request Kerberos tickets, touch file shares, and test credentials. Your goal is to make these workflows “loud” by ensuring the attacker’s next step lands on something you control.
If your team is still building foundational visibility around permissions, you’ll get more value from deception after you’re comfortable with how AD access is actually granted and evaluated. A good refresher: Access Control List (ACLs) and Access Control Entries (ACEs).
Deception design principles (don’t skip this)
1) Credibility: decoys must “fit” your directory
- Use naming conventions that match your org (but avoid real team names tied to real people).
- Match attributes (department, description, location) to normal patterns.
- Place decoys in realistic OUs where objects like that would live.
2) Containment: decoys must be safe by default
- Never grant real administrative privilege to a decoy.
- Never store real secrets in decoys (no real passwords, keys, or service endpoints).
- Prefer “apparent value” over “actual value”.
3) Observability: touching a decoy must create great telemetry
- Enable the right audit categories and collect logs centrally (SIEM/XDR).
- Create detection rules that focus on interaction with decoys, not just generic suspicious behavior.
- Record context (host, user, IP, process when possible) to accelerate triage.
4) Operational fit: decoys must be maintainable
- Document ownership: who reviews alerts, who rotates decoys, who tests quarterly.
- Keep the number of decoys small at first (quality > quantity).
- Build a “deception drift” check (still linked? still monitored? still alerting?).
If you’re tightening privileged identity controls overall, this is a useful companion read: A proactive approach to securing privileged access in Active Directory.
The AD deception toolkit: what to deploy
1) Honey users (decoy user accounts)
Create 2–10 decoy users that look like valuable targets: “breakglass”, “svc-backup”, “it-admin-temp”, etc. The trap is not the existence of the account; it’s the interaction:
- Any logon attempt using the decoy is suspicious by design.
- Any password reset, enablement, or group membership change becomes high signal.
- Any directory search focusing on the decoy can indicate recon.
Hardening recommendations for honey users:
- Random long password; store nowhere outside a secure vault (or don’t allow interactive use at all).
- Deny interactive logon / RDP / network logon via policy (as appropriate).
- No mailbox, no actual app dependency, no real delegation.
- Monitor: logons, password resets, enable/disable, attribute modifications, group changes.
2) Honey groups (decoy privileged-looking groups)
Create groups that look privileged (“Tier0-Admins”, “ServerOps-Priv”, “GPO-Owners”) without granting real rights. The most useful signals are:
- Membership changes (add/remove)
- Changes to group scope/type
- ACL changes on the group object
Place these groups where your real admin groups typically exist. If your environment delegates OU/GPO responsibilities, deception can complement that by detecting unauthorized “permission shaping”. Related: How to delegate OU permissions with minimal risk.
3) Canary files and honey shares (the simplest high-signal win)
Create a decoy share (or a decoy folder inside an existing share) named something irresistible: “Finance_Confidential”, “Payroll_2025”, “Domain_Admin_Notes”. Put a canary file inside and alert on:
- File read/open events for the canary file
- Directory listing events for the honey folder
- Unusual access patterns (new host, new user, off-hours)
In practice, this catches ransomware staging, manual browsing, and “loot collection” behavior earlier than many teams expect.
4) Decoy GPOs and “bait” links
Group Policy is a favorite persistence and privilege-escalation lever. Deception options include:
- A decoy GPO named like a crown-jewel policy (“Domain Admin Workstations”, “EDR Exclusions”, “Local Admin Control”).
- A decoy OU with no production devices, but with a believable name (“Tier0-PAWs-OU”).
- A “bait” GPO link on the decoy OU that attackers may try to modify or re-link elsewhere.
Alert on modifications to the decoy GPO, changes to its links, or new permissions granted on it. If your team uses GPO delegation, ensure you have a clear model for who should touch what: GPO delegation in AD.
5) Kerberos-focused deception (high value, high signal)
Many AD attacks revolve around Kerberos ticket requests and service accounts. Defensive deception patterns:
- Create decoy service accounts with plausible SPNs that are never used legitimately.
- Alert on TGS requests for those SPNs and any attempt to authenticate as those accounts.
- Plant “documentation bait” that references the decoy SPN/account to lure recon workflows.
