Malicious NTDS Database Staging to Audit Directory (via file_event)

ATT&CK techniques

Cred Access

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
- T1003.003NTDS
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects creation of an ntds.dit Active Directory database copy under a C drive audit Active Directory path. During the Anubis ransomware intrusion the operators exfiltrated domain credentials by copying the NTDS database into an audit directory and archiving it, an activity that does not occur during normal operations.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1003.003 — drag to rearrange

Malicious NTDS Credential Dump via Ntdsutil IFM Snapshot (via process_creation)

Malicious NTDS Database Dump via ntdsutil

Malicious NTDS Extraction from Volume Shadow Copy by RA World

Malicious NTDS Extraction via ntdsutil IFM

Malicious NTDS.dit Access via Shadow Copy GLOBALROOT Path

Suspicious Shadow Copy Creation via WMIC (via process_creation)

Malicious NTDS Extraction via Ntdsutil IFM

Malicious NTDS.dit Credential Extraction via ntdsutil

Malicious NTDS Credential Theft via Wbadmin Backup

Malicious NTDS Database Staging to Audit Directory (via file_event)

Pivot detection · T1003.003 · 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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