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 linkedT1098 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious Local Administrator Account Addition via net localgroup

ScreenConnect Administrator Provisioning XML Written to Temp Directory (CWE-288)

Suspicious Local Account Creation and Privileged Group Addition via Net.EXE (via process_creation)

Linux: New user created with UID=0 or GID=0/10/27 indicating privileged group access

Cisco AAA local account and remote authentication changes

Suspicious SQL Server - Member Got New Privileges Added on a SQL Instance Level (via application)

Malicious IAM Privilege Escalation via Administrator Policy Attachment (via cloudtrail)

Suspicious SQL Server - New Member Added to a Database Role (via application)

Malicious Disabled Guest or Builtin Account Activated - Command (via process_creation)

Malicious Account Added to Domain Admins via net localgroup

Pivot detection · T1098 · 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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