Potential Computer Account NTLM Relay Activity

Last updated 14 days ago on 2025-12-11
Created a year ago on 2024-07-24

About

Identifies potential relay activities against a Computer account by identifying authentication events using the computer account coming from from hosts other than the server that owns the account. Attackers may relay the computer account hash after capturing it using forced authentication.
Tags
Domain: EndpointOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Credential AccessData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: Active DirectoryUse Case: Active Directory MonitoringData Source: Windows Security Event LogsLanguage: eql
Severity
medium
Risk Score
47
MITRE ATT&CK™

Credential Access (TA0006)(external, opens in a new tab or window)

License
Elastic License v2(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Definition

Rule Type
Event Correlation Rule
Integration Pack
Prebuilt Security Detection Rules
Index Patterns
logs-system.security*logs-windows.forwarded*winlogbeat-*
Related Integrations

system(external, opens in a new tab or window)

windows(external, opens in a new tab or window)

Query
text code block:
authentication where host.os.type == "windows" and event.code in ("4624", "4625") and winlog.logon.type == "Network" and winlog.event_data.AuthenticationPackageName == "NTLM" and endswith~(user.name, "$") and user.name != "$" and source.ip != null and source.ip != "::1" and source.ip != "127.0.0.1" and /* Filter for a machine account that matches the hostname */ startswith~(host.name, substring(user.name, 0, -1)) and /* Verify if the Source IP belongs to the host */ not endswith(string(source.ip), string(host.ip)) and not stringContains(string(host.ip), string(source.ip))

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Potential Computer Account NTLM Relay Activity in the Elastic Security detection engine by installing this rule into your Elastic Stack.

To setup this rule, check out the installation guide for Prebuilt Security Detection Rules(external, opens in a new tab or window).