Credentials In Files
Where this stands
One published detection covers this technique. Every one is unverified — no rule on Siemphony has been executed against real telemetry.
What the technique is
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.
Read it on attack.mitre.orgWhat MITRE says you would watch
- AN0856
Correlated file access to insecure credential files (e.g., *.env, *.xml, *.ps1) followed by suspicious process execution or authentication using retrieved credentials. Detected through Sysmon logs and Windows Security Event logs.
- AN0857
File reads or process executions involving insecurely stored credential files (e.g., config files with password fields) by non-root or anomalous users followed by ssh authentication attempts.
- AN0858
Terminal-based grep or open of plist/config files containing credentials, correlated with Keychain or system login attempts.
Technique names and descriptions © MITRE ATT&CK®, CC BY 4.0. Not endorsed by MITRE.