T1552.001 Credentials In Files — ATT&CK Technique
Adversaries may search local file systems and remote file shares for files containing insecurely stored credentials. These can be files created by users to store their own credentials, shared credential stores for a group of individuals, configuration files containing passwords for a system or service, or source code/binary files containing embedded passwords. It is possible to extract passwords from backups or saved virtual machines through OS Credential Dumping. Passwords may also be obtained from Group Policy Preferences stored on the Windows Domain Controller. In cloud and/or containerized environments, authenticated user and service account credentials are often stored in local configuration and credential files. They may also be found as parameters to deployment commands in container logs. In some cases, these files can be copied and reused on another machine or the contents can be read and then used to authenticate without needing to copy any files.
Detection coverage (31)
- Shai-Hulud Malicious GitHub Workflow Creation high
- Unattend.XML File Access Attempt low
- Potential Password Reconnaissance Via Findstr.EXE medium
- Hidden Flag Set On File/Directory Via Chflags - MacOS medium
- Azure Keyvault Key Modified or Deleted medium
- Azure Key Vault Modified or Deleted medium
- Azure Keyvault Secrets Modified or Deleted medium
- Credentials In Files - Linux high
- Copy Passwd Or Shadow From TMP Path high
- Linux Recon Indicators high
- Credentials In Files high
- PUA - TruffleHog Execution medium
- Cisco Collect Data low
- PUA - TruffleHog Execution - Linux medium
- HackTool - Typical HiveNightmare SAM File Export high
- HackTool - WinPwn Execution - ScriptBlock high
- Extracting Information with PowerShell medium
- Remote File Download Via Findstr.EXE medium
- Insensitive Subfolder Search Via Findstr.EXE low
- HackTool - WinPwn Execution high
- Potential PowerShell Console History Access Attempt via History File medium
- Automated Collection Command Prompt medium
- Potentially Suspicious JWT Token Search Via CLI medium
- MCP Github Suspicious Operation
- MCP Sensitive System File Search
- Potential password in username
- Shai-Hulud 2 Exfiltration Artifact Files
- Windows Unusual Intelliform Storage Registry Access
- Windows Unusual FileZilla XML Config Access
- Windows WinSCP Configuration Security Access
- Potential Russian APT Credential Theft Activity critical
Malware using this technique
- TrickBot
- Smoke Loader
- Emotet
- Hildegard
- AADInternals
- BlackEnergy
- XTunnel
- pngdowner
- LaZagne
- Pysa
- QuasarRAT
- Pupy
- Shai-Hulud
- Agent Tesla
- TeamPCP Cloud Stealer
- jRAT
- Mini Shai-Hulud
- Azorult
- StrelaStealer
- Kali365
- Empire
- PoshC2
- TruffleHog