Malicious Account Added to Domain Admins via net localgroup

ATT&CK techniques

Persistence → Priv Esc

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
- T1098Account Manipulation
- T1136.001Local Account
Priv Esc
- T1098Account Manipulation
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects a local user being added to the Domain Admins group using net localgroup. Sinobi operators created an account and elevated it into privileged groups including Domain Admins after abusing compromised SonicWall SSL VPN credentials. Adding a fresh account to Domain Admins is a high-confidence sign of privilege escalation and preparation for domain-wide ransomware deployment.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1136.001 — drag to rearrange

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Suspicious Local Account Creation Matching Hunters International Naming

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Suspicious Rogue Administrator Account Creation Named System32 (via process_creation)

Suspicious Local Account Creation via Net User in Pre-Ransomware Phase

Suspicious Hidden Local Account Creation via Net User by UAT-8099

Malicious Account Added to Domain Admins via net localgroup

Pivot detection · T1136.001 · 9 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.

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