Malicious NTDS Extraction via Ntdsutil IFM Media Creation
- Category
- process_creation
- Author
- HuntRule
- Published
- 2026-07-26
- Updated
- 2026-08-28
ATT&CK techniques
Cred AccessRecon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact
What it detects
This rule detects use of ntdsutil to create an install from media snapshot which extracts the Active Directory database and this technique was used during the NetSupport intrusion to steal the domain credential store and this matters because IFM creation dumps every domain hash in one operation and is almost never run by legitimate operators outside of controlled domain controller provisioning.
Reporting behind it
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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