📔
HackTricks - Boitatech
  • HackTricks
  • About the author
  • Getting Started in Hacking
  • Pentesting Methodology
  • External Recon Methodology
    • Github Leaked Secrets
  • Phishing Methodology
    • Clone a Website
    • Detecting Phising
    • Phishing Documents
  • Exfiltration
  • Tunneling and Port Forwarding
  • Brute Force - CheatSheet
  • Search Exploits
  • Shells
    • Shells (Linux, Windows, MSFVenom)
      • MSFVenom - CheatSheet
      • Shells - Windows
      • Shells - Linux
      • Full TTYs
  • Linux/Unix
    • Checklist - Linux Privilege Escalation
    • Linux Privilege Escalation
      • PAM - Pluggable Authentication Modules
      • SELinux
      • Logstash
      • AppArmor
      • Containerd (ctr) Privilege Escalation
      • Docker Breakout
      • electron/CEF/chromium debugger abuse
      • Escaping from Jails
      • Cisco - vmanage
      • D-Bus Enumeration & Command Injection Privilege Escalation
      • Interesting Groups - Linux PE
        • lxd/lxc Group - Privilege escalation
      • ld.so exploit example
      • Linux Capabilities
      • NFS no_root_squash/no_all_squash misconfiguration PE
      • Payloads to execute
      • RunC Privilege Escalation
      • Seccomp
      • Splunk LPE and Persistence
      • SSH Forward Agent exploitation
      • Socket Command Injection
      • Wildcards Spare tricks
    • Useful Linux Commands
      • Bypass Bash Restrictions
    • Linux Environment Variables
  • MacOS
    • MacOS Security & Privilege Escalation
      • Mac OS Architecture
      • MacOS MDM
        • Enrolling Devices in Other Organisations
      • MacOS Protocols
      • MacOS Red Teaming
      • MacOS Serial Number
      • MacOS Apps - Inspecting, debugging and Fuzzing
  • Windows
    • Checklist - Local Windows Privilege Escalation
    • Windows Local Privilege Escalation
      • AppendData/AddSubdirectory permission over service registry
      • Create MSI with WIX
      • DPAPI - Extracting Passwords
      • SeImpersonate from High To System
      • Access Tokens
      • ACLs - DACLs/SACLs/ACEs
      • Dll Hijacking
      • From High Integrity to SYSTEM with Name Pipes
      • Integrity Levels
      • JAWS
      • JuicyPotato
      • Leaked Handle Exploitation
      • MSI Wrapper
      • Named Pipe Client Impersonation
      • PowerUp
      • Privilege Escalation Abusing Tokens
      • Privilege Escalation with Autoruns
      • RottenPotato
      • Seatbelt
      • SeDebug + SeImpersonate copy token
      • Windows C Payloads
    • Active Directory Methodology
      • Abusing Active Directory ACLs/ACEs
      • AD information in printers
      • ASREPRoast
      • BloodHound
      • Constrained Delegation
      • Custom SSP
      • DCShadow
      • DCSync
      • DSRM Credentials
      • Golden Ticket
      • Kerberos Authentication
      • Kerberoast
      • MSSQL Trusted Links
      • Over Pass the Hash/Pass the Key
      • Pass the Ticket
      • Password Spraying
      • Force NTLM Privileged Authentication
      • Privileged Accounts and Token Privileges
      • Resource-based Constrained Delegation
      • Security Descriptors
      • Silver Ticket
      • Skeleton Key
      • Unconstrained Delegation
    • NTLM
      • Places to steal NTLM creds
      • PsExec/Winexec/ScExec
      • SmbExec/ScExec
      • WmicExec
      • AtExec / SchtasksExec
      • WinRM
    • Stealing Credentials
      • Credentials Protections
      • Mimikatz
    • Authentication, Credentials, UAC and EFS
    • Basic CMD for Pentesters
    • Basic PowerShell for Pentesters
      • PowerView
    • AV Bypass
  • Mobile Apps Pentesting
    • Android APK Checklist
    • Android Applications Pentesting
      • Android Applications Basics
      • Android Task Hijacking
      • ADB Commands
      • APK decompilers
      • AVD - Android Virtual Device
      • Burp Suite Configuration for Android
      • content:// protocol
      • Drozer Tutorial
        • Exploiting Content Providers
      • Exploiting a debuggeable applciation
      • Frida Tutorial
        • Frida Tutorial 1
        • Frida Tutorial 2
        • Frida Tutorial 3
        • Objection Tutorial
      • Google CTF 2018 - Shall We Play a Game?
      • Inspeckage Tutorial
      • Intent Injection
      • Make APK Accept CA Certificate
      • Manual DeObfuscation
      • React Native Application
