Adversaries may search local file systems and remote file shares for files containing insecurely stored credentials. These can be files created by users to store their own credentials, shared credential stores for a group of individuals, configuration files containing passwords for a system or service, or source code/binary files containing embedded passwords.

It is possible to extract passwords from backups or saved virtual machines through OS Credential Dumping.^[1] Passwords may also be obtained from Group Policy Preferences stored on the Windows Domain Controller.^[2]

In cloud and/or containerized environments, authenticated user and service account credentials are often stored in local configuration and credential files.^[3] They may also be found as parameters to deployment commands in container logs.^[4] In some cases, these files can be copied and reused on another machine or the contents can be read and then used to authenticate without needing to copy any files.^[5]

References

1. CG. (2014, May 20). Mimikatz Against Virtual Machine Memory Part 1. Retrieved November 12, 2014.
2. Security Research and Defense. (2014, May 13). MS14-025: An Update for Group Policy Preferences. Retrieved January 28, 2015.
3. Chen, J. et al. (2021, February 3). Hildegard: New TeamTNT Cryptojacking Malware Targeting Kubernetes. Retrieved April 5, 2021.
4. Chen, J.. (2020, January 29). Attacker's Tactics and Techniques in Unsecured Docker Daemons Revealed. Retrieved March 31, 2021.
5. Maddalena, C.. (2018, September 12). Head in the Clouds. Retrieved October 4, 2019.

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