Use Alternate Authentication Material: Pass the Ticket

Created the Tuesday 07 March 2023. Updated 1 year, 6 months ago.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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

Technique Identifier

T1550.003

Technique Tags

Defense Evasion Lateral Movement stolen password hashes stolen AES keys bypass system access controls Kerberos authentication PtT OS Credential Dumping Ticket Granting Ticket (TGT) Ticket Granting Service (TGS) Silver Ticket Golden Ticket Key Distribution Service account KRBTGT account NTLM hash Kerberos ticket overpassing the hash Pass the Hash APT28 APT32

Additional Resources

External Links

The resources provided below are associated links that will give you even more detailed information and research on current evasion technique. It is important to note that, while these resources may be helpful, it is important to exercise caution when following external links. As always, be careful when clicking on links from unknown sources, as they may lead to malicious content.

Use Alternate Authentication Material: Pass the Ticket, Sub-technique T1550.003 - Enterprise | MITRE ATT&CK®