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MITRE ATT&CK® Technique

T1087.002: Domain Account

Adversaries may attempt to get a listing of domain accounts. This information can help adversaries determine which domain accounts exist to aid in follow-on behavior such as targeting specific accounts which possess particular privileges.

Commands such as net user /domain and net group /domain of the Net utility, dscacheutil -q group on macOS, and ldapsearch on Linux can list domain users and groups. PowerShell cmdlets including Get-ADUser and Get-ADGroupMember may enumerate members of Active Directory groups.[1]

EnterpriseT1087.002Sub-techniqueObject v1.2 Modified
Glexia's Take

Analyst context for executives and security teams

Analyst confidence High

Domain Account discovery is an early warning behavior: an intruder who can list domain users and groups can identify privileged, useful, or targetable accounts for later activity. For leaders, the value is not that enumeration is always malicious—administrators do it too—but that unexpected domain account lookups can reveal whether identity monitoring, endpoint logging, and SOC triage are ready to catch an actor mapping the organization before escalation or lateral movement.

Executive priority

Prioritize this as an identity and resilience control-validation issue. Because the technique is tied to discovery across Linux, macOS, and Windows and is used by many ATT&CK-tracked groups and campaigns, executives should ask whether the organization can distinguish normal directory administration from unusual account enumeration, especially around privileged groups. The practical decision point is whether current logging, alerting, and incident response playbooks can produce evidence for audit, investigation, and containment before attackers use discovered accounts for follow-on activity.

Technical view

This is ATT&CK T1087.002, a sub-technique of Account Discovery under the Discovery tactic. The official object lists Windows Net utility examples such as domain user/group queries, macOS group lookup via dscacheutil, Linux LDAP searches, and PowerShell Active Directory cmdlets such as Get-ADUser and Get-ADGroupMember. ATT&CK provides no native detection text for this object, but relationship context includes DET0129, Domain Account Enumeration Across Platforms, as a detection strategy, and M1028, Operating System Configuration, as a mitigation. SOC teams should validate cross-platform visibility into directory queries, process execution, PowerShell activity, LDAP-related activity, and domain controller or identity-provider logs where applicable.

Likely telemetry

  • Endpoint process creation and command-line telemetry on Windows, Linux, and macOS
  • PowerShell execution logs and script/module activity where Active Directory cmdlets may be used
  • Windows security and directory service events from domain controllers where available
  • LDAP query and authentication logs from directory infrastructure
  • macOS command execution telemetry for directory/group lookup activity

Detection direction

  • Validate whether DET0129 or equivalent analytics are enabled and mapped to T1087.002 across Windows, Linux, and macOS assets.
  • Tune detections around unusual volume, timing, source host, user context, or breadth of domain user/group enumeration rather than alerting on every administrative lookup.
  • Give higher review priority to enumeration of privileged groups, broad domain-wide listings, or discovery from workstations and servers that do not normally perform identity administration.
  • Correlate account enumeration with surrounding discovery behavior under parent technique T1087 and with later authentication, privilege, or lateral movement signals when available.
  • Account for false positives from IT administration, identity governance tooling, vulnerability assessment, help desk workflows, and legitimate directory synchronization processes.

Mitigation priorities

  • Harden operating system and directory-related configurations consistent with M1028, focusing first on reducing unnecessary services and default exposures that make discovery easier.
  • Limit who can perform broad directory queries where business processes allow, with special attention to privileged group visibility and administrative tooling use.
  • Standardize administrative workflows so legitimate domain enumeration has known source systems, accounts, and change windows that detections can safely baseline.
  • Ensure identity logging and endpoint telemetry are retained long enough to support incident response and compliance evidence needs.
  • Review privileged group membership and account hygiene so that, if enumeration occurs, attackers gain less useful targeting information from stale or excessive privileges.
Analyst notes and limits

The relationship set shows this behavior used by multiple ATT&CK campaigns and groups, including Operation CuckooBees, Operation Wocao, Operation Dream Job, the SolarWinds Compromise, and numerous threat groups. That breadth supports treating the behavior as a common discovery pattern rather than as a single-actor indicator. The best defensive value comes from combining identity context, endpoint command evidence, and local baselines for legitimate administration.

