Aggregator

In our previous Kenwood DMX958XR blog post, we detailed the internals of the Kenwood in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) head unit and provided annotated pictures of each PCB. In this post, we aim to outline the attack surface of the DMX958XR in the hopes of providing inspiration for vulnerability research.

We will cover the main supported technologies that present potential attack surfaces, such as USB, Bluetooth, Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, Kenwood apps, and more. We also provide a list of the open-source components the DMX958XR claims to use.

All information has been obtained through reverse engineering, experimenting, and combing through the following resources:

·      Kenwood DMX958XR Product Page
·      Kenwood DMX958XR Instruction Manual [PDF]
·      Kenwood DMX958XR Quick Start Guide [PDF]
·      Kenwood Portal App
·      Kenwood Remote S App

USB

The DMX958XR is equipped with a single USB-C port that operates at USB 2.0 speeds and provides the necessary interface for wired Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. The USB port also supports playback of audio files from a USB flash drive. The supported audio filetypes and their associated extensions are:

·      MP3 (.mp3)
·      WMA (.wma)
·      AAC-LC (.m4a)
·      WAV (.wav)
·      FLAC (.flac, .fla)
·      Vorbis (.ogg)

Beyond just audio, a USB flash drive can also be used to play back video files. The supported video file types and their associated extensions are:

·      MPEG-1 (.mpg, .mpeg)
·      MPEG-2 (.mpg, .mpeg)
·      H.264 / MPEG-4 (.mp4, .m4v, .avi, .flv, .f4v)
·      WMV (.wmv)
·      MKV (.mkv)

Robustly parsing and decoding these file formats is notoriously complicated and error-prone, which makes for a potentially rewarding attack surface. USB flash drives must be formatted as either FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, or NTFS for the head unit to be able to read them.

Bluetooth

Bluetooth version 5 is supported by the head unit and is used for making phone calls, receiving calls, and playing audio from a paired mobile phone. The following Bluetooth profiles are implemented:

·      Hands-Free Profile v1.7
·      Serial Port Profile
·      Phonebook Access Profile
·      Audio/Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP) v1.6
·      Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP)   
·     Supporting codecs: SBC, AAC or LDAC

Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, and the Kenwood apps all utilize Bluetooth in varying capacities. 

Wi-Fi

The head unit provides a Wi-Fi access point, which is primarily used for wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. There is no intention for the end user to directly connect to this access point, and there is no officially documented way of acquiring the password. However, internal research has discovered multiple methods to obtain the password. Once connected to the access point the following ports are listening:

·      TCP: 7000, 8086
·      UDP: 67, 5353, 35917, 50002, 60794

The two TCP ports and UDP port 50002 are of particular interest since they are running non-standard services.

Android Auto and Apple CarPlay

Both wired and wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are supported without the need for a third-party application to be installed on the paired mobile phone. When using the wireless versions, the paired phone connects to the aforementioned Wi-Fi network to establish a high-bandwidth channel for data to be sent and received. When connecting using a USB cable, the Wi-Fi network isn't used by Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, but it is still active.

Pwn2Own Automotive 2024 didn’t see any entries that leveraged Android Auto or Apple CarPlay functionality to compromise a head unit. We will have to wait and see if Pwn2Own Automotive 2025 does!

Kenwood Apps

Kenwood offers two Android/iOS apps to interface with the DMX958XR. The first app is the Kenwood Portal App, which allows users to transfer photos from a mobile phone to the head unit over Bluetooth. The transferred photos can then be viewed as a slideshow on the head unit or be used as wallpaper.

This presents an interesting attack surface – especially if the DMX958XR itself performs any complex image handling tasks on the received images, such as resizing or converting between different image formats. The user-supplied images also need to be persisted in the head unit's filesystem, further expanding the attack surface.

The second app is the Kenwood Remote S app, which connects to the head unit over Bluetooth and allows for multimedia control, such as selecting a radio station, skipping a track, and more. The Bluetooth Audio/Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP) is designed for this task. However, no research was performed to confirm if the Remote S app takes advantage of AVRCP. There are a few other Kenwood apps available, but they are not listed as supported on the DMX958XR product page and therefore have not been explored.

Open Source Software

A list of open-source licenses can be viewed from the head unit by navigating to Menu -> Settings -> Special -> Open Source Licenses. There is no guarantee these open-source projects are actually used, but a complete list of the projects is provided at the end of this blog post. Where available, the versions of the projects have also been included.

