t1550-003-pass-the-ticket

name	T1550.003_pass-the-ticket
description	Adversaries may “pass the ticket” using stolen Kerberos tickets to move laterally within an environment, bypassing normal system access controls.
category	configuration
version	18.1
author	cyberstrike-official
tags	["mitre-attack","enterprise","t1550.003","defense-evasion","lateral-movement","windows","sub-technique"]
technique_id	T1550.003
tactic	defense-evasion
all_tactics	["defense-evasion","lateral-movement"]
platforms	["Windows"]
mitre_url	https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1550/003
tech_stack	["windows"]
cwe_ids	["CWE-693"]
chains_with	["T1550","T1550.001","T1550.002","T1550.004"]
prerequisites	["T1550"]
severity_boost	{"T1550":"Chain with T1550 for deeper attack path","T1550.001":"Chain with T1550.001 for deeper attack path","T1550.002":"Chain with T1550.002 for deeper attack path"}

T1550.003 Pass the Ticket

Sub-technique of: T1550

High-Level Description

Adversaries may “pass the ticket” using stolen Kerberos tickets to move laterally within an environment, bypassing normal system access controls. Pass the ticket (PtT) is a method of authenticating to a system using Kerberos tickets without having access to an account's password. Kerberos authentication can be used as the first step to lateral movement to a remote system.

When preforming PtT, valid Kerberos tickets for Valid Accounts are captured by OS Credential Dumping. A user's service tickets or ticket granting ticket (TGT) may be obtained, depending on the level of access. A service ticket allows for access to a particular resource, whereas a TGT can be used to request service tickets from the Ticket Granting Service (TGS) to access any resource the user has privileges to access.

A Silver Ticket can be obtained for services that use Kerberos as an authentication mechanism and are used to generate tickets to access that particular resource and the system that hosts the resource (e.g., SharePoint).

A Golden Ticket can be obtained for the domain using the Key Distribution Service account KRBTGT account NTLM hash, which enables generation of TGTs for any account in Active Directory.

Adversaries may also create a valid Kerberos ticket using other user information, such as stolen password hashes or AES keys. For example, "overpassing the hash" involves using a NTLM password hash to authenticate as a user (i.e. Pass the Hash) while also using the password hash to create a valid Kerberos ticket.

Kill Chain Phase

• Defense Evasion (TA0005)
• Lateral Movement (TA0008)

Platforms: Windows

What to Check

• Identify if Pass the Ticket technique is applicable to target environment
• Check Windows systems for indicators of Pass the Ticket
• Verify mitigations are bypassed or absent (4 known mitigations)
• Assess detection coverage (1 detection strategies)

How to Test

Atomic Red Team Tests

The following tests are from Atomic Red Team and provide actionable ways to test this technique:

Atomic Test 1: Mimikatz Kerberos Ticket Attack

Similar to PTH, but attacking Kerberos

Supported Platforms: windows

"#{mimikatz_exe}" "kerberos::ptt #{ticket}"