Suspicious Domain Controller and Trust Enumeration via Nltest

ATT&CK techniques

Discovery

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
- T1018Remote System Discovery
- T1482Domain Trust Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact

What it detects

This rule detects nltest enumerating domain controllers or domain trusts which the BlackSuit ransomware actor used to map the environment before lateral movement and this matters because bulk trust and DC listing through nltest is a frequent discovery step in intrusions and stands out against sparse legitimate use on endpoints.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1018 — drag to rearrange

Uncommon Domain Trust Discovery via Nltest (via process_creation)

Windows nltest.exe Execution for Network Information Discovery

Windows Process Creation: Renamed AdFind.exe Executions

Windows Process Creation: AdFind Executed with Suspicious Recon Flags

Malicious DNS Hosts File Accessed via Network Share (via security)

Suspicious Discovery Command Spawned by Java Process

Suspicious Active Directory Subnet Enumeration via ADFind Subnets Query (via process_creation)

Suspicious Remote Connection to ADWS Port 9389 via security

Suspicious AdFind Active Directory Reconnaissance Tool Execution (via process_creation)

Suspicious Domain Controller and Trust Enumeration via Nltest

Pivot detection · T1018 · 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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