CyberStack

MITRE ATT&CK / Techniques / T1484.001

Domain or Tenant Policy Modification: Group Policy Modification

ID
T1484.001
Tactics
TA0004 Privilege Escalation, TA0112 Defense Impairment
Sub-technique of
T1484 Domain or Tenant Policy Modification
Platforms
Windows
Data sources
Active Directory Object Modification, File Modification, User Account Modification, Process Creation, File Creation
Source
attack.mitre.org
MITRE last modified
12 May 2026

Adversaries may modify Group Policy Objects (GPOs) to subvert the intended discretionary access controls for a domain, usually with the intention of escalating privileges on the domain. Group policy allows for centralized management of user and computer settings in Active Directory (AD). GPOs are containers for group policy settings made up of files stored within a predictable network path \<DOMAIN>\SYSVOL\<DOMAIN>\Policies\.[5][6]

Like other objects in AD, GPOs have access controls associated with them. By default all user accounts in the domain have permission to read GPOs. It is possible to delegate GPO access control permissions, e.g. write access, to specific users or groups in the domain.

Malicious GPO modifications can be used to implement many other malicious behaviors such as Scheduled Task/Job, Disable or Modify Tools, Ingress Tool Transfer, Create Account, Service Execution, and more.[6][1][7][8][9] Since GPOs can control so many user and machine settings in the AD environment, there are a great number of potential attacks that can stem from this GPO abuse.[1]

For example, publicly available scripts such as New-GPOImmediateTask can be leveraged to automate the creation of a malicious Scheduled Task/Job by modifying GPO settings, in this case modifying &lt;GPO_PATH&gt;\Machine\Preferences\ScheduledTasks\ScheduledTasks.xml.[1][7] In some cases an adversary might modify specific user rights like SeEnableDelegationPrivilege, set in &lt;GPO_PATH&gt;\MACHINE\Microsoft\Windows NT\SecEdit\GptTmpl.inf, to achieve a subtle AD backdoor with complete control of the domain because the user account under the adversary's control would then be able to modify GPOs.[10]

Detection

Mitigations (2)

M1018 User Account Management

Consider implementing WMI and security filtering to further tailor which users and computers a GPO will apply to.[1][2][3]

M1047 Audit

Identify and correct GPO permissions abuse opportunities (ex: GPO modification privileges) using auditing tools such as BloodHound (version 1.5.1 and later).[4]

Groups (5)

Software (9)

References

  1. Wald0 Guide to GPOs
  2. Microsoft WMI Filters
  3. Microsoft GPO Security Filtering
  4. GitHub Bloodhound
  5. TechNet Group Policy Basics
  6. ADSecurity GPO Persistence 2016
  7. Harmj0y Abusing GPO Permissions
  8. Mandiant M Trends 2016
  9. Microsoft Hacking Team Breach
  10. Harmj0y SeEnableDelegationPrivilege Right