Suspicious Kerberos Authentication Ticket Request

Last updated 10 days ago on 2025-11-25
Created a month ago on 2025-10-28

About

Correlates network connections to the standard Kerberos port by an unusual process from the source machine with a Kerberos authentication ticket request from the target domain controller.
Tags
Domain: EndpointDomain: IdentityOS: WindowsUse Case: Threat DetectionTactic: Credential AccessTactic: Lateral MovementUse Case: Active Directory MonitoringData Source: Active DirectoryData Source: Elastic DefendData Source: SysmonData Source: Windows Security Event LogsLanguage: eql
Severity
high
Risk Score
73
MITRE ATT&CK™

Lateral Movement (TA0008)(opens in a new tab or window)

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

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

Definition

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

endpoint(opens in a new tab or window)

windows(opens in a new tab or window)

system(opens in a new tab or window)

Query
sequence by source.port, source.ip with maxspan=3s
 [network where host.os.type == "windows" and destination.port == 88 and
  process.executable != null and
  not process.executable : 
              ("?:\\Windows\\system32\\lsass.exe", 
               "\\device\\harddiskvolume*\\windows\\system32\\lsass.exe") and
  not (process.executable : ("C:\\Windows\\System32\\svchost.exe", 
                             "C:\\Program Files\\VMware\\VMware View\\Server\\bin\\ws_TomcatService.exe", 
                             "F:\\IGEL\\RemoteManager\\*\\bin\\tomcat10.exe") and user.id in ("S-1-5-20", "S-1-5-18")) and   
  source.ip != "127.0.0.1" and destination.ip != "::1" and destination.ip != "127.0.0.1"]
 [authentication where host.os.type == "windows" and event.code in ("4768", "4769")]

Install detection rules in Elastic Security

Detect Suspicious Kerberos Authentication Ticket Request 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(opens in a new tab or window).