Suspicious Invocation of Active Directory Diagnostic Utility (ntdsutil.exe) (via process_creation)

title: Suspicious Invocation of Active Directory Diagnostic Utility (ntdsutil.exe) (via process_creation)
id: b578be95-39fa-5407-a40a-c059629852cf
status: stable
description: This rule detects execution of ntdsutil.exe, that can be used for various attacks against the NTDS database (NTDS.DIT)
references:
    - https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1003/003/
    - https://jpcertcc.github.io/ToolAnalysisResultSheet/details/ntdsutil.htm
author: Huntrule Team
date: 2026-04-30
tags:
    - attack.credential-access
    - attack.t1003.003
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection:
        Image|endswith: '\ntdsutil.exe'
    condition: selection
falsepositives:
    - Unknown
level: medium