Domain Trust Discovery T1482
Tactic: Discovery
Adversaries may attempt to gather information on domain trust relationships that may be used to identify lateral movement opportunities in Windows multi-domain/forest environments. Domain trusts provide a mechanism for a domain to allow access to resources based on the authentication procedures of another domain. Domain trusts allow the users of the trusted domain to access resources in the trusting domain. The information discovered may help the adversary conduct SID-History Injection, Pass the Ticket, and Kerberoasting. Domain trusts can be enumerated using the `DSEnumerateDomainTrusts()` Win32 API call, .NET methods, and LDAP. The Windows utility Nltest is known to be used by adversaries to enumerate domain trusts.
Events covered
15 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.
| Provider | Event | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Sysmon | Event ID 1 | Process creation |
| Sysmon | Event ID 3 | Network connection |
| Sysmon | Event ID 11 | FileCreate |
| Sysmon | Event ID 22 | DNSEvent (DNS query) |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 4662 | An operation was performed on an object. |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 4688 | A new process has been created. |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 4799 | A security-enabled local group membership was enumerated. |
| Security-Auditing | Event ID 5156 | The Windows Filtering Platform has permitted a connection. |
| Defender-DeviceEvents | LdapSearch | LDAP search |
| Defender-DeviceNetworkEvents | any | Network activity (any) |
| Defender-DeviceProcessEvents | any | Process activity (any) |
| LDAP-Client | Event ID 30 | LDAP search request |
| PowerShell | Event ID 4103 | Payload Context: ContextInfo User Data: UserData. |
| PowerShell | Event ID 4104 | Creating Scriptblock text (MessageNumber of MessageTotal). |
| PowerShell | Event ID 800 | Event ID 800 |
Authoring guide
Patterns shared across the 57 rules above: which fields they filter on, what specific values they look for, and what they exclude. The catalog normalizes field names across vendors so Sigma's Image, Elastic's process.name, and Splunk's process_name collapse into one row. Each rule contributes at most once per row.
Fields filtered most (37 distinct)
The fields most rules look at when detecting this technique. The How column shows the operators authors use (eq, wildcard, regex_match, match) and how often each appears. Sample values are concrete examples to start from, not an exhaustive list.
Top indicator values (1467 distinct)
Specific (field, operator, value) combinations the rules check for, ranked by how many rules under this technique use each one. The Corpus reach column counts how many rules across the entire catalog (any technique) check the same combination. High numbers point to widely-used indicators that are likely noisy on their own; combine them with another condition for useful signal. Blank means the combination is specific to rules under this technique. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that use it.
Exclusions (52 distinct)
Field/operator/value combinations excluded by rules under this technique (top-level not() clauses), sorted by how many rules exclude each. These are the false-positive paths the community has learned to filter out. A new rule that ignores the high-count entries here will likely fire on the same noisy paths. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that exclude it.
Rules under this technique
Every rule in the catalog tagged with this technique, grouped by vendor. Click a rule title for its full predicates, exclusions, and indicators.
Sigma 18 rules
- Active Directory Database Snapshot Via ADExplorer
- Active Directory Forest PowerShell class called from a non administrative host
- ADExplorer Writing Complete AD Snapshot Into .dat File
- BloodHound Collection Files
- DNS Server Discovery Via LDAP Query
- Domain Trust Discovery Via Dsquery
- HackTool - Bloodhound/Sharphound Execution
- HackTool - SharpView Execution
- HackTool - TruffleSnout Execution
- Malicious PowerShell Commandlets - PoshModule
- Malicious PowerShell Commandlets - ProcessCreation
- Malicious PowerShell Commandlets - ScriptBlock
- Nltest.EXE Execution
- Potential Active Directory Reconnaissance/Enumeration Via LDAP
- Potential Recon Activity Via Nltest.EXE
- PUA - AdFind Suspicious Execution
- Renamed AdFind Execution
- Suspicious Active Directory Database Snapshot Via ADExplorer
Elastic 9 rules
- Active Directory Discovery using AdExplorer
- AdFind Command Activity
- Deprecated - PowerShell Script with Discovery Capabilities
- Enumerating Domain Trusts via DSQUERY.EXE
- Enumerating Domain Trusts via NLTEST.EXE
- Potential PowerShell HackTool Script by Function Names
- PowerShell Suspicious Discovery Related Windows API Functions
- Suspicious Access to LDAP Attributes
- Suspicious JetBrains TeamCity Child Process
Splunk 25 rules
- Adfind Commands (PowerShell)
- Adfind Commands (Sysmon)
- Adfind Commands (Windows Event Log)
- Adfind Execution (EDR)
- Adfind Execution (PowerShell)
- Adfind Execution (Sysmon)
- Adfind Execution (Windows Event Log)
- Detect AzureHound Command-Line Arguments
- Detect AzureHound File Modifications
- Detect SharpHound Command-Line Arguments
- Detect SharpHound File Modifications
- Detect SharpHound Usage
- Domain Trust Discovery Commands - Windows (PowerShell)
- Domain Trust Discovery Commands - Windows (Windows Event Log)
- DSQuery Domain Discovery
- Get-DomainTrust with PowerShell
- Get-DomainTrust with PowerShell Script Block
- Get-ForestTrust with PowerShell
- Get-ForestTrust with PowerShell Script Block
- Network Traffic to Active Directory Web Services Protocol
- NLTest Domain Trust Discovery
- SharpHound Enumeration (Windows Event Log)
- SharpHound Keywords (PowerShell)
- Windows ConvertTo-AADIntBackdoor Execution Via PowerShell Script
- Windows SOAPHound Binary Execution