Suspicious Domain Trust Discovery via Nltest

ATT&CK techniques

Discovery

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

What it detects

This rule detects nltest enumerating trusted domains, an Active Directory discovery step used to map trust relationships for lateral movement. This was observed after SonicWall VPN exploitation preceding Akira ransomware. Domain trust enumeration from user context or servers often marks hands-on-keyboard reconnaissance.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1482 — drag to rearrange

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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

Suspicious Domain Trust Discovery via Nltest

Pivot detection · T1482 · 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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