| name | T1615_group-policy-discovery |
| description | Adversaries may gather information on Group Policy settings to identify paths for privilege escalation, security measures applied within a domain, and to discover patterns in domain objects that ca... |
| category | information-gathering |
| version | 18.1 |
| author | cyberstrike-official |
| tags | ["mitre-attack","enterprise","t1615","discovery","windows"] |
| technique_id | T1615 |
| tactic | discovery |
| all_tactics | ["discovery"] |
| platforms | ["Windows"] |
| mitre_url | https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1615 |
| tech_stack | ["windows"] |
| cwe_ids | ["CWE-200"] |
| chains_with | [] |
| prerequisites | [] |
| severity_boost | {} |
T1615 Group Policy Discovery
High-Level Description
Adversaries may gather information on Group Policy settings to identify paths for privilege escalation, security measures applied within a domain, and to discover patterns in domain objects that can be manipulated or used to blend in the environment. Group Policy allows for centralized management of user and computer settings in Active Directory (AD). Group policy objects (GPOs) are containers for group policy settings made up of files stored within a predictable network path \<DOMAIN>\SYSVOL\<DOMAIN>\Policies\.
Adversaries may use commands such as gpresult or various publicly available PowerShell functions, such as Get-DomainGPO and Get-DomainGPOLocalGroup, to gather information on Group Policy settings. Adversaries may use this information to shape follow-on behaviors, including determining potential attack paths within the target network as well as opportunities to manipulate Group Policy settings (i.e. Domain or Tenant Policy Modification) for their benefit.
Kill Chain Phase
Platforms: Windows
What to Check
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: Display group policy information via gpresult
Uses the built-in Windows utility gpresult to display the Resultant Set of Policy (RSoP) information for a remote user and computer
The /z parameter displays all available information about Group Policy. More parameters can be found in the linked Microsoft documentation
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/gpresult
https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/emissary-trojan-changelog-did-operation-lotus-blossom-cause-it-to-evolve/
Turla has used the /z and /v parameters: https://www.welivesecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/ESET_Turla_ComRAT.pdf