MITRE does not provide official detection text for this object, and the supplied relationship to DET0129 does not include detailed detection logic. The supplied data supports the platforms Linux, macOS, and Windows, but local directory architecture, logging configuration, and administrative practices determine what can actually be detected. This take does not establish current exploitation, attribution, or guaranteed detection coverage.

Official MITRE ATT&CK definition

Domain Account

Adversaries may attempt to get a listing of domain accounts. This information can help adversaries determine which domain accounts exist to aid in follow-on behavior such as targeting specific accounts which possess particular privileges.

Commands such as net user /domain and net group /domain of the Net utility, dscacheutil -q group on macOS, and ldapsearch on Linux can list domain users and groups. PowerShell cmdlets including Get-ADUser and Get-ADGroupMember may enumerate members of Active Directory groups.[1]

View the same entry on attack.mitre.org (MITRE-hosted reference; in-page links above use the Glexia ATT&CK library.)

Glexia analysis

How security teams should use this page

Treat this object as behavior context, not an attribution claim. Validate the related groups, software, data sources, and mitigations against official ATT&CK relationships and your own telemetry before making control-coverage decisions.

ATT&CK relationship table

Related techniques

This mirrors the MITRE pattern of making group, software, campaign, and technique relationships scannable. Relationship notes come from mirrored ATT&CK relationship text when available.

1 rows
Domain ID Name Relationship / procedure
Enterprise T1087 Account Discovery This object subtechnique of Account Discovery.
Associated objects

Groups, software, and campaigns

Group Enterprise

G1016: FIN13

FIN13 is a financially motivated cyber threat group that has targeted the financial, retail, and hospitality industries in Mexico and Latin America, as early as 2016. FIN13 achieves its objectives by stealing intellectual property, financial data, mergers and acquisition information, or PII.[1][2]

Group Enterprise

G0037: FIN6

FIN6 is a cyber crime group that has stolen payment card data and sold it for profit on underground marketplaces. This group has aggressively targeted and compromised point of sale (PoS) systems in the hospitality and retail sectors.[1][2]

Group Enterprise

G1054: MirrorFace

MirrorFace is a People's Republic of China (PRC)-aligned cyberespionage actor believed to be a subgroup under the menuPass umbrella based on targeting, tools, and infrastructure overlaps. MirrorFace has been active since at least 2019, at first exclusively targeting Japanese organizations across the media, defense, diplomatic, financial, manufacturing, and academic sectors. Subsequent MirrorFace operations included targets in Central Europe and featured use of LODEINFO, HiddenFace, and UPPERCUT malware.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

Group Enterprise

G0096: APT41

APT41 is a threat group that researchers have assessed as Chinese state-sponsored espionage group that also conducts financially-motivated operations. Active since at least 2012, APT41 has been observed targeting various industries, including but not limited to healthcare, telecom, technology, finance, education, retail and video game industries in 14 countries.[1] Notable behaviors include using a wide range of malware and tools to complete mission objectives. APT41 overlaps at least partially with public reporting on groups including BARIUM and Winnti Group.[2][3]

Group Enterprise

G0004: Ke3chang

Ke3chang is a threat group attributed to actors operating out of China. Ke3chang has targeted oil, government, diplomatic, military, and NGOs in Central and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, and North America since at least 2010.[1][2][3][4]

Group Enterprise

G1015: Scattered Spider

Scattered Spider is a native English-speaking cybercriminal group active since at least 2022. [1] [2] The group initially targeted customer relationship management (CRM) providers, business process outsourcing (BPO) firms, and telecommunications and technology companies before expanding in 2023 to gaming, hospitality, retail, managed service provider (MSP), manufacturing, and financial sectors. [2] Scattered Spider relies heavily on social engineering, including impersonating IT and help-desk staff, to gain initial access, bypass multi-factor authentication (MFA), and compromise enterprise networks. The group has adapted its tooling to evade endpoint detection and response (EDR) defenses and used ransomware for financial gain. [3] [4] [5] Scattered Spider had expanded into hybrid cloud and identity environments, using help-desk impersonation and MFA bypass to obtain administrator access in Okta, AWS, and Office 365. [6]

