Malicious Active Directory Enumeration via SharpHound or BloodHound (via process_creation)

ATT&CK techniques

Discovery

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
- T1069.002Domain Groups
- T1087.002Domain Account
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects execution of the SharpHound collector or the Invoke-BloodHound cmdlet using its characteristic collection-method arguments, which harvest Active Directory objects, sessions and access-control relationships to map attack paths to Domain Admin. Large-scale AD discovery like this is a common pre-lateral-movement step seen across intrusions in the Red Canary Threat Detection Report. Detecting the collector's invocation surfaces reconnaissance before the adversary pivots.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1069.002 — drag to rearrange

Suspicious Group Discovery - Command (via process_creation)

SharpHound Host Enumeration Over Kerberos (via security)

Suspicious Active Directory Enumeration via ADWS PowerShell Cmdlets via ps_script

Windows File Events: ADExplorer .dat Snapshot Written by ADExp.exe or ADExplorer.exe

Windows: Sysinternals ADExplorer invoked with snapshot flag to create AD database snapshot

Windows Process Creation: Sysinternals ADExplorer Snapshot Exports Active Directory Database

Windows PowerShell module commandlet names matching known exploitation and post-exploitation tooling

Windows Process Creation: Suspicious PowerShell Commandlets Used by Known Exploitation Tools

Windows Process Creation: Renamed AdFind.exe Executions

Malicious Active Directory Enumeration via SharpHound or BloodHound (via process_creation)

Pivot detection · T1069.002 · 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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