Adversaries may steal or forge certificates used for authentication to access remote systems or resources. Digital certificates are often used to sign and encrypt messages and/or files. Certificates are also used as authentication material. For example, Entra ID device certificates and Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) certificates bind to an identity and can be used as credentials for domain accounts.^[1],[2]

Authentication certificates can be both stolen and forged. For example, AD CS certificates can be stolen from encrypted storage (in the Registry or files)^[3], misplaced certificate files (i.e. Unsecured Credentials), or directly from the Windows certificate store via various crypto APIs.^[4],[5],[6] With appropriate enrollment rights, users and/or machines within a domain can also request and/or manually renew certificates from enterprise certificate authorities (CA). This enrollment process defines various settings and permissions associated with the certificate. Of note, the certificate’s extended key usage (EKU) values define signing, encryption, and authentication use cases, while the certificate’s subject alternative name (SAN) values define the certificate owner’s alternate names.^[7]

Abusing certificates for authentication credentials may enable other behaviors such as Lateral Movement. Certificate-related misconfigurations may also enable opportunities for Privilege Escalation, by way of allowing users to impersonate or assume privileged accounts or permissions via the identities (SANs) associated with a certificate. These abuses may also enable Persistence via stealing or forging certificates that can be used as Valid Accounts for the duration of the certificate's validity, despite user password resets. Authentication certificates can also be stolen and forged for machine accounts.

Adversaries who have access to root (or subordinate) CA certificate private keys (or mechanisms protecting/managing these keys) may also establish Persistence by forging arbitrary authentication certificates for the victim domain (known as “golden” certificates).^[7] Adversaries may also target certificates and related services in order to access other forms of credentials, such as Golden Ticket ticket-granting tickets (TGT) or NTLM plaintext.^[7]

References

1. Syynimaa, N. (2022, February 15). Stealing and faking Azure AD device identities. Retrieved August 3, 2022.
2. Microsoft. (2016, August 31). Active Directory Certificate Services Overview. Retrieved August 2, 2022.
3. Thibault Van Geluwe De Berlaere. (2022, November 8). They See Me Roaming: Following APT29 by Taking a Deeper Look at Windows Credential Roaming. Retrieved November 9, 2022.
4. Schroeder, W. & Christensen, L. (2021, June 22). Certified Pre-Owned - Abusing Active Directory Certificate Services. Retrieved August 2, 2022.
5. TheWover. (2021, April 21). CertStealer. Retrieved August 2, 2022.
6. HarmJ0y. (2018, August 22). SharpDPAPI - Certificates. Retrieved August 2, 2022.
7. Schroeder, W. (2021, June 17). Certified Pre-Owned. Retrieved August 2, 2022.

Povezane zadeve

• MITREATTACK -

  EN: MITRE ATT&CK®, https://attack.mitre.org/. © 2026 The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation. License: The MITRE Corporation (MITRE) hereby grants you a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use ATT&CK® for research, development, and commercial purposes. Any copy you make for such purposes is authorized provided that you reproduce MITRE's copyright designation and this license in any such copy. See the Terms of Use for the disclaimers. ATT&CK® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. Converted into the GRCA format.

  DE: MITRE ATT&CK®, https://attack.mitre.org/. © 2026 The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation. MITRE erlaubt die Nutzung für Forschung, Entwicklung und kommerzielle Zwecke, wenn jede Kopie den Urheberrechtsvermerk und die Lizenz enthält; maßgeblich ist der englische Wortlaut der Lizenz oben und die Terms of Use mit den Haftungsausschlüssen. ATT&CK® ist eine eingetragene Marke der MITRE Corporation. In das GRCA-Format umgewandelt.