Adversaries may make new tokens and impersonate users to escalate privileges and bypass access controls. For example, if an adversary has a username and password but the user is not logged onto the system the adversary can then create a logon session for the user using the LogonUser function.^[1] The function will return a copy of the new session's access token and the adversary can use SetThreadToken to assign the token to a thread.

This behavior is distinct from Token Impersonation/Theft in that this refers to creating a new user token instead of stealing or duplicating an existing one.

References

1. Microsoft. (2023, March 10). LogonUserW function (winbase.h). Retrieved January 8, 2024.

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