Summary

We hope that this blog post has provided enough information about the DMX958XR attack surface to guide vulnerability research. Not every attack surface has been mentioned and we encourage researchers to investigate further. The next post in this series will cover details of the DMX958XR firmware.

We are looking forward to Automotive Pwn2Own, again to be held in January 2025 at the Automotive World conference in Tokyo. We will see if IVI vendors have improved their product security. Don’t wait until the last minute to ask questions or register! We hope to see you there.

You can find me on Twitter at @ByteInsight, and follow the team on Twitter, Mastodon, LinkedIn, or Bluesky for the latest in exploit techniques and security patches.

Open Source Software List

Below is a complete list of all the open-source software the head unit claims to use:

·      OpenSSL (2011)
·      SSLeay (1998)
·      ALSA
·      BusyBox
·      Cairo
·      D-Bus
·      dnsmasq (2014)
·      e2fsprogs (2007)
·      Freeware Advanced Audio Coder v1.36 (2009)
·      flac (2014)
·      fontconfig (2012)
·      GLIB (1997)
·      bashline (1993)
·      iconv (2011)
·      GNU MP (2007)
·      GNU readline (2005)
·      GNU tar (2006)
·      gstreamer (2000)
·      GdkPixbuf (1999)
·      GnuTLS (2012)
·      HarfBuzz (2012)
·      ICU (2015)
·      ImageMagick (2016)
·      iperf (2007)
·      libpng (2019)
·      libusb (2015)
·      xiph (2015)
·      libxml2 (2012)
·      libxslt (2002)
·      Naver fonts (2007)
·      GIO (2010)
·      OpenSSH
·      OpenSSL (2011)
·      PCI Utilities v3.3.1 (2015)
·      Qt (2013)
·      Bluetooth SBC library (2013)
·      Sysvinit (2004)
·      Info-ZIP (2007)
·      bzip2 v1.0.6 (2010)
·      cURL (2015)
·      dpkg (1995)
·      libffi (2014)
·      libjpeg v9a (2014)
·      XFree86 (2000)
·      libproxy (2006)
·      libX11 (2006)
·      soup-cache (2010)
·      nettle (2002)
·      libdpkg (1995)
·      pango (1999)
·      sysctl v1.0.1 (1999)
·      alloc (2002)
·      pslash (2006)
·      tslib (2001)
·      libudev (2011)
·      usbmisc (2003)
·      zlib v1.2.8
·      s-bios (2011)
·      devmem2 (2000)
·      hostapd (2015)
·      hidapi (2010)
·      wpa-supplicant (2015)
·      OpenMax (2008)
·      oRTP (2015)
·      unzip v1.1 (2010)
·      hts_engine (2011)
·      google-breakpad (2006)
·      boost v1.0 (2003)
·      SQLite (2001)
·      PCRE (2019)
·      OpenGL (2012)
·      base64 (2001)
·      mDNSResponder
·      RapidJSON (2015)
·      crc32 (2005)
·      zconf (2005)

A landmark global report from cybersecurity agencies emphasizes 17 attack techniques against Microsoft Active Directory and cautions organizations to step up protections. In the first of our two-part series, we offer five steps you can take today to shore up your AD defenses.

Microsoft’s Active Directory (AD) is at the heart of identity and access management (IAM) for organizations worldwide, making it an attractive target for cyberattackers. Concerns over the risks of AD compromise prompted cybersecurity agencies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, U.K. and U.S. to issue a landmark report, Detecting and Mitigating Active Directory Compromises. The report, released in September, details 17 attack techniques, from Kerberoasting to Golden Ticket attacks, which, left unchecked, can enable attackers to take total control over systems.

In the first of our two-part series, we look beyond the report’s guidance for detecting and mitigating AD compromises to explore how organizations can institute a dynamic, proactive AD cybersecurity strategy. We discuss how continuous monitoring, adaptive defenses and risk-based prioritization can help security leaders protect their AD infrastructure. We provide five action items you can use to operationalize your identity security strategy.

In part two, we go beyond the basics to provide insight and guidance about additional areas of AD exposure worth addressing.

