Suspicious SharpHound Group Enumeration LDAP Filter

PremiumReviewedSigma · Medium · v1
Product
windows
Service
security
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-10-01
Updated
2026-10-01

ATT&CK techniques

Discovery
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Defense Evasion

  8. Cred Access

  9. Lateral Movement

  10. Collection

  11. C2

  12. Exfiltration

  13. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects the characteristic SharpHound LDAP filter clause querying sAMAccountType 268435456 which enumerates security groups during BloodHound collection, captured in Directory Service event 1644. This account-type value selects global and universal groups and appears in the compound filters SharpHound issues while mapping group membership. Its presence indicates automated Active Directory reconnaissance ahead of privilege-escalation path finding.

Related detections9 linkedT1069.002 — drag to rearrange
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
Windows PowerShell module commandlet names matching known exploitation and post-exploitation tooling
Windows Process Creation: Suspicious PowerShell Commandlets Used by Known Exploitation Tools
Windows Process Creation: Renamed AdFind.exe Executions
Windows file creation for SharpHound/BloodHound collection output filenames
Windows Process Creation: SharpView.exe with Recon/Domain Discovery Cmdlets
Windows LDAP Client Event ID 30 Active Directory enumeration via LDAP search filters
Suspicious SharpHound Group Enumeration LDAP Filter
Pivot detection · T1069.002 · 9 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.