DSInternals VS mimikatz

Thirdly dsinternals suite can be used to resurrect domain controllers from the dead.. it works very well and is pretty easy - https://github.com/MichaelGrafnetter/DSInternals/blob/master/Documentation/PowerShell/New-ADDBRestoreFromMediaScript.md - the person who created this is nothing short of a wizard.

Greetings. I would like to get recommendations for tools that will allow me to audit the password strength of users in Windows Active Directory and Google Workspace. I came across this one for AD that I plan to try. https://github.com/MichaelGrafnetter/DSInternals/blob/master/Documentation/PowerShell/Test-PasswordQuality.md

As you have no AD specific backup or recovery plan nor do you have an idea of when ransomware was copied into the environment I.e. how long was it sitting dormant? I’d suggest you take the backup you have then use this script from DSInternals - https://github.com/MichaelGrafnetter/DSInternals/blob/master/Documentation/PowerShell/New-ADDBRestoreFromMediaScript.md - to restore ONLY Active Directory (NTDS + SYSVOl) into clean media (needs to be the same major OS version).

Note**:** The same can be done using the DSInternals Set-SamAccountPasswordHash command.

To find out, you can use the DSInternals command Test-PasswordQuality. It will extract the password hashes for all your user accounts and compare them against the password hashes for a dictionary of weak passwords.

Recovery is still an option with this module: https://github.com/MichaelGrafnetter/DSInternals/blob/master/Documentation/PowerShell/New-ADDBRestoreFromMediaScript.md

Load DSInternals Powershell Module (Install-Module DSInternals -Force OR https://github.com/MichaelGrafnetter/DSInternals

FYI, there's a PS module you can use to check passwords. Here's a link to some info about that: https://github.com/MichaelGrafnetter/DSInternals/blob/master/Documentation/PowerShell/Get-ADReplAccount.md

Mimikatz

Typically, Mimikatz is used to extract NTLM password hashes or Kerberos tickets from memory. However, one of its lesser-known capabilities is the ability to extract plaintext passwords from dumps created for the LSASS process. This means that an attacker can compromise plaintext passwords without running any nefarious code on domain controllers. Dump files can be created interactively or using ProcDump , and in either case, the activity is unlikely to be flagged by anti-virus software. Once the dumps are created, they can be copied off the domain controller and the plaintext credentials can be harvested using Mimikatz offline.

Mimikatz can be used to perform pass-the-ticket, but in this post, we wanted to show how to execute the attack using another tool, Rubeus , lets you perform Kerberos based attacks. Rubeus is a C# toolset written by harmj0y and is based on the Kekeo project by Benjamin Delpy, the author of Mimikatz .

What is DCShadow? DCShadow is a command in the Mimikatz tool that enables an adversary to register a rogue domain controller and replicate malicious changes across the domain.

Mimikatz provides a variety of ways to extract and manipulate credentials, but one of the most alarming is the DCSync command. Using this command, an adversary can simulate the behavior of a domain controller and ask other domain controllers to replicate information — including user password data. In fact, attackers can get any account’s NTLM password hash or even its plaintext password, including the password of the KRBTGT account, which enables them to create Golden Tickets.

Using Mimikatz , it is possible to leverage the password of the KRBTGT account to create forged Kerberos Ticket Granting Tickets (TGTs) which can be used to request Ticket Granting Server (TGS) tickets for any service on any computer in the domain.

Using the ChangeNTLM and SetNTLM commands in Mimikatz , attackers can manipulate user passwords and escalate their privileges in Active Directory . Let’s take a look at these commands and what they do.

Mimikatz will extract local tickets and save them to disk for offline cracking. Simply install Mimikatz and issue a single command: