Steal or Forge Kerberos Tickets: Kerberoasting T1558.003

Tactic: Credential Access

Adversaries may abuse a valid Kerberos ticket-granting ticket (TGT) or sniff network traffic to obtain a ticket-granting service (TGS) ticket that may be vulnerable to Brute Force.

Events covered

19 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.

ProviderEventTitle
SysmonEvent ID 1Process creation
SysmonEvent ID 3Network connection
Security-AuditingEvent ID 4611A trusted logon process has been registered with the Local Security Authority.
Security-AuditingEvent ID 4673A privileged service was called.
Security-AuditingEvent ID 4688A new process has been created.
Security-AuditingEvent ID 4769A Kerberos service ticket was requested.
Security-AuditingEvent ID 5136A directory service object was modified.
Security-AuditingEvent ID 5156The Windows Filtering Platform has permitted a connection.
Directory-Services-SAMEvent ID 16990The security account manager blocked a non-administrator from creating an Active Directory account in this domain with mismatched objectClass and u...
Directory-Services-SAMEvent ID 16991The security account manager blocked a non-administrator from creating or renaming a computer account using an invalid sAMAccountName.
Kerberos-Key-Distribution-CenterEvent ID 35The Key Distribution Center (KDC) encountered a ticket-granting-ticket (TGT) from another KDC (%1) that did not contain a PAC attributes field
Kerberos-Key-Distribution-CenterEvent ID 36The Key Distribution Center (KDC) encountered a ticket that did not contain a PAC while processing a request for another ticket
Kerberos-Key-Distribution-CenterEvent ID 37The Key Distribution Center (KDC) encountered a ticket that did not contain information about the account that requested the ticket while processing a request for another ticket
Kerberos-Key-Distribution-CenterEvent ID 38The Key Distribution Center (KDC) encountered a ticket that contained inconsistent information about the account that requested the ticket
PowerShellEvent ID 4103Payload Context: ContextInfo User Data: UserData.
PowerShellEvent ID 4104Creating Scriptblock text (MessageNumber of MessageTotal).
Security-KerberosEvent ID 16The Kerberos SSPI package failed to find the smart card certificate in the certificate store
Security-KerberosEvent ID 27Kerberos client event 27 (manifest stub).
PowerShellEvent ID 800Event ID 800

Authoring guide

Patterns shared across the 40 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 (46 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.

FieldRulesHowSample values
CommandLine13contains 10, regex_match 3, eq 1, in 1(?i)\.exe\"?\s+(((harvest|ptt|s4u|asktgt|brute|createneto..., -clsid , -cn , -computername , -cp
EventID9eq 94104, 4769, 4688
Image8ends_with 7, is_not_null 1, starts_with 1\device\harddiskvolume, \krbrelay.exe, \krbrelayup.exe, \powershell.exe, \program files (x86)\google\chrome\application\chrome.exe
OriginalFileName8eq 8setspn.exe, krbrelay.exe, krbrelayup.exe, nxc.exe, powershell.exe
ScriptBlockText8contains 6, eq 1, in 1kerberosrequestorsecuritytoken, system.identitymodel.tokens.kerberosrequestorsecuritytoken, -spn, .getrequest(), /impersonateuser:
TicketEncryptionType6eq 5, in 10x17, 0x18, 23
ServiceName5ends_with 3, ne 2$, *$, krbtgt
DestinationPort3eq 388
Provider_Name3eq 3Microsoft-Windows-Kerberos-Key-Distribution-Center, Kerberos-Key-Distribution-Center, Microsoft-Windows-Directory-Services-SAM
Status3eq 30x0, 0
TargetUserName3contains 2, eq 1$@, AnomTargetUserNames, _accounts_to_be_checked
event.type3in 2, eq 1start, process_started
process_name3eq 3kcc, nxc.exe, setspn.exe
Channel2eq 2, in 2
Description2contains 1, eq 1Rubeus, query or reset the computer, spn attribute

Top indicator values (565 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.

FieldKindValueRules (here)Corpus reach
EventIDeq
4104
4268
EventIDeq
4769
310
EventIDeq
4688
2313
TicketEncryptionTypeeq
0x17
48
CommandLineregex_match
(?i)\.exe\"?\s+(((harvest|ptt|s4u|asktgt|brute|createnetonly|changepw|hash|tg...
33
DestinationPorteq
88
35
ServiceNameends_with
$
32
CommandLinecontains
-clsid
22
CommandLinecontains
-cn
1
CommandLinecontains
-computername
1
CommandLinecontains
-cp
1
CommandLinecontains
-d
18
CommandLinecontains
-domain
1
CommandLinecontains
-p
110
CommandLinecontains
-q
12
CommandLinecontains
-rbcd
1
CommandLinecontains
-sc
12
OriginalFileNameeq
setspn.exe
22
Provider_Nameeq
Microsoft-Windows-Kerberos-Key-Distribution-Center
24
ScriptBlockTextcontains
system.identitymodel.tokens.kerberosrequestorsecuritytoken
22
ServiceNamene
*$
23
Statuseq
0x0
23
TargetUserNamecontains
$@
2
TicketOptionseq
0x40810000
24
event.categoryeq
process
2128
event.typein
process_started
240
event.typein
start
242
process_idne
4
25
AttackTechniquescontains
t1558.003
1
AttributeLDAPDisplayNameeq
serviceprincipalname
19

Exclusions (83 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.

FieldKindValueRules excluding
ServiceNameends_with
$
3
Imagewildcard
?:\windows\system32\lsass.exe
2
ScriptBlockTexteq
sentinelbreakpoints
2
TargetUserNamecontains
$@
2
user.idin
S-1-5-18
2
EventDatacontains
gc_service.exe
1
EventDatacontains
gc_worker.exe
1
Imageends_with
\program files (x86)\google\chrome\application\chrome.exe
1
Imageends_with
\program files (x86)\mozilla firefox\firefox.exe
1
Imageends_with
\program files\google\chrome\application\chrome.exe
1
Imageends_with
\program files\mozilla firefox\firefox.exe
1
Imageends_with
\tomcat\bin\tomcat8.exe
1
Imageends_with
\windows\system32\lsass.exe
1
Imagestarts_with
\device\harddiskvolume
1
Imagestarts_with
c:
1

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.

Platform (all)
Domain (all)

Sigma 19 rules

Elastic 7 rules

Splunk 11 rules

Kusto 3 rules