detecting-golden-ticket-attacks-in-kerberos-logs

name	detecting-golden-ticket-attacks-in-kerberos-logs
description	Detect Golden Ticket attacks in Active Directory by analyzing Kerberos TGT anomalies including mismatched encryption types, impossible ticket lifetimes, non-existent accounts, and forged PAC signatures in domain controller event logs. Use when detecting golden ticket attacks in active directory by analyzing kerberos.
domain	cybersecurity
tags	["threat-hunting","golden-ticket","kerberos","active-directory","mitre-t1558-001","credential-abuse"]
subdomain	threat-hunting
version	1.0
author	oyi77
license	Apache-2.0
nist_csf	["DE.CM-01","DE.AE-02","DE.AE-07","ID.RA-05"]

Detecting Golden Ticket Attacks In Kerberos Logs

Overview

Cybersecurity skill for detecting golden ticket attacks in kerberos logs. Follows industry best practices and security standards.

When to Use

Trigger phrases:

• "detecting golden ticket attacks in kerberos logs"

• "Detect Golden Ticket attacks in Active Directory by analyzing Kerberos TGT anoma"

• When KRBTGT account hash may have been compromised via DCSync or NTDS.dit extraction

• When hunting for forged Kerberos tickets used for persistent domain access

• After incident response reveals credential theft at the domain level

• When investigating impossible logon patterns (users logging in from multiple locations simultaneously)

• During post-breach assessment to determine if Golden Tickets are in use

When NOT to Use

• When you lack proper authorization for testing
• For production systems without change management
• When the task requires legal or compliance expertise beyond technical scope

Prerequisites

• Windows Security Event IDs 4768, 4769, 4771 on domain controllers
• Kerberos policy configuration knowledge (max ticket lifetime, encryption types)
• Domain controller audit policy enabling Kerberos Service Ticket Operations
• SIEM with ability to correlate Kerberos events across multiple DCs

Workflow

# Example: IOC detection
import re

IOC_PATTERNS = {
    "ip": r"\b(?:\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3}\b",
    "domain": r"\b[a-z0-9-]+\.[a-z]{2,}\b",
    "hash_md5": r"\b[a-f0-9]{32}\b",
    "hash_sha256": r"\b[a-f0-9]{64}\b",
}

def extract_iocs(text: str) -> dict:
    return {k: re.findall(v, text) for k, v in IOC_PATTERNS.items()}