CyberStack

MITRE ATT&CK / Techniques / T1003.005

OS Credential Dumping: Cached Domain Credentials

ID
T1003.005
Tactics
TA0006 Credential Access
Sub-technique of
T1003 OS Credential Dumping
Platforms
Windows, Linux
Data sources
File Access, Process Creation, Process Access
Source
attack.mitre.org
MITRE last modified
25 Oct 2025

Adversaries may attempt to access cached domain credentials used to allow authentication to occur in the event a domain controller is unavailable.[3]

On Windows Vista and newer, the hash format is DCC2 (Domain Cached Credentials version 2) hash, also known as MS-Cache v2 hash.[4] The number of default cached credentials varies and can be altered per system. This hash does not allow pass-the-hash style attacks, and instead requires Password Cracking to recover the plaintext password.[5]

On Linux systems, Active Directory credentials can be accessed through caches maintained by software like System Security Services Daemon (SSSD) or Quest Authentication Services (formerly VAS). Cached credential hashes are typically located at /var/lib/sss/db/cache.[domain].ldb for SSSD or /var/opt/quest/vas/authcache/vas_auth.vdb for Quest. Adversaries can use utilities, such as tdbdump, on these database files to dump the cached hashes and use Password Cracking to obtain the plaintext password.[6]

With SYSTEM or sudo access, the tools/utilities such as Mimikatz, Reg, and secretsdump.py for Windows or Linikatz for Linux can be used to extract the cached credentials.[6]

Note: Cached credentials for Windows Vista are derived using PBKDF2.[4]

Detection

Mitigations (5)

M1015 Active Directory Configuration

Consider adding users to the "Protected Users" Active Directory security group. This can help limit the caching of users' plaintext credentials.[1]

M1017 User Training

Limit credential overlap across accounts and systems by training users and administrators not to use the same password for multiple accounts.

M1026 Privileged Account Management

Do not put user or admin domain accounts in the local administrator groups across systems unless they are tightly controlled, as this is often equivalent to having a local administrator account with the same password on all systems. Follow best practices for design and administration of an enterprise network to limit privileged account use across administrative tiers.

M1027 Password Policies

Ensure that local administrator accounts have complex, unique passwords across all systems on the network.

M1028 Operating System Configuration

Consider limiting the number of cached credentials (HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Winlogon\cachedlogonscountvalue)[2]

Groups (4)

Software (4)

References

  1. Microsoft Protected Users Security Group
  2. Tilbury Windows Credentials
  3. Microsoft - Cached Creds
  4. PassLib mscache
  5. ired mscache
  6. Brining MimiKatz to Unix