Group Enterprise

G0129: Mustang Panda

Mustang Panda is a China-based cyber espionage threat actor that has been conducting operations since at least 2012. Mustang Panda has been known to use tailored phishing lures and decoy documents to deliver malicious payloads. Mustang Panda has targeted government, diplomatic, and non-governmental organizations, including think tanks, religious institutions, and research entities, across the United States, Europe, and Asia, with notable activity in Russia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Vietnam. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]

Group Enterprise

G0069: MuddyWater

MuddyWater is a cyber espionage group assessed to be a subordinate element within Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).[1] Since at least 2017, MuddyWater has targeted a range of government and private organizations across sectors, including telecommunications, local government, finance, defense, and oil and natural gas organizations, in the Middle East (specifically the UAE and Saudi Arabia), Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. MuddyWater has reused domains dating back to October 2025, and has a preference for NameCheap and Hosterdaddy Private Limited (AS136557). In late 2025 and early 2026, MuddyWater used commercial satellite internet (i.e., Starlink) for command and control (C2) communication. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]

Group Enterprise

G1004: LAPSUS$

LAPSUS$ is cyber criminal threat group that has been active since at least mid-2021. LAPSUS$ specializes in large-scale social engineering and extortion operations, including destructive attacks without the use of ransomware. The group has targeted organizations globally, including in the government, manufacturing, higher education, energy, healthcare, technology, telecommunications, and media sectors.[1][2][3]

Group Enterprise

G0114: Chimera

Chimera is a suspected China-based threat group that has been active since at least 2018 targeting the semiconductor industry in Taiwan as well as data from the airline industry.[1][2]

Tool Enterprise

S0039: Net

The Net utility is a component of the Windows operating system. It is used in command-line operations for control of users, groups, services, and network connections. [1]

Net has a great deal of functionality, [2] much of which is useful for an adversary, such as gathering system and network information for Discovery, moving laterally through SMB/Windows Admin Shares using net use commands, and interacting with services. The net1.exe utility is executed for certain functionality when net.exe is run and can be used directly in commands such as net1 user.

Windows
Malware Enterprise

S0534: Bazar

Bazar is a downloader and backdoor that has been used since at least April 2020, with infections primarily against professional services, healthcare, manufacturing, IT, logistics and travel companies across the US and Europe. Bazar reportedly has ties to TrickBot campaigns and can be used to deploy additional malware, including ransomware, and to steal sensitive data.[1]

Windows
Tool Enterprise

S0488: CrackMapExec

CrackMapExec, or CME, is a post-exploitation tool developed in Python and designed for penetration testing against networks. CrackMapExec collects Active Directory information to conduct lateral movement through targeted networks.[1]

Windows
Malware Enterprise

S1146: MgBot

MgBot is a modular malware framework exclusively associated with Daggerfly operations since at least 2012. MgBot was developed in C++ and features a module design with multiple available plugins that have been under active development through 2024.[1][2][3]

Windows
Malware Enterprise

S0018: Sykipot

Sykipot is malware that has been used in spearphishing campaigns since approximately 2007 against victims primarily in the US. One variant of Sykipot hijacks smart cards on victims. [1] The group using this malware has also been referred to as Sykipot. [2]

Windows
Tool Enterprise

S0105: dsquery

dsquery is a command-line utility that can be used to query Active Directory for information from a system within a domain. [1] It is typically installed only on Windows Server versions but can be installed on non-server variants through the Microsoft-provided Remote Server Administration Tools bundle.

