Skills Development Hunting for Account Manipulation Techniques

Hunting for Account Manipulation Techniques

v20260601
hunting-for-t1098-account-manipulation
This skill guides threat hunters in detecting MITRE ATT&CK T1098 account manipulation techniques. It focuses on analyzing Windows Security Event Logs (like 4738, 4728) to uncover shadow administration creation, suspicious group membership changes, SID history injection, and unauthorized credential modifications, crucial for incident response and building robust detection rules.
Get Skill
404 downloads
Overview

Hunting for T1098 Account Manipulation

Overview

MITRE ATT&CK T1098 (Account Manipulation) covers adversary actions to maintain or expand access to compromised accounts, including adding credentials, modifying group memberships, SID history injection, and creating shadow admin accounts. This skill covers detecting these techniques through Windows Security Event Log analysis (Event IDs 4738, 4728, 4732, 4756, 4670, 5136), correlating group membership changes with privilege escalation indicators, and identifying anomalous account modification patterns.

When to Use

  • When investigating security incidents that require hunting for t1098 account manipulation
  • When building detection rules or threat hunting queries for this domain
  • When SOC analysts need structured procedures for this analysis type
  • When validating security monitoring coverage for related attack techniques

Prerequisites

  • Windows Security Event Logs (EVTX format) or SIEM access
  • Python 3.9+ with python-evtx, lxml libraries
  • Understanding of Active Directory group structure and SID architecture
  • Familiarity with MITRE ATT&CK T1098 sub-techniques

Steps

Step 1: Parse Account Modification Events

Extract Event IDs 4738 (user account changed), 4728/4732/4756 (member added to security groups), and 5136 (directory service object modified).

Step 2: Detect Privileged Group Changes

Flag additions to Domain Admins, Enterprise Admins, Schema Admins, Administrators, and Backup Operators groups.

Step 3: Identify Shadow Admin Indicators

Detect accounts receiving AdminSDHolder protection, direct privilege assignment, or SID history injection.

Step 4: Correlate with Attack Timeline

Cross-reference account changes with authentication events to identify initial compromise and persistence establishment.

Expected Output

JSON report with detected account manipulation events, privileged group changes, shadow admin indicators, and timeline correlation.

Info
Category Development
Name hunting-for-t1098-account-manipulation
Version v20260601
Size 9.6KB
Updated At 2026-06-03
Language