Active Directory Enumeration & Attacks Assessment - Educational Purposes Only

Introduction

This tutorial provides a step-by-step guide on Active Directory (AD) enumeration and attack assessment techniques, intended for educational purposes only. It is crucial to perform these exercises in a controlled environment where you have explicit permission. Understanding these techniques can enhance your skills in cybersecurity and penetration testing.

Step 1: Setting Up the Environment

• Ensure you have a controlled lab environment, such as a virtual machine or a dedicated server.
• Install necessary tools for AD enumeration:
  • Nmap: For network scanning.
  • BloodHound: To visualize relationships and permissions in AD.
  • PowerView: A PowerShell tool for network enumeration.

Practical Tips

• Familiarize yourself with each tool's documentation for effective usage.
• Ensure your virtual environment mimics a real-world AD structure to maximize learning.

Step 2: Conducting Network Scans

• Use Nmap to identify live hosts and services on the network.
• Run the following command to perform a basic scan:

  nmap -sP [Target-IP-Range]
  

• Identify domain controllers and other critical servers.

Common Pitfalls

• Avoid scanning networks without permission, as this can lead to legal issues.
• Ensure your firewall settings allow Nmap to operate correctly.

Step 3: Enumerating Active Directory

• Utilize PowerView to extract information from AD. Load PowerView in PowerShell:

  Import-Module .\PowerView.ps1
  

• Use the following commands to gather information:
  • List all domain users:

    Get-NetUser
    

  • List all groups and their members:

    Get-NetGroup -GroupName "Domain Admins" | Get-NetGroupMember
    

Practical Advice

• Pay attention to user permissions and group memberships; this information can reveal potential attack vectors.

Step 4: Visualizing AD Relationships

• Open BloodHound and import the data collected from PowerView.
• Use the tool to visualize user and group relationships, identifying potential attack paths.

Tips for Effective Visualization

• Focus on high-privilege users and their connections.
• Look for users with excessive permissions that could be exploited.

Step 5: Performing Attacks

• Understand various attack vectors, such as Kerberoasting and Pass-the-Hash.
• For Kerberoasting, identify service accounts and request service tickets:

  Get-NetUser -SPN
  

• Crack the tickets using tools like Hashcat.

Key Considerations

• Ensure you understand the implications of each attack.
• Practice ethical hacking principles and always stay within legal boundaries.

Conclusion

This tutorial covered the essential steps for Active Directory enumeration and attack assessment. By setting up a proper lab environment, utilizing tools like Nmap, PowerView, and BloodHound, and understanding attack techniques, you can develop valuable cybersecurity skills. Always remember to operate within legal and ethical limits, and consider exploring further into advanced AD security practices.