      • Reversing Native Libraries
      • Smali - Decompiling/[Modifying]/Compiling
      • Spoofing your location in Play Store
      • Webview Attacks
    • iOS Pentesting Checklist
    • iOS Pentesting
      • Basic iOS Testing Operations
      • Burp Suite Configuration for iOS
      • Extracting Entitlements From Compiled Application
      • Frida Configuration in iOS
      • iOS App Extensions
      • iOS Basics
      • iOS Custom URI Handlers / Deeplinks / Custom Schemes
      • iOS Hooking With Objection
      • iOS Protocol Handlers
      • iOS Serialisation and Encoding
      • iOS Testing Environment
      • iOS UIActivity Sharing
      • iOS Universal Links
      • iOS UIPasteboard
      • iOS WebViews
  • Pentesting
    • Pentesting Network
      • Spoofing LLMNR, NBT-NS, mDNS/DNS and WPAD and Relay Attacks
      • Spoofing SSDP and UPnP Devices with EvilSSDP
      • Wifi Attacks
        • Evil Twin EAP-TLS
      • Pentesting IPv6
      • Nmap Summary (ESP)
      • Network Protocols Explained (ESP)
      • IDS and IPS Evasion
      • DHCPv6
    • Pentesting JDWP - Java Debug Wire Protocol
    • Pentesting Printers
      • Accounting bypass
      • Buffer Overflows
      • Credentials Disclosure / Brute-Force
      • Cross-Site Printing
      • Document Processing
      • Factory Defaults
      • File system access
      • Firmware updates
      • Memory Access
      • Physical Damage
      • Software packages
      • Transmission channel
      • Print job manipulation
      • Print Job Retention
      • Scanner and Fax
    • Pentesting SAP
    • Pentesting Kubernetes
      • Enumeration from a Pod
      • Hardening Roles/ClusterRoles
      • Pentesting Kubernetes from the outside
    • 7/tcp/udp - Pentesting Echo
    • 21 - Pentesting FTP
      • FTP Bounce attack - Scan
      • FTP Bounce - Download 2ºFTP file
    • 22 - Pentesting SSH/SFTP
    • 23 - Pentesting Telnet
    • 25,465,587 - Pentesting SMTP/s
      • SMTP - Commands
    • 43 - Pentesting WHOIS
    • 53 - Pentesting DNS
    • 69/UDP TFTP/Bittorrent-tracker
    • 79 - Pentesting Finger
    • 80,443 - Pentesting Web Methodology
      • 403 & 401 Bypasses
      • AEM - Adobe Experience Cloud
      • Apache
      • Artifactory Hacking guide
      • Buckets
        • Firebase Database
        • AWS-S3
      • CGI
      • Code Review Tools
      • Drupal
      • Flask
      • Git
      • Golang
      • GraphQL
      • H2 - Java SQL database
      • IIS - Internet Information Services
      • JBOSS
      • Jenkins
      • JIRA
      • Joomla
      • JSP
      • Laravel
      • Moodle
      • Nginx
      • PHP Tricks (SPA)
        • PHP - Useful Functions & disable_functions/open_basedir bypass
          • disable_functions bypass - php-fpm/FastCGI
          • disable_functions bypass - dl function
          • disable_functions bypass - PHP 7.0-7.4 (*nix only)
          • disable_functions bypass - Imagick <= 3.3.0 PHP >= 5.4 Exploit
          • disable_functions - PHP 5.x Shellshock Exploit
          • disable_functions - PHP 5.2.4 ionCube extension Exploit
          • disable_functions bypass - PHP <= 5.2.9 on windows
          • disable_functions bypass - PHP 5.2.4 and 5.2.5 PHP cURL
          • disable_functions bypass - PHP safe_mode bypass via proc_open() and custom environment Exploit
          • disable_functions bypass - PHP Perl Extension Safe_mode Bypass Exploit
          • disable_functions bypass - PHP 5.2.3 - Win32std ext Protections Bypass
          • disable_functions bypass - PHP 5.2 - FOpen Exploit
          • disable_functions bypass - via mem
          • disable_functions bypass - mod_cgi
          • disable_functions bypass - PHP 4 >= 4.2.0, PHP 5 pcntl_exec
      • Python
      • Special HTTP headers
      • Spring Actuators
      • Symphony
      • Tomcat
      • Uncovering CloudFlare
      • VMWare (ESX, VCenter...)
      • Web API Pentesting
      • WebDav
      • werkzeug
      • Wordpress
      • XSS to RCE Electron Desktop Apps
    • 88tcp/udp - Pentesting Kerberos
      • Harvesting tickets from Windows
      • Harvesting tickets from Linux
    • 110,995 - Pentesting POP
    • 111/TCP/UDP - Pentesting Portmapper
    • 113 - Pentesting Ident
    • 123/udp - Pentesting NTP
    • 135, 593 - Pentesting MSRPC
    • 137,138,139 - Pentesting NetBios
