CyberStack

MITRE ATT&CK / Techniques / T1606

Forge Web Credentials

ID
T1606
Tactics
TA0006 Credential Access
Platforms
SaaS, Windows, macOS, Linux, IaaS, Office Suite, Identity Provider
Data sources
Web Credential Creation, Logon Session Creation, Web Credential Usage, Process Access, File Access, Network Traffic Content
Source
attack.mitre.org
MITRE last modified
25 Oct 2025

Adversaries may forge credential materials that can be used to gain access to web applications or Internet services. Web applications and services (hosted in cloud SaaS environments or on-premise servers) often use session cookies, tokens, or other materials to authenticate and authorize user access.

Adversaries may generate these credential materials in order to gain access to web resources. This differs from Steal Web Session Cookie, Steal Application Access Token, and other similar behaviors in that the credentials are new and forged by the adversary, rather than stolen or intercepted from legitimate users.

The generation of web credentials often requires secret values, such as passwords, Private Keys, or other cryptographic seed values.[4] Adversaries may also forge tokens by taking advantage of features such as the AssumeRole and GetFederationToken APIs in AWS, which allow users to request temporary security credentials (i.e., Temporary Elevated Cloud Access), or the zmprov gdpak command in Zimbra, which generates a pre-authentication key that can be used to generate tokens for any user in the domain.[5][6]

Once forged, adversaries may use these web credentials to access resources (ex: Use Alternate Authentication Material), which may bypass multi-factor and other authentication protection mechanisms.[7][8][1]

Sub-techniques (2)

Detection

Mitigations (4)

M1018 User Account Management

Ensure that user accounts with administrative rights follow best practices, including use of privileged access workstations, Just in Time/Just Enough Administration (JIT/JEA), and strong authentication. Reduce the number of users that are members of highly privileged Directory Roles.[1] In AWS environments, prohibit users from calling the sts:GetFederationToken API unless explicitly required.[2]

M1026 Privileged Account Management

Restrict permissions and access to the AD FS server to only originate from privileged access workstations.[3]

M1047 Audit

Administrators should perform an audit of all access lists and the permissions they have been granted to access web applications and services. This should be done extensively on all resources in order to establish a baseline, followed up on with periodic audits of new or updated resources. Suspicious accounts/credentials should be investigated and removed.

Enable advanced auditing on ADFS. Check the success and failure audit options in the ADFS Management snap-in. Enable Audit Application Generated events on the AD FS farm via Group Policy Object.[3]

M1054 Software Configuration

Configure browsers/applications to regularly delete persistent web credentials (such as cookies).

References

  1. Microsoft SolarWinds Customer Guidance
  2. Crowdstrike AWS User Federation Persistence
  3. FireEye ADFS
  4. GitHub AWS-ADFS-Credential-Generator
  5. AWS Temporary Security Credentials
  6. Zimbra Preauth
  7. Pass The Cookie
  8. Unit 42 Mac Crypto Cookies January 2019