hunting-for-t1098-account-manipulation

name	hunting-for-t1098-account-manipulation
description	Hunt for MITRE ATT&CK T1098 account manipulation including shadow admin creation, SID history injection, group membership changes, and credential modifications using Windows Security Event Logs. Use when hunting for mitre att&ck t1098 account manipulation including shadow admin.
domain	cybersecurity
subdomain	threat-hunting
tags	["threat-hunting","mitre-attack","t1098","account-manipulation","active-directory","persistence"]
version	1.0
author	oyi77
license	Apache-2.0
d3fend_techniques	["Token Binding","Restore Access","Application Protocol Command Analysis","Password Authentication","Biometric Authentication"]
nist_csf	["DE.CM-01","DE.AE-02","DE.AE-07","ID.RA-05"]

Hunting for T1098 Account Manipulation

Overview

MITRE ATT&CK T1098 (Account Manipulation) covers adversary actions to maintain or expand access to compromised accounts, including adding credentials, modifying group memberships, SID history injection, and creating shadow admin accounts. This skill covers detecting these techniques through Windows Security Event Log analysis (Event IDs 4738, 4728, 4732, 4756, 4670, 5136), correlating group membership changes with privilege escalation indicators, and identifying anomalous account modification patterns.

When to Use

Trigger phrases:

• "hunting for t1098 account manipulation"

• "Hunt for MITRE ATT&CK T1098 account manipulation including shadow admin creation"

• When investigating security incidents that require hunting for t1098 account manipulation

• When building detection rules or threat hunting queries for this domain

• When SOC analysts need structured procedures for this analysis type

• When validating security monitoring coverage for related attack techniques

Prerequisites

• Windows Security Event Logs (EVTX format) or SIEM access
• Python 3.9+ with python-evtx, lxml libraries
• Understanding of Active Directory group structure and SID architecture
• Familiarity with MITRE ATT&CK T1098 sub-techniques

Steps

# 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()}

1. Scope the task — define objectives, boundaries, and success criteria