    • 139,445 - Pentesting SMB
    • 143,993 - Pentesting IMAP
    • 161,162,10161,10162/udp - Pentesting SNMP
      • SNMP RCE
    • 194,6667,6660-7000 - Pentesting IRC
    • 264 - Pentesting Check Point FireWall-1
    • 389, 636, 3268, 3269 - Pentesting LDAP
    • 500/udp - Pentesting IPsec/IKE VPN
    • 502 - Pentesting Modbus
    • 512 - Pentesting Rexec
    • 513 - Pentesting Rlogin
    • 514 - Pentesting Rsh
    • 515 - Pentesting Line Printer Daemon (LPD)
    • 548 - Pentesting Apple Filing Protocol (AFP)
    • 554,8554 - Pentesting RTSP
    • 623/UDP/TCP - IPMI
    • 631 - Internet Printing Protocol(IPP)
    • 873 - Pentesting Rsync
    • 1026 - Pentesting Rusersd
    • 1080 - Pentesting Socks
    • 1098/1099/1050 - Pentesting Java RMI - RMI-IIOP
    • 1433 - Pentesting MSSQL - Microsoft SQL Server
    • 1521,1522-1529 - Pentesting Oracle TNS Listener
      • Oracle Pentesting requirements installation
      • TNS Poison
      • Remote stealth pass brute force
      • Oracle RCE & more
    • 1723 - Pentesting PPTP
    • 1883 - Pentesting MQTT (Mosquitto)
    • 2049 - Pentesting NFS Service
    • 2301,2381 - Pentesting Compaq/HP Insight Manager
    • 2375, 2376 Pentesting Docker
    • 3128 - Pentesting Squid
    • 3260 - Pentesting ISCSI
    • 3299 - Pentesting SAPRouter
    • 3306 - Pentesting Mysql
    • 3389 - Pentesting RDP
    • 3632 - Pentesting distcc
    • 3690 - Pentesting Subversion (svn server)
    • 4369 - Pentesting Erlang Port Mapper Daemon (epmd)
    • 5000 - Pentesting Docker Registry
    • 5353/UDP Multicast DNS (mDNS)
    • 5432,5433 - Pentesting Postgresql
    • 5601 - Pentesting Kibana
    • 5671,5672 - Pentesting AMQP
    • 5800,5801,5900,5901 - Pentesting VNC
    • 5984,6984 - Pentesting CouchDB
    • 5985,5986 - Pentesting WinRM
    • 6000 - Pentesting X11
    • 6379 - Pentesting Redis
    • 8009 - Pentesting Apache JServ Protocol (AJP)
    • 8089 - Splunkd
    • 9000 - Pentesting FastCGI
    • 9001 - Pentesting HSQLDB
    • 9042/9160 - Pentesting Cassandra
    • 9100 - Pentesting Raw Printing (JetDirect, AppSocket, PDL-datastream)
    • 9200 - Pentesting Elasticsearch
    • 10000 - Pentesting Network Data Management Protocol (ndmp)
    • 11211 - Pentesting Memcache
    • 15672 - Pentesting RabbitMQ Management
    • 27017,27018 - Pentesting MongoDB
    • 44818/UDP/TCP - Pentesting EthernetIP
    • 47808/udp - Pentesting BACNet
    • 50030,50060,50070,50075,50090 - Pentesting Hadoop
  • Pentesting Web
    • Web Vulnerabilities Methodology
    • Reflecting Techniques - PoCs and Polygloths CheatSheet
      • Web Vulns List
    • 2FA/OTP Bypass
    • Abusing hop-by-hop headers
    • Bypass Payment Process
    • Captcha Bypass
    • Cache Poisoning and Cache Deception
    • Clickjacking
    • Client Side Template Injection (CSTI)
    • Command Injection
    • Content Security Policy (CSP) Bypass
    • Cookies Hacking
    • CORS - Misconfigurations & Bypass
    • CRLF (%0D%0A) Injection
    • Cross-site WebSocket hijacking (CSWSH)
    • CSRF (Cross Site Request Forgery)
    • Dangling Markup - HTML scriptless injection
    • Deserialization
      • NodeJS - __proto__ & prototype Pollution
      • Java JSF ViewState (.faces) Deserialization
      • Java DNS Deserialization, GadgetProbe and Java Deserialization Scanner
      • Basic Java Deserialization (ObjectInputStream, readObject)
      • CommonsCollection1 Payload - Java Transformers to Rutime exec() and Thread Sleep
      • Basic .Net deserialization (ObjectDataProvider gadget, ExpandedWrapper, and Json.Net)
      • Exploiting __VIEWSTATE knowing the secrets
      • Exploiting __VIEWSTATE without knowing the secrets
    • Domain/Subdomain takeover
    • Email Header Injection
    • File Inclusion/Path traversal
      • phar:// deserialization
    • File Upload
      • PDF Upload - XXE and CORS bypass
    • Formula Injection
    • HTTP Request Smuggling / HTTP Desync Attack
    • H2C Smuggling
    • IDOR
    • JWT Vulnerabilities (Json Web Tokens)
    • NoSQL injection
    • LDAP Injection
    • Login Bypass
      • Login bypass List
    • OAuth to Account takeover
    • Open Redirect
    • Parameter Pollution
    • PostMessage Vulnerabilities
    • Race Condition
    • Rate Limit Bypass
    • Registration Vulnerabilities
    • Regular expression Denial of Service - ReDoS
    • Reset/Forgotten Password Bypass
