Certificate Services (AD-CS)

Theory
AD CS is Microsoft’s PKI implementation that provides everything from encrypting file systems, to digital signatures, to user authentication (a large focus of our research), and more. While AD CS is not installed by default for Active Directory environments, from our experience in enterprise environments it is widely deployed, and the security ramifications of misconfigured certificate service instances are enormous. (specterops.io)
In their research papers, Will Schroeder and Lee Christensen shared their research on AD CS and identified multiple theft, escalation and persistence vectors.
Credential theft (dubbed THEFT1 to THEFT5)
Account persistence (dubbed PERSIST1 to PERSIST3)
Domain escalation (dubbed ESC1 to ESC8)
based on misconfigured certificate templates​
based on dangerous CA configuration​
related to access control vulnerabilities​
based on an NTLM relay vulnerability related to the web endpoints of AD CS​
Domain persistence (dubbed DPERSIST1 to DPERSIST3)
by forging certificates with a stolen CA certificates​
by trusting rogue CA certificates
by maliciously creating vulnerable access controls​
Practice
Terminology
PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) — a system to manage certificates/public key encryption
AD CS (Active Directory Certificate Services) — Microsoft’s PKI implementation
CA (Certificate Authority) — PKI server that issues certificates
Enterprise CA — CA integrated with AD (as opposed to a standalone CA), offers certificate templates
Certificate Template — a collection of settings and policies that defines the contents of a certificate issued by an enterprise CA
CSR (Certificate Signing Request) — a message sent to a CA to request a signed certificate
EKU (Extended/Enhanced Key Usage) — one or more object identifiers (OIDs) that define how a certificate can be used
(specterops.io)
Recon
While AD CS offers attackers a wide range of exploitation and persistence scenarios, this set of services is not always installed, and when it is, it is a requirement to identify its different parts in the domain.
Cert Publishers
An initial indicator is the "Cert Publishers" built-in group whose members usually are the servers where AD CS is installed (i.e. PKI/CA).
From UNIX-like systems: rpc net group members "Cert Publishers" -U "DOMAIN"/"User"%"Password" -S "DomainController"
From Windows systems: net group "Cert Publishers" /domain
pKIEnrollmentService objects
Alternatively, information like the PKI's CA and DNS names can be gathered through LDAP.
CrackMapExec
windapsearch
ntlmrelayx
​CrackMapExec's adcs module (Python) can be used to find PKI enrollment services in AD.
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crackmapexec ldap 'domaincontroller' -d 'domain' -u 'user' -p 'password' -M adcs
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​windapsearch (Python) can be used to manually to the LDAP query.
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windapsearch -m custom --filter '(objectCategory=pKIEnrollmentService)' --base 'CN=Configuration,DC=domain,DC=local' --attrs dn,dnshostname --dc 'domaincontroller' -d 'domain.local' -u 'user' -p 'password'
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With Impacket's ntlmrelayx (Python), thanks to SAERXCIT (PR#1214), it is possible to gather information regarding ADCS like the name and host of the CA, the certificate templates enrollment rights for those allowing client authentication and not requiring manager approval, etc. With ntlmrelayx, these information can be gathered through a relayed LDAP session.
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ntlmrelayx -t "ldap://domaincontroller" --dump-adcs
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Attack paths
​Certipy (Python) and Certify (C#) can also identify the PKI enrollment services and potential attack paths.
UNIX-like
Windows
From UNIX-like systems, the Certipy (Python) tool can be used to operate multiple attacks and enumeration operations.
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certipy 'domain.local'/'user':'password'@'domaincontroller' find
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​
By default, Certipy uses LDAPS, which is not always supported by the domain controllers. The -scheme flag can be used to set whether to use LDAP or LDAPS.
From Windows systems, the Certify (C#) tool can be used to operate multiple attacks and enumeration operations.
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Certify.exe cas
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Abuse
The different domain escalation scenarios are detailed in the following parts.
Techniques dubbed ESC1 to ESC3
Certificate templates
Technique dubbed ESC6
CA configuration
Techniques dubbed ESC4, ESC5 & ESC7
Access controls
Technique dubbed ESC8
Web endpoints
Resources
https://posts.specterops.io/certified-pre-owned-d95910965cd2
posts.specterops.io
Microsoft ADCS – Abusing PKI in Active Directory Environment - RiskInsight
RiskInsight
AD CS - What Can Be Misconfigured? - HTTP418 InfoSec
HTTP418 InfoSec
AD CS - The 'Certified Pre-Owned' Attacks - HTTP418 InfoSec
HTTP418 InfoSec
Certipy 2.0: BloodHound, New Escalations, Shadow Credentials, Golden Certificates, and more!
Medium

ZeroLogon

Certificate templates

Last modified 4mo ago

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