Detect Account Discovery in Elastic Security
Adversaries may attempt to get a listing of valid accounts, usernames, or email addresses on a system or within a compromised environment. This information can help adversaries determine which accounts exist, which can aid in follow-on behavior such as brute-forcing, spear-phishing attacks, or account takeovers. Adversaries may use several methods to enumerate accounts, including abuse of existing tools, built-in commands, and potential misconfigurations that leak account names and roles or permissions in the targeted environment. On Windows, common discovery methods include net user, net localgroup, wmic useraccount list, Get-LocalUser, and Get-ADUser. On Linux and macOS, adversaries may read /etc/passwd, use getent, id, last, and who commands. In cloud environments, CLIs such as aws iam list-users, az ad user list, and gcloud iam service-accounts list are commonly abused. Observed threat actors leveraging this technique include Aquatic Panda, Scattered Spider, FIN13, and malware families such as Woody RAT, Havoc, TONESHELL, and ShimRatReporter.
MITRE ATT&CK
- Tactic
- Discovery
- Technique
- T1087 Account Discovery
- Canonical reference
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1087/
Elastic Detection Query
process where event.type == "start" and (
(process.name : ("net.exe", "net1.exe") and process.command_line : ("*net user*", "*net localgroup*", "*net group*")) or
(process.name : "wmic.exe" and process.command_line : ("*useraccount*", "*group get*", "*group list*")) or
(process.name : "dsquery.exe") or
(process.name : "nltest.exe") or
(process.name : "whoami.exe" and process.args : ("/groups", "/all", "/priv")) or
(process.name : ("powershell.exe", "pwsh.exe") and process.command_line : (
"*Get-LocalUser*", "*Get-LocalGroup*", "*Get-ADUser*",
"*Get-ADGroupMember*", "*Get-ADObject*", "*Get-ADPrincipalGroupMembership*",
"*DirectorySearcher*", "*DirectoryEntry*", "*[adsi]*"
))
)Detects account discovery activity on Windows endpoints using common enumeration tools including net.exe, wmic.exe, dsquery.exe, nltest.exe, whoami.exe, and PowerShell Active Directory cmdlets. Matches MITRE ATT&CK T1087 - Account Discovery by identifying process launch events with arguments consistent with local or domain account enumeration.
Data Sources
Required Tables
False Positives & Tuning
- IT administrators running scheduled user account inventory or audit scripts using net.exe or dsquery.exe as part of routine Active Directory management
- Automated provisioning and deprovisioning workflows that enumerate group membership before adding or removing users from AD groups
- Help desk personnel legitimately querying local group membership or AD user attributes to resolve access issues
- Security and identity governance platforms (e.g., SailPoint, Saviynt) performing scheduled access reviews via PowerShell AD cmdlets
Other platforms for T1087
Testing Methodology
Validate this detection against 5 adversary techniques from Atomic Red Team. Each test below lists the behaviour to exercise and the telemetry you should expect to see. Executable commands and cleanup steps are available with Pro.
- Test 1Local Account Enumeration via Net User
Expected signal: Sysmon Event ID 1: Process Create with Image=C:\Windows\System32\net.exe and CommandLine='net user'. Net1.exe may also appear as a child process. Security Event ID 4688 (if command line auditing enabled) with the same detail. No network connections expected — local SAM database query only.
- Test 2Domain Account and Group Enumeration via Net
Expected signal: Sysmon Event ID 1: Three sequential Process Create events for net.exe with CommandLines 'net user /domain', 'net group Domain Admins /domain', 'net group Enterprise Admins /domain'. Sysmon Event ID 3: Network connections to domain controller IP on port 445 (SMB/SAMR protocol for domain queries). Security Event IDs 4661/4662 on the domain controller for directory object access.
- Test 3Active Directory Enumeration via PowerShell Get-ADUser
Expected signal: Sysmon Event ID 1: Process Create with Image=powershell.exe and CommandLine containing 'Get-ADUser' and '-Filter *'. Sysmon Event ID 3: LDAP connection (port 389 or 3268 for global catalog) from powershell.exe to domain controller IP. PowerShell ScriptBlock Logging Event ID 4104 with full script content. Domain Controller Security Event IDs 4661/4662 for directory service access.
- Test 4WMI-Based Local Account Enumeration
Expected signal: Sysmon Event ID 1: Process Create with Image=C:\Windows\System32\wbem\WMIC.exe and CommandLine='wmic useraccount list brief'. Possible WMI provider process creation (WmiPrvSE.exe). No network connections for local query. Security Event ID 4688 with command line if auditing enabled.
- Test 5dsquery Domain User Enumeration
Expected signal: Sysmon Event ID 1: Process Create with Image=C:\Windows\System32\dsquery.exe and CommandLine='dsquery user -limit 0'. Sysmon Event ID 3: LDAP connection from dsquery.exe to domain controller on port 389 or 3268. Security Event IDs 4661/4662 on domain controller for directory access.
References (11)
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1087/
- https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/iam/list-users.html
- https://cloud.google.com/sdk/gcloud/reference/iam/service-accounts/list
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/net-user
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/wmisdk/wmi-start-page
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2012-r2-and-2012/cc732952(v=ws.11)
- https://www.elastic.co/security-labs/embracing-offensive-tooling-building-detections-against-koadic-using-eql
- https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/master/atomics/T1087/T1087.md
- https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/tree/master/rules/windows/process_creation
- https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/2022-falcon-overwatch-report/
- https://www.mandiant.com/resources/blog/fin13-cybercriminal-mexico
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