    • SAML Attacks
      • SAML Basics
    • Server Side Inclusion/Edge Side Inclusion Injection
    • SQL Injection
      • MSSQL Injection
      • Oracle injection
      • PostgreSQL injection
        • dblink/lo_import data exfiltration
        • PL/pgSQL Password Bruteforce
        • Network - Privesc, Port Scanner and NTLM chanllenge response disclosure
        • Big Binary Files Upload (PostgreSQL)
        • RCE with PostgreSQL Extensions
      • MySQL injection
        • Mysql SSRF
      • SQLMap - Cheetsheat
        • Second Order Injection - SQLMap
    • SSRF (Server Side Request Forgery)
    • SSTI (Server Side Template Injection)
      • EL - Expression Language
    • Reverse Tab Nabbing
    • Unicode Normalization vulnerability
    • Web Tool - WFuzz
    • XPATH injection
    • XSLT Server Side Injection (Extensible Stylesheet Languaje Transformations)
    • XXE - XEE - XML External Entity
    • XSS (Cross Site Scripting)
      • PDF Injection
      • DOM XSS
      • Server Side XSS (Dynamic PDF)
      • XSS Tools
    • XSSI (Cross-Site Script Inclusion)
    • XS-Search
  • Forensics
    • Basic Forensic Methodology
      • Baseline Monitoring
      • Anti-Forensic Techniques
      • Docker Forensics
      • Image Adquisition & Mount
      • Linux Forensics
      • Malware Analysis
      • Memory dump analysis
        • Volatility - CheatSheet
      • Partitions/File Systems/Carving
        • EXT
        • File/Data Carving & Recovery Tools
        • NTFS
      • Pcap Inspection
        • DNSCat pcap analysis
        • USB Keystrokes
        • Wifi Pcap Analysis
        • Wireshark tricks
      • Specific Software/File-Type Tricks
        • .pyc
        • Browser Artifacts
        • Desofuscation vbs (cscript.exe)
        • Local Cloud Storage
        • Office file analysis
        • PDF File analysis
        • PNG tricks
        • Video and Audio file analysis
        • ZIPs tricks
      • Windows Artifacts
        • Windows Processes
        • Interesting Windows Registry Keys
  • A.I. Exploiting
    • BRA.I.NSMASHER Presentation
      • Basic Bruteforcer
      • Basic Captcha Breaker
      • BIM Bruteforcer
      • Hybrid Malware Classifier Part 1
  • Blockchain
    • Blockchain & Crypto Currencies
  • Courses and Certifications Reviews
    • INE Courses and eLearnSecurity Certifications Reviews
  • Cloud Security
    • Cloud security review
    • AWS Security
  • Physical attacks
    • Physical Attacks
    • Escaping from KIOSKs
      • Show file extensions
  • Reversing
    • Reversing Tools & Basic Methods
      • Angr
        • Angr - Examples
      • Z3 - Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT)
      • Cheat Engine
      • Blobrunner
    • Common API used in Malware
    • Cryptographic/Compression Algorithms
      • Unpacking binaries
    • Word Macros
  • Exploiting
    • Linux Exploiting (Basic) (SPA)
      • Format Strings Template
      • ROP - call sys_execve
      • ROP - Leaking LIBC address
        • ROP - Leaking LIBC template
      • Bypassing Canary & PIE
      • Ret2Lib
      • Fusion
    • Exploiting Tools
      • PwnTools
    • Windows Exploiting (Basic Guide - OSCP lvl)
  • Cryptography
    • Certificates
    • Cipher Block Chaining CBC-MAC
    • Crypto CTFs Tricks
    • Electronic Code Book (ECB)
    • Hash Length Extension Attack
    • Padding Oracle
    • RC4 - Encrypt&Decrypt
  • BACKDOORS
    • Merlin
    • Empire
    • Salseo
    • ICMPsh
  • Stego
    • Stego Tricks
    • Esoteric languages
  • MISC
    • Basic Python
      • venv
      • Bypass Python sandboxes
      • Magic Methods
      • Web Requests
      • Bruteforce hash (few chars)
    • Other Big References
  • TODO
    • More Tools
    • MISC
    • Pentesting DNS
  • Burp Suite
  • Other Web Tricks
  • Interesting HTTP
  • Emails Vulnerabilities
  • Android Forensics
  • TR-069
  • 6881/udp - Pentesting BitTorrent
  • CTF Write-ups
    • challenge-0521.intigriti.io
    • Try Hack Me
      • hc0n Christmas CTF - 2019
      • Pickle Rick
  • 1911 - Pentesting fox
  • Online Platforms with API
  • Stealing Sensitive Information Disclosure from a Web
  • Post Exploitation
Powered by GitBook
On this page
  • WDigest
  • LSA Protection
  • Bypass
  • Credential Guard
  • RDP RestrictedAdmin Mode
  • Cached Credentials
  • Protected Users