This is especially useful against attackers who enumerate SPNs and request tickets broadly.
6) Authentication tripwires (when credentials are tested)
Any use of a honey credential is almost always malicious. Align your deception alerting with how authentication flows work in your estate (NTLM/Kerberos/token issuance), because it makes investigation faster. Helpful background: Authenticating and authorizing objects in AD.
Deployment blueprint: a practical 30–60 day rollout
Phase 1 (Week 1–2): decide the traps and the telemetry
- Choose 3 deception types to start (recommended: honey users + honey share + decoy GPO).
- Define the “touch equals alert” rule for each decoy (what event proves interaction?).
- Ensure central log collection is working (DC security logs, file server auditing, GPO change auditing where relevant).
- Create a triage playbook (who responds, what to check first, what containment looks like).
Phase 2 (Week 2–4): build credible decoys safely
- Create decoy objects in realistic OUs (users/groups) with believable attributes.
- Create a decoy share/folder and a canary file; enable object access auditing on that path.
- Create a decoy GPO and a decoy OU; link safely (empty OU), set permissions conservatively.
- Tag decoys in a CMDB/runbook so defenders know what’s “fake” during investigations.
Phase 3 (Week 4–6): detections, tuning, and testing
- Write detections that key on decoy interaction (not broad anomaly rules).
- Run controlled tests from an admin test host (access the honey share; query the decoy user; read the canary file).
- Confirm alerts contain enough context to act (source host, account, time, target object).
- Tune to reduce noise (a deception system with false positives will be ignored).
Phase 4 (Week 6–8): expand coverage to attacker paths
- Add Kerberos decoys (decoy SPN/service account) if you collect DC ticketing events.
- Add decoy admin-looking groups in the same “neighborhood” as real privileged groups.
- Add 1–2 decoy computer objects (or decoy servers) if your monitoring can catch access attempts.
What to alert on: high-signal event patterns (conceptual)
Your exact event IDs and data sources depend on policy and tooling, but your detections should focus on:
- Decoy logon attempts (any interactive/network authentication using a honey user)
- Directory changes to decoys (attribute edits, enable/disable, password resets)
- Group membership changes involving honey groups
- GPO modifications to decoy GPOs or suspicious re-linking
- Honey share / canary file access
- Kerberos ticket requests for decoy SPNs
Make these alerts “actionable by default”: include a recommended first-response checklist and a clear severity level.
Response playbook when a decoy is touched
- Assume intent until disproven: deception hits are rare in normal operations.
- Identify the source: which host, which user, which logon type, which process (if available).
- Check for adjacent behavior: recent group changes, ticket bursts, new services, remote execution attempts.
- Contain fast: isolate the host or revoke sessions/tokens (depending on your environment).
- Hunt outward: pivot from the source host/user to lateral movement and privilege escalation indicators.
- Preserve evidence: keep logs, timeline, and any endpoint telemetry.
The main advantage deception gives you here is confidence: the alert is not “maybe suspicious”—it is “someone touched a thing nobody should touch.”
Common mistakes (and how to avoid them)
- Too many decoys too soon: Start with a handful of high-quality decoys and expand only after you trust the signal.
- Decoys that accidentally become real: If someone starts using the honey account or folder “because it’s there,” your signal dies. Document and communicate clearly.
- No context in alerts: A deception hit should immediately tell you who/what/where/when.
- Unsafe “fake privilege”: Never grant real admin rights “for realism.” Use believable names and placement instead.
- Deception without fundamentals: If you don’t understand where permissions and authorization come from, you’ll struggle to tune and investigate. Review ACLs and ACEs and authentication/authorization flow.
FAQ
Is deception “security through obscurity”?
Not when done correctly. Deception doesn’t hide your real assets; it creates instrumented decoys that make attacker behavior more observable.
Will deception break anything?
It shouldn’t. If it does, that’s usually a sign decoys were placed in the wrong OU, given risky permissions, or accidentally used by staff. Start small, document ownership, and test quarterly.
Should we buy a deception product or build it ourselves?
Many teams start with “native” building blocks (decoy objects + auditing + SIEM rules). Products can accelerate coverage and realism, but the fundamentals (credibility, containment, observability) still apply either way.