CAPEC-509
Kerberoasting
Through the exploitation of how service accounts leverage Kerberos authentication with Service Principal Names (SPNs), the adversary obtains and subsequently cracks the hashed credentials of a service account target to exploit its privileges. The Kerberos authentication protocol centers around a ticketing system which is used to request/grant access to services and to then access the requested services. As an authenticated user, the adversary may request Active Directory and obtain a service ticket with portions encrypted via RC4 with the private key of the authenticated account. By extracting the local ticket and saving it disk, the adversary can brute force the hashed value to reveal the target account credentials.
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Explain the attack pattern CAPEC-509: Kerberoasting: how it unfolds, what it needs and how to prevent and detect it in my systems. Use https://capec.mitre.org/data/definitions/509.html and https://cve.bz/cve/capec/509?via=ask-ai-copy, which lists recent CVEs with the weaknesses it exploits. Cite the sources.Opens a third-party assistant; its answer is its own, not cve.bz's. The prompt holds only this attack pattern's id and public links.
How the attack unfolds
Explore
The attacker looks for a way in.
Scan for user accounts with set SPN values
1 technique
- These can be found via Powershell or LDAP queries, as well as enumerating startup name accounts and other means.
Request service tickets
1 technique
- Using user account's SPN value, request other service tickets from Active Directory
Experiment
They probe what they found.
Extract ticket and save to disk
1 technique
- Certain tools like Mimikatz can extract local tickets and save them to memory/disk.
Exploit
They carry out the attack.
Crack the encrypted ticket to harvest plain text credentials
1 technique
- Leverage a brute force application/script on the hashed value offline until cracked. The shorter the password, the easier it is to crack.
Prerequisites
The adversary requires access as an authenticated user on the system. This attack pattern relates to elevating privileges.
The adversary requires use of a third-party credential harvesting tool (e.g., Mimikatz).
The adversary requires a brute force tool.
Skills required
- Medium skill
Consequences
| Impact | Affects | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Gain Privileges | Confidentiality |
Mitigations
Monitor system and domain logs for abnormal access.
Employ a robust password policy for service accounts. Passwords should be of adequate length and complexity, and they should expire after a period of time.
Employ the principle of least privilege: limit service accounts privileges to what is required for functionality and no more.
Enable AES Kerberos encryption (or another stronger encryption algorithm), rather than RC4, where possible.
Weaknesses it exploits
- CWE-262 Not Using Password Aging
- CWE-263 Password Aging with Long Expiration
- CWE-294 Authentication Bypass by Capture-replay
- CWE-308 Use of Single-factor Authentication
- CWE-309 Use of Password System for Primary Authentication
- CWE-521 Weak Password Requirements
- CWE-522 Insufficiently Protected Credentials
Recent CVEs with these weaknesses
- –CVE-2026-97867
The EJBd remote protocol returns datasource connection details, including database credentials, to remote clients that look up a datasource. A remote client able to reach the EJBd endpoint can obtain the database credentials and connect to…
- 6.0CVE-2026-89125
Due to Insecure Storage of Sensitive Information in SAP Web Dispatcher and Internet Communication Manager, an attacker with administrative privileges could obtain sensitive information from stored data. This may allow correlation of creden…
- 8.9CVE-2026-76966
Due to improper RFC protocol validation in the SAP Kernel used by the Application Server ABAP of SAP NetWeaver and ABAP Platform, an unauthenticated attacker can send a crafted RFC request that exploits logical errors in memory management,…
- 7.4CVE-2026-123801
SuperTokens Core is an open source authentication server. From 11.3.0 until 11.3.8, 11.4.8, 12.0.11, 12.1.2, 12.2.1, and 12.3.1, SAML.handleCallback does not consume RelayState, record assertion identifiers, or enforce Response.InResponseT…
- 7.1CVE-2026-115340
Progress Software WS_FTP Server versions prior to 2025.0.5 on Windows may write sensitive user credential and session data to a temporary file during file transfer operations.
- 6.6CVE-2026-112164
The LaserGest mobile application encrypts stored assistance portal credentials with a hardcoded AES key and IV, allowing an attacker with access to the application package to recover them in cleartext.
- –CVE-2026-111452
Apache Airflow's secrets masker matched sensitive key names only in their snake_case form, so values stored under camelCase keys such as `privateKey`, `connectionString`, `webhookUrl` or `accessKey` — for example in a Connection's extra or…
- –CVE-2026-107474
The Apache Airflow connections API did not mask the apprise provider's `config` connection extra, which can embed notification-service credentials. A user with permission to read connections could retrieve it in cleartext, although Airflow…
The newest records naming one of them. Each weakness's page lists them all.
Related attack patterns
Examples
PowerSploit's Invoke-Kerberoast module can be leveraged to request Ticket Granting Service (TGS) tickets and …
PowerSploit's Invoke-Kerberoast module can be leveraged to request Ticket Granting Service (TGS) tickets and return crackable ticket hashes. [REF-585] [REF-586]
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