Was this helpful?

  1. Windows
  2. Stealing Credentials

Credentials Protections

PreviousStealing CredentialsNextMimikatz

Last updated 3 years ago

Was this helpful?

WDigest

protocol was introduced in Windows XP and was designed to be used with HTTP Protocol for authentication. Microsoft has this protocol enabled by default in multiple versions of Windows (Windows XP — Windows 8.0 and Windows Server 2003 — Windows Server 2012) which means that plain-text passwords are stored in the LSASS (Local Security Authority Subsystem Service). Mimikatz can interact with the LSASS allowing an attacker to retrieve these credentials through the following command:

sekurlsa::wdigest

This behaviour can be deactivated/activated setting to 1 the value of UseLogonCredential and Negotiate in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\WDigest. If these registry keys don't exist or the value is "0", then WDigest will be deactivated.

reg query HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\WDigest /v UseLogonCredential

LSA Protection

Microsoft in Windows 8.1 and later has provided additional protection for the LSA to prevent untrusted processes from being able to read its memory or to inject code. This will prevent regular mimikatz.exe sekurlsa:logonpasswords for working properly. To activate this protection you need to set the value RunAsPPL in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\LSA to 1.

reg query HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\LSA /v RunAsPPL

Bypass

It is possible to bypass this protection using Mimikatz driver mimidrv.sys:

Credential Guard

In this case Mimikatz cannot do much to bypass this and extract the hashes from LSASS. But you could always add your custom SSP and capture the credentials when a user tries to login in clear-text. More information about **[SSP and how to do this here**](../active-directory-methodology/custom-ssp.md).

reg query HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\LSA /v LsaCfgFlags

RDP RestrictedAdmin Mode

When you connect to a remote computer using RDP, your credentials are stored on the remote computer that you RDP into. Usually you are using a powerful account to connect to remote servers, and having your credentials stored on all these computers is a security threat indeed.

Using Restricted Admin mode for RDP, when you connect to a remote computer using the command, mstsc.exe /RestrictedAdmin, you will be authenticated to the remote computer, but your credentials will not be stored on that remote computer, as they would have been in the past. This means that if a malware or even a malicious user is active on that remote server, your credentials will not be available on that remote desktop server for the malware to attack.

