Account configured with never Expiring Passwordedit
Detects the creation and modification of an account with the "Don’t Expire Password" option Enabled. Attackers can abuse this misconfiguration to persist in the domain and maintain long-term access using compromised accounts with this property.
Rule type: query
Rule indices:
- winlogbeat-*
- logs-system.*
Severity: medium
Risk score: 47
Runs every: 5 minutes
Searches indices from: now-9m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time)
Maximum alerts per execution: 100
References:
Tags:
- Elastic
- Host
- Windows
- Threat Detection
- Persistence
- Active Directory
Version: 1
Added (Elastic Stack release): 8.2.0
Rule authors: Elastic
Rule license: Elastic License v2
Potential false positivesedit
User accounts can be used as service accounts and have their password set never to expire. This is a bad security practice that exposes the account to Credential Access attacks. For cases in which user accounts cannot be avoided, Microsoft provides the Group Managed Service Accounts (gMSA) feature, which ensures that the account password is robust and changed regularly and automatically.
Rule queryedit
event.action:"modified-user-account" and event.code:"4738" and message:"'Don't Expire Password' - Enabled" and not user.id:"S-1-5-18"
Threat mappingedit
Framework: MITRE ATT&CKTM
-
Tactic:
- Name: Persistence
- ID: TA0003
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0003/
-
Technique:
- Name: Account Manipulation
- ID: T1098
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1098/