Active Directory (AD) is a critical component of many organizations’ IT infrastructure. It provides a centralized repository for user and computer accounts, as well as a variety of other services. As a result, AD is a common target for attackers and there has been no shortage of AD attacks in the headlines. In this blog post, we will dive into the depths of LLMNR and NBT-NS poisoning, understanding their mechanisms, implications, and ways to mitigate the risks they pose.

Administrators have several options for managing the properties of Active Directory users. The Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC) console is convenient for making a few basic changes, such as modifying a user’s description or office location. For more functionality, however, consider using PowerShell. This article illustrates how you can address many common use cases with the PowerShell cmdlet Set-ADUser.

The PowerShell cmdlet Get-ChildItem obtains objects from one or more specified locations, such as a file system directory, registry hive or certificate store. These locations are exposed by PowerShell providers. If the location is a container, the cmdlet gets the child items in that container. The -Recurse parameter can be used to get items from all child containers, while the -Depth parameter can be used to limit how many levels to recurse to.

Once an adversary has compromised privileged credentials, for example, by exploiting an attack path, they want to make sure they don’t lose their foothold in the domain. That is, even if the accounts they have compromised are disabled or have their passwords reset, they want to be able to easily regain Domain Admin rights. One way to achieve this persistence is to exploit features of Active Directory that are intended to keep privileged accounts protected: AdminSDHolder and SDProp.

The Exchange Administration Center (EAC) is an easy-to-use interface for managing Exchange. However, it enable you to change only a handful of mailbox settings, and you can modify only one mailbox at a time. For more comprehensive management, you turn to Microsoft PowerShell (or, to be exact, Exchange Management Shell).

A distribution group is a mail-enabled Active Directory group used to send a message to a group of recipients who are members of that group. Administrators can manage some of the properties and permissions of distribution groups using the Exchange Administration Center (formerly Exchange Management Console). However, this article explains how to perform many common distribution group management tasks using the Exchange Management Shell cmdlets Set-DistributionGroup and Add-DistributionGroupMember.

Active Directory Administrative Center (ADAC) is a Microsoft tool that admins can use to manage objects in Active Directory. ADAC is available in Windows Server 2008 R2 and higher. ADAC is a graphical interface on top of Windows PowerShell. This means that every time an action is carried out through ADAC, Windows PowerShell cmdlets are executed in the background.

When it comes to securing Active Directory, the first place to start is usually getting a handle on what currently exists - getting a ‘lay of the land,’ so to speak. In Active Directory, the admincount attribute can play a role in identifying privileged accounts. It’s not without its faults, however. In this blog, we will explore the admincount attribute in more detail and potential uses it may have for determining which accounts may have or had privileged access.

The Get-ADComputer cmdlet retrieves a single computer or several computers from Active Directory.