Note that as your credentials are not being saved on the RDP session if try to access network resources your credentials won't be used. The machine identity will be used instead.

Cached Credentials

Domain credentials are used by operating system components and are authenticated by the Local Security Authority (LSA). Typically, domain credentials are established for a user when a registered security package authenticates the user's logon data. This registered security package may be the Kerberos protocol or NTLM.

Windows stores the last ten domain login credentials in the event that the domain controller goes offline. If the domain controller goes offline, a user will still be able to log into their computer. This feature is mainly for laptop users that do not regularly log into their company’s domain. The number of credentials that the computer stores can be controlled by the following registry key, or via group policy:

reg query "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS NT\CURRENTVERSION\WINLOGON" /v CACHEDLOGONSCOUNT

The credentials are hidden from normal users, even administrator accounts. The SYSTEM user is the only user that has privileges to view these credentials. In order for an administrator to view these credentials in the registry they must access the registry as a SYSTEM user. The Cached credentials are stored in the registry at the following registry location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY\Cache

Protected Users

When the signed in user is a member of the Protected Users group the following protections are applied:

  • Credential delegation (CredSSP) will not cache the user's plain text credentials even when the Allow delegating default credentials Group Policy setting is enabled.

  • Beginning with Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Digest will not cache the user's plain text credentials even when Windows Digest is enabled.

  • NTLM will not cache the user's plain text credentials or NT one-way function (NTOWF).

  • Kerberos will no longer create DES or RC4 keys. Also it will not cache the user's plain text credentials or long-term keys after the initial TGT is acquired.

  • A cached verifier is not created at sign-in or unlock, so offline sign-in is no longer supported.

Windows Server 2003 RTM

Windows Server 2003 SP1+

Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2016

Account Operators

Account Operators

Account Operators

Account Operators

Administrator

Administrator

Administrator

Administrator

Administrators

Administrators

Administrators

Administrators

Backup Operators

Backup Operators

Backup Operators

Backup Operators

Cert Publishers

Domain Admins

Domain Admins

Domain Admins

Domain Admins

Domain Controllers

Domain Controllers

Domain Controllers

Domain Controllers

Enterprise Admins

Enterprise Admins

Enterprise Admins

Enterprise Admins

Enterprise Key Admins

Key Admins

Krbtgt

Krbtgt

Krbtgt

Krbtgt

Print Operators

Print Operators

Print Operators

Print Operators

Read-only Domain Controllers

Read-only Domain Controllers

Replicator

Replicator

Replicator

Replicator

Schema Admins

Schema Admins

Schema Admins

Schema Admins

Server Operators

Server Operators

Server Operators

Server Operators

Credential Guard is a new feature in Windows 10 (Enterprise and Education edition) that helps to protect your credentials on a machine from threats such as pass the hash. This works through a technology called Virtual Secure Mode (VSM) which utilizes virtualization extensions of the CPU (but is not an actual virtual machine) to provide protection to areas of memory (you may hear this referred to as Virtualization Based Security or VBS). VSM creates a separate "bubble" for key processes that are isolated from the regular operating system processes, even the kernel and only specific trusted processes may communicate to the processes (known as trustlets) in VSM. This means a process in the main OS cannot read the memory from VSM, even kernel processes. The Local Security Authority (LSA) is one of the trustlets in VSM in addition to the standard LSASS process that still runs in the main OS to ensure support with existing processes but is really just acting as a proxy or stub to communicate with the version in VSM ensuring actual credentials run on the version in VSM and are therefore protected from attack. Credential Guard must be turned on and deployed in your organization as it is not enabled by default. From More information and a PS1 script to enable Credential Guard .

Credentials Guard could be enable in different ways. To check if it was enabled using the registry you could check the value of the key LsaCfgFlags in HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\LSA. If the value is "1" the it is active with UEFI lock, if "2" is active without lock and if "0" it's not enabled. This is not enough to enable Credentials Guard (but it's a strong indicator). More information and a PS1 script to enable Credential Guard .

With Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2, new security features were introduced. One of those security features is the Restricted Admin mode for RDP. This new security feature is introduced to mitigate the risk of attacks.

From .

Extracting from Mimikatz: lsadump::cache From .

After the user account is added to the Protected Users group, protection will begin when the user signs in to the device. From .

Table from .

https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-10/what-credential-guard
can be found here
can be found here
pass the hash
here
here
here
here
WDigest