Applied Cybernetics Group
T1552.001 — Credentials In Files
- Technique
T1552.001- Tactics
- Credential Access
- MISP citations
- 0
- KEV CVEs mapped
- 3
- Community rules
- 24
- thrunt rules
- 0
- Upstream
- https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1552/001
MITRE description
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](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1003).(Citation: CG 2014) Passwords may also be obtained from Group Policy Preferences stored on the Windows Domain Controller.(Citation: SRD GPP) In cloud and/or containerized environments, authenticated user and service account credentials are often stored in local configuration and credential files.(Citation: Unit 42 Hildegard Malware) They may also be found as parameters to deployment commands in container logs.(Citation: Unit 42 Unsecured Docker Daemons) 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.(Citation: Specter Ops - Cloud Credential Storage)
KEV CVEs mapped to this technique
Per MITRE CTID's hand-curated KEV→ATT&CK mappings — these are the actively-exploited vulnerabilities behind this technique's KEV signal.
Detection coverage
SigmaHQ community rules
- Potential Russian APT Credential Theft Activity (emerging-threats)
- Shai-Hulud Malicious GitHub Workflow Creation (emerging-threats)
- Unattend.XML File Access Attempt (threat-hunting)
- Potential Password Reconnaissance Via Findstr.EXE (threat-hunting)
- Azure Keyvault Key Modified or Deleted (core)
- Azure Key Vault Modified or Deleted (core)
- Azure Keyvault Secrets Modified or Deleted (core)
- Credentials In Files - Linux (core)
- Copy Passwd Or Shadow From TMP Path (core)
- PUA - TruffleHog Execution - Linux (core)
- Linux Recon Indicators (core)
- Hidden Flag Set On File/Directory Via Chflags - MacOS (core)
- Credentials In Files (core)
- Cisco Collect Data (core)
- HackTool - Typical HiveNightmare SAM File Export (core)
- HackTool - WinPwn Execution - ScriptBlock (core)
- Extracting Information with PowerShell (core)
- Remote File Download Via Findstr.EXE (core)
- Insensitive Subfolder Search Via Findstr.EXE (core)
- HackTool - WinPwn Execution (core)
- Potential PowerShell Console History Access Attempt via History File (core)
- PUA - TruffleHog Execution (core)
- Automated Collection Command Prompt (core)
- Potentially Suspicious JWT Token Search Via CLI (core)