Windows
Malware Enterprise

S1068: BlackCat

BlackCat is ransomware written in Rust that has been offered via the Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) model. First observed November 2021, BlackCat has been used to target multiple sectors and organizations in various countries and regions in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Europe.[1][2][3]

LinuxWindows
Malware Enterprise

S9035: LAMEHUG

LAMEHUG is Python-based information stealer first identified in July 2025 by Ukraine's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-UA) in phishing emails targeting Ukrainian government officials. LAMEHUG is the first known malware to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) directly into its attack workflow by querying large language models (LLMs) hosted on Hugging Face to dynamically generate reconnaissance, data theft, and system manipulation commands in real time. LAMEHUG has been attributed to APT28. [1][2][3]

Windows
Campaign Enterprise

C0024: SolarWinds Compromise

The SolarWinds Compromise was a sophisticated supply chain cyber operation conducted by APT29 that was discovered in mid-December 2020. APT29 used customized malware to inject malicious code into the SolarWinds Orion software build process that was later distributed through a normal software update; they also used password spraying, token theft, API abuse, spear phishing, and other supply chain attacks to compromise user accounts and leverage their associated access. Victims of this campaign included government, consulting, technology, telecom, and other organizations in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. This activity has been labled the StellarParticle campaign in industry reporting.[1] Industry reporting also initially referred to the actors involved in this campaign as UNC2452, NOBELIUM, Dark Halo, and SolarStorm.[2][3][4][5][1][6][7][8]

In April 2021, the US and UK governments attributed the SolarWinds Compromise to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR); public statements included citations to APT29, Cozy Bear, and The Dukes.[9][10][11] The US government assessed that of the approximately 18,000 affected public and private sector customers of Solar Winds’ Orion product, a much smaller number were compromised by follow-on APT29 activity on their systems.[12]

Campaign Enterprise

C0012: Operation CuckooBees

Operation CuckooBees was a cyber espionage campaign targeting technology and manufacturing companies in East Asia, Western Europe, and North America since at least 2019. Security researchers noted the goal of Operation CuckooBees, which was still ongoing as of May 2022, was likely the theft of proprietary information, research and development documents, source code, and blueprints for various technologies. Researchers assessed Operation CuckooBees was conducted by actors affiliated with Winnti Group, APT41, and BARIUM.[1]

Campaign Enterprise

C0014: Operation Wocao

Operation Wocao was a cyber espionage campaign that targeted organizations around the world, including in Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The suspected China-based actors compromised government organizations and managed service providers, as well as aviation, construction, energy, finance, health care, insurance, offshore engineering, software development, and transportation companies.[1]

Security researchers assessed the Operation Wocao actors used similar TTPs and tools as APT20, suggesting a possible overlap. Operation Wocao was named after an observed command line entry by one of the threat actors, possibly out of frustration from losing webshell access.[1]

Campaign Enterprise

C0022: Operation Dream Job

Operation Dream Job was a cyber espionage operation likely conducted by Lazarus Group that targeted the defense, aerospace, government, and other sectors in the United States, Israel, Australia, Russia, and India. In at least one case, the cyber actors tried to monetize their network access to conduct a business email compromise (BEC) operation. In 2020, security researchers noted overlapping TTPs, to include fake job lures and code similarities, between Operation Dream Job, Operation North Star, and Operation Interception; by 2022 security researchers described Operation Dream Job as an umbrella term covering both Operation Interception and Operation North Star.[1][2][3][4]

Relationship explorer

All related ATT&CK context

Mitigations

Mitigation direction

Change history

Object version and sync metadata

The fields below describe the current mirrored snapshot. When Glexia retains multiple ATT&CK source imports, you can open the table to compare the same object across releases (hashes and MITRE timestamps). For MITRE’s own release notes and roadmap, see ATT&CK resources — Updates .

ATT&CK release
19.1
Object version
1.2
Created
Modified
Raw hash
163e928d5ce6067b...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases (1)
Release Bundle imported Object version Modified Status Raw hash
19.1 1.2 Current bundle 163e928d5ce6…
Raw source

Mirrored ATT&CK source object

The raw object is retained through the mirrored ATT&CK source bundle and object hash. The raw endpoint returns the exact object from the mirrored bundle when available.

Source references

External references and citations

MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.

  1. [1]
    CrowdStrike StellarParticle January 2022

    CrowdStrike. (2022, January 27). Early Bird Catches the Wormhole: Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign. Retrieved February 7, 2022.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    mitre-attack T1087.002
    Open source URL
Source and licensing

Source: MITRE ATT&CK®. © 2026 The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation. MITRE ATT&CK and ATT&CK are registered trademarks of The MITRE Corporation. Glexia is not affiliated with or endorsed by MITRE.