Suspicious Domain Controller Discovery via nltest

ATT&CK techniques

Discovery

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

What it detects

This rule detects use of nltest to enumerate domain controllers and domain trust relationships, a reconnaissance step observed during CitrixBleed (CVE-2023-4966) post-exploitation. Attackers run this after gaining a foothold to map the Active Directory environment before lateral movement. Detecting the enumeration provides an early signal of hands-on-keyboard activity.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1018 — drag to rearrange

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Suspicious SOAPHound Style LDAP Query with SDflags and all_with_list via security

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

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

Suspicious Remote Connection to ADWS Port 9389 via security

Uncommon Domain Trust Discovery via Nltest (via process_creation)

Suspicious AdFind Active Directory Reconnaissance Tool Execution (via process_creation)

Suspicious Domain Controller and Trust Enumeration via Nltest

Suspicious Domain Controller Discovery 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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