IMPORTANT: No additional bug fixes or documentation updates will be released for this version. For the latest information, see the current release documentation.

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Account configured with never Expiring Password

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Account configured with never Expiring Password

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Detects the creation and modification of an account with the "Don’t Expire Password" option Enabled. Attackers can abuse this misconfiguration to persist in the domain and maintain long-term access using compromised accounts with this property.

Rule type: query

Rule indices:

winlogbeat-*
logs-system.*

Severity: medium

Risk score: 47

Runs every: 5 minutes

Searches indices from: now-9m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time)

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

References:

Tags:

Elastic
Host
Windows
Threat Detection
Persistence
Active Directory

Version: 1

Added (Elastic Stack release): 8.2.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Potential false positives

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User accounts can be used as service accounts and have their password set never to expire. This is a bad security practice that exposes the account to Credential Access attacks. For cases in which user accounts cannot be avoided, Microsoft provides the Group Managed Service Accounts (gMSA) feature, which ensures that the account password is robust and changed regularly and automatically.

Rule query

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event.action:"modified-user-account" and event.code:"4738" and
message:"'Don't Expire Password' - Enabled" and not user.id:"S-1-5-18"

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Persistence
- ID: TA0003
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0003/
Technique:
- Name: Account Manipulation
- ID: T1098
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1098/

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