T1136: Create Account
Adversaries may create an account to maintain access to victim systems.[1] With a sufficient level of access, creating such accounts may be used to establish secondary credentialed access that do not require persistent remote access tools to be deployed on the system.
Accounts may be created on the local system or within a domain or cloud tenant. In cloud environments, adversaries may create accounts that only have access to specific services, which can reduce the chance of detection.
Security context for executives and security teams
T1136: Create Account describes Adversaries may create an account to maintain access to victim systems.(Citation: Symantec WastedLocker June 2020) With a sufficient level of access, creating such accounts may be used to establish secondary credentialed access that do not require persistent remote access tools to be deployed on the system. Accounts may be created on the local system or within a domain or cloud tenant. In cloud environments, adversaries may create accounts that only have access to specific services, which can reduce the chance of d...
Executive priority
T1136: Create Account is an official MITRE ATT&CK technique. Glexia treats it as defensive behavior context for prioritizing monitoring, control validation, and response planning without using the object by itself as an attribution claim.
Technical view
Security teams should validate T1136: Create Account by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (persistence), supported platforms (Windows, IaaS, Linux, macOS), and available local telemetry before making detection or mitigation decisions.
Likely telemetry
- Official ATT&CK relationships and object metadata
- Identity, privilege, and authentication events
- Cloud control-plane, SaaS audit, and container platform logs
- Network, endpoint, and security-tool telemetry
Detection direction
- Validate whether T1136: Create Account appears in your detection coverage and tabletop scenarios.
- Use the object to align executive risk language with SOC, incident response, and detection engineering work.
- Do not treat ATT&CK relationship context as attribution without corroborating evidence.
Mitigation priorities
- Map the object to existing controls and identify missing telemetry or response ownership.
- Prioritize mitigations that reduce exposure on the listed platforms and tactics.
- Review adjacent ATT&CK relationships before changing policy, detections, or reporting language.
Additional notes and limits
Baseline Glexia take generated from the official MITRE ATT&CK STIX object, source hash, tactics, platforms, and detection fields. It is safe to replace with a richer model-generated take for the same source hash later.
This baseline take is source-grounded and schema-validated, but it does not include environment-specific telemetry, incident evidence, or threat-intelligence corroboration.
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Create Account
Adversaries may create an account to maintain access to victim systems.[1] With a sufficient level of access, creating such accounts may be used to establish secondary credentialed access that do not require persistent remote access tools to be deployed on the system.
Accounts may be created on the local system or within a domain or cloud tenant. In cloud environments, adversaries may create accounts that only have access to specific services, which can reduce the chance of detection.
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.
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.
| Domain | ID | Name | Relationship / procedure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | T1136.001 | Local AccountSub-technique | Local Account subtechnique of this object. |
| Enterprise | T1136.002 | Domain AccountSub-technique | Domain Account subtechnique of this object. |
| Enterprise | T1136.003 | Cloud AccountSub-technique | Cloud Account subtechnique of this object. |
Groups, software, and campaigns
G0119: Indrik Spider
Indrik Spider is a Russia-based cybercriminal group that has been active since at least 2014. Indrik Spider initially started with the Dridex banking Trojan, and then by 2017 they began running ransomware operations using BitPaymer, WastedLocker, and Hades ransomware. Following U.S. sanctions and an indictment in 2019, Indrik Spider changed their tactics and diversified their toolset.[1][2][3]
G1045: Salt Typhoon
Salt Typhoon is a People's Republic of China (PRC) state-backed actor that has been active since at least 2019 and responsible for numerous compromises of network infrastructure at major U.S. telecommunication and internet service providers (ISP).[1][2]
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]
S1199: LockBit 2.0
LockBit 2.0 is an affiliate-based Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) that has been in use since at least June 2021 as the successor to LockBit Ransomware. LockBit 2.0 has versions capable of infecting Windows and VMware ESXi virtual machines, and has been observed targeting multiple industry verticals globally.[1][2]
C0025: 2016 Ukraine Electric Power Attack
2016 Ukraine Electric Power Attack was a Sandworm Team campaign during which they used Industroyer malware to target and disrupt distribution substations within the Ukrainian power grid. This campaign was the second major public attack conducted against Ukraine by Sandworm Team.[1][2]
All related ATT&CK context
Mitigation direction
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.
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19.2 | 2.6 | Current bundle | a215440e37f1… | ||
| 19.1 | 2.6 | Older bundle | a215440e37f1… |
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.
External references and citations
MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.
- [1]Symantec WastedLocker June 2020
Symantec Threat Intelligence. (2020, June 25). WastedLocker: Symantec Identifies Wave of Attacks Against U.S. Organizations. Retrieved May 20, 2021.
Open source URL - [2]Microsoft User Creation Event
Lich, B., Miroshnikov, A. (2017, April 5). 4720(S): A user account was created. Retrieved June 30, 2017.
Open source URL - [3]mitre-attackT1136Open source URL
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