Techniques › T1550 › T1550.003
T1550.003 Pass the Ticket
lateral movement — Windows · attack.mitre.org · JSON
1
MITRE detection strategy
1
analytics
7
Sigma rules tagged attack.t1550.003
0
KEV CVEs mapped here
<p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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).</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p>
KEV CVEs mapped to this technique · CTID Mappings Explorer
None. No KEV entry in the public mapping names this technique. Given that 74.7% of KEV has no mapping at all, this says more about the mapping than about the technique.
Detection strategy · ATT&CK Enterprise v19.2
- DET0352 Detection Strategy for T1550.003 - Pass the Ticket (Windows) v1.0
AN1000 WindowsDetects unauthorized Kerberos ticket injection by correlating service ticket (TGS - 4769) requests with absent corresponding account logons (4624) and prior Ticket Granting Ticket (TGT - 4768) activity. Highlights anomalous service ticket generation chains involving unexpected users, hosts, or times, and suspicious injection of tickets via mimikatz-like tooling into LSASS memory. Behavior also includes network lateral movement using Kerberos authentication absent expected interactive logon patterns.Tunable:
TimeWindowHostContextScopeLSASSAccessAnomalyThreshold
Sigma rules · SigmaHQ da9bb07d64, tag attack.t1550.003
Author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)
· 2022-04-26 (modified 2023-02-04) · logsource: product=windows category=process_creation · 12827a56-61a4-476a-a9cb-f3068f191073
Detects KrbRelayUp used to perform a universal no-fix local privilege escalation in Windows domain environments where LDAP signing is not enforced
Author: Christian Burkard (Nextron Systems), Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)
· 2023-04-27 · logsource: product=windows category=ps_script · 3245cd30-e015-40ff-a31d-5cadd5f377ec
Detects the execution of the hacktool Rubeus using specific command line flags
Author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)
· 2018-12-19 (modified 2023-04-20) · logsource: product=windows category=process_creation · 7ec2c172-dceb-4c10-92c9-87c1881b7e18
Detects the execution of the hacktool Rubeus via PE information of command line parameters
Author: Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)
· 2026-07-29 · logsource: product=windows service=security · 9c5d2b84-1f7e-4a3c-d6b8-e04f9a17c523
Detects a Kerberos TGT request (Event 4768) for a known Domain Controller machine account
originating from an IP address that is not a known Domain Controller. DC machine accounts
should only request TGTs from their own IP. Any TGT request for a DC account from a
workstation or non-DC host is anomalous and indicates one of the following:
- PKINIT abuse (CVE-2026-54121 / Certighost): attacker authenticating as a DC via a
forged certificate from their workstation
- Overpass-the-Hash: attacker converting a stolen DC machine account NTLM hash into a
Kerberos TGT
- Pass-the-Hash (RC4): attacker using the DC machine account hash directly with Kerberos
Author: Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)
· 2026-07-29 · logsource: product=windows service=security · b2e4a719-3c8f-4d1b-a507-f83c2d56e901
Detects a Domain Controller machine account authenticating from a source IP that is not
a known Domain Controller. DC machine accounts should only authenticate locally or from other DCs during
replication operations. Any logon event for a DC account from a workstation or non-DC host is anomalous and
indicates one of the following:
- Silver Ticket: attacker forged a Kerberos TGS for a DC machine account without
requesting a TGT
- Pass-the-Ticket: attacker is replaying a captured DC machine account TGS from
a non-DC host
- Overpass-the-Hash: attacker converted a stolen DC machine account hash into a
Kerberos ticket and is authenticating from a non-DC host
- Exploitation of certain vulnerabilities such as CVE-2026-54121 (Certighost):
attacker obtained a DC certificate via ADCS CDC-chase
abuse, authenticates via PKINIT as the DC from their own host, then performs DCSync
Author: Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)
· 2026-07-29 · logsource: product=windows service=security · e3f7c841-2a9d-4b5e-c018-d94b3e67f012
Detects a Kerberos service ticket request (Event 4769) targeting a Domain Controller
machine account's service (e.g. DRSUAPI) originating from an IP address that is not a
known Domain Controller. Service tickets for DC machine accounts should only be requested
by other DCs during legitimate replication operations.
An attacker with a valid TGT (obtained via PKINIT, overpass-the-hash, or stolen TGT)
targeting a DC machine account's service from a workstation IP indicates preparation for
DCSync or impersonation of a DC. Unlike Silver Ticket attacks (which forge the TGS and
bypass this event), this rule catches attacks that go through the KDC legitimately.
This rule requires %dc_machine_accounts% and %dc_ip_addresses% to be populated with
all known DC machine account names and DC IP addresses respectively.
Author: Ilyas Ochkov, oscd.community
· 2019-10-24 (modified 2024-03-15) · logsource: product=windows category=network_connection · e54979bd-c5f9-4d6c-967b-a04b19ac4c74
Detects uncommon outbound network activity via Kerberos default port indicating possible lateral movement or first stage PrivEsc via delegation.
Rules tagged at the parent level (attack.t1550) 5
These target the parent technique, not this sub-technique specifically. Listed for completeness, not counted as coverage.
Author: Austin Songer @austinsonger
· 2021-07-24 (modified 2022-10-09) · logsource: product=aws service=cloudtrail · 905d389b-b853-46d0-9d3d-dea0d3a3cd49
Identifies the suspicious use of AssumeRole. Attackers could move laterally and escalate privileges.
Author: frack113
· 2022-10-14 (modified 2023-12-14) · logsource: product=windows service=security · 94309181-d345-4cbf-b5fe-061769bdf9cb
Detects logon with "Special groups" and "Special Privileges" can be thought of as Administrator groups or privileges.
Author: Austin Songer @austinsonger
· 2021-07-24 (modified 2022-10-09) · logsource: product=aws service=cloudtrail · b45ab1d2-712f-4f01-a751-df3826969807
Identifies the suspicious use of GetSessionToken. Tokens could be created and used by attackers to move laterally and escalate privileges.
Author: Max Altgelt (Nextron Systems)
· 2022-04-06 · logsource: product=windows service=security · def8b624-e08f-4ae1-8612-1ba21190da6b
Detects logon events that specify new credentials
Author: Austin Songer
· 2021-09-22 (modified 2022-12-18) · logsource: product=aws service=cloudtrail · f43f5d2f-3f2a-4cc8-b1af-81fde7dbaf0e
Identifies when suspicious SAML activity has occurred in AWS. An adversary could gain backdoor access via SAML.