T1069: Permission Groups Discovery
Adversaries may attempt to discover group and permission settings. This information can help adversaries determine which user accounts and groups are available, the membership of users in particular groups, and which users and groups have elevated permissions.
Adversaries may attempt to discover group permission settings in many different ways. This data may provide the adversary with information about the compromised environment that can be used in follow-on activity and targeting.
How it's found
Behavioral Detection of Permission Groups Discovery: Detection of adversary enumeration of domain or local group memberships via native tools such as net.exe, PowerShell, or WMI. This activity may precede lateral movement or privilege escalation. Detection of group enumeration using commands like 'id', 'groups', or 'getent group', often followed by privilege escalation or SSH lateral movement. Group membership checks via 'dscl', 'dscacheutil', or 'id', typically executed via terminal or automation scripts.
Sub-techniques
T1069.001: Local Groups
Adversaries may attempt to find local system groups and permission settings. The knowledge of local system permission groups can help adversaries determine which groups exist and which users belong to a particular group. Adversaries may use this information to determine which users have elevated permissions, such as the users found within the local administrators group. Commands such as <code>net localgroup</code> of the Net utility, <code>dscl . -list /Groups</code> on macOS, and <code>groups</code> on Linux can list local groups.
T1069.002: Domain Groups
Adversaries may attempt to find domain-level groups and permission settings. The knowledge of domain-level permission groups can help adversaries determine which groups exist and which users belong to a particular group. Adversaries may use this information to determine which users have elevated permissions, such as domain administrators. Commands such as <code>net group /domain</code> of the Net utility, <code>dscacheutil -q group</code> on macOS, and <code>ldapsearch</code> on Linux can list domain-level groups.
T1069.003: Cloud Groups
Adversaries may attempt to find cloud groups and permission settings. The knowledge of cloud permission groups can help adversaries determine the particular roles of users and groups within an environment, as well as which users are associated with a particular group. With authenticated access there are several tools that can be used to find permissions groups. The <code>Get-MsolRole</code> PowerShell cmdlet can be used to obtain roles and permissions groups for Exchange and Office 365 accounts . Azure CLI (AZ CLI) and the Google Cloud Identity Provider API also provide interfaces to obtain permissions groups. The command <code>az ad user get-member-groups</code> will list groups associated to a user account for Azure while the API endpoint <code>GET https://cloudidentity.googleapis.com/v1/groups</code> lists group resources available to a user for Google. In AWS, the commands `ListRolePolicies` and `ListAttachedRolePolicies` allow users to enumerate the policies attached to a role. Adversaries may attempt to list ACLs for objects to determine the owner and other accounts with access to the object, for example, via the AWS <code>GetBucketAcl</code> API . Using this information an adversary can target accounts with permissions to a given object or leverage accounts they have already compromised to access the object.
Standards mapping
Where this fits in a TurboPentest engagement
This weakness is not covered by the automated black-box pentest. IntegSec pentesters cover it in a manual engagement.
Frequently asked questions
What is T1069 Permission Groups Discovery?
Adversaries may attempt to discover group and permission settings. This information can help adversaries determine which user accounts and groups are available, the membership of users in particular groups, and which users and groups have elevated permissions. Adversaries may attempt to discover group permission settings in many different ways. This data may provide the adversary with information about the compromised environment that can be used in follow-on activity and targeting.
Which tactics does T1069 belong to?
T1069 maps to the Discovery tactic.
Does TurboPentest test for Permission Groups Discovery?
This weakness is not covered by the automated black-box pentest. IntegSec pentesters cover it in a manual engagement.
Related MITRE ATT&CK techniques
About this reference
These security references are maintained by IntegSec, an offensive-security firm whose team holds CISSP, OSCP, and OSCE certifications and has run thousands of penetration tests. Content is kept current as tools, standards, and attack techniques evolve.
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