As the backbone of authentication and authorization in most organizations, AD controls access to sensitive data and critical systems. Identity has become the modern control plane for enterprises, and attackers know that compromising AD can be their gateway to a treasure trove of information and control. High-profile attacks, such as those by Storm-0501 and Conti ransomware, demonstrate the devastating financial and operational impact that can result when AD security is breached.

It’s important to note that the report issued by the cyberagencies — known collectively as the Five Eyes Alliance — is much more than a compliance checklist. Too often, we see organizations approach such cybersecurity guidance by taking a series of one-off actions, assuming that ticking a few boxes ensures lasting security.

In reality, attackers exploit vulnerabilities as soon as they arise. Point-in-time compliance efforts can't keep up with the adaptive nature of today's cyberthreats. To stay ahead, organizations must go beyond compliance, adopting a continuous, adaptive approach that anticipates and mitigates risks in real-time, ensuring that AD remains secure against evolving threats.

The guidance from the cybersecurity agencies makes it clear: Active Directory isn't a "set-it-and-forget-it" system.

As AD environments continuously evolve — whether through new users, permission updates or expanded cloud integrations — cybersecurity strategies must evolve in tandem. Misconfigurations and identity-based vulnerabilities open new doorways to risk because they don't stay put. This is precisely why organizations must adopt a structured, real-time approach to managing AD, including continuous monitoring, risk-based prioritization and adaptive security practices responsive to the shifting threat landscape.

Operationalizing the report’s guidance requires more than static point-in-time tech fixes. It calls for a series of game-changing steps to keep your AD secure.

Below, we break down five key areas to focus on as you turn the report's guidance into actionable steps.

Organizations often behave as though AD is a static system, a thing to be configured once and then assumed to be secure. However, as the Five Eyes report illustrates, AD is in constant flux, with each change potentially opening new vulnerabilities. From new hires and permission updates to expanding cloud connections, any shift in AD can create an unseen entry point for attackers. Real-time visibility and continuous monitoring are behavioral steps to stay ahead of evolving risks.

Attackers thrive on hidden weaknesses, like subtle misconfigurations and creeping permission drift, exploiting tactics like DCSync and Kerberoasting to infiltrate your systems silently. Without real-time oversight, these tactics can remain undetected. That's why it’s essential to identify and prioritize identity weaknesses as soon as they surface — catching risks early stops attackers in their tracks.

• Automate monitoring: Implement tools that trigger real-time alerts on AD changes — flagging unexpected privilege escalations, risky permission shifts and service account modifications that could indicate an active breach attempt.
• Detect toxic combinations: Continuous monitoring allows security teams to spot dangerous combinations of permissions and misconfigurations — such as high privileges combined with weak passwords or accounts with overlapping permissions — before they're exploited.
• Implement immediate remediation: Establish processes for immediate response when high-risk changes are detected. The ability to revoke excessive permissions or adjust configurations in real-time significantly limits opportunities for attackers to escalate their actions.

Not every weakness in Active Directory carries the same level of risk Treating each issue with equal priority can drain resources while leaving critical exposures unattended. A risk-based model automatically prioritizes AD weaknesses and allows security teams to focus on the exposures that matter most, rather than getting bogged down in low-risk issues.

Among the 17 attack tactics highlighted in the Five Eyes report, some — like DCSync — might be more critical in traditional infrastructures, while others, such as password spraying, may pose a higher risk in cloud-heavy environments. Automated risk scoring tailors prioritization to your organization's unique setup, ensuring that high-impact threats are addressed promptly.

• Focus on dynamic risk scoring: Leverage tools that continuously evaluate and rank vulnerabilities, prioritizing them by exposure level, privilege escalation risks and known attack vectors. Start pinpointing the most exploitable risks so teams can zero in, ensuring critical exposures don't go unnoticed.
• Map potential attack paths: Visualizing attack paths to critical assets helps pinpoint which weaknesses are likely to be targeted and enables teams to allocate resources effectively.
• Prioritize for your environment: Tailor prioritization to fit your specific infrastructure — whether it's primarily on-premises, cloud-based or hybrid — so that the highest-risk exposures in your unique environment are addressed first.

A resilient Active Directory environment relies on enforcing least-privilege access, granting users only the permissions they need to perform their roles. However, over time, privileges can expand unintentionally — through changes in group memberships, role adjustments or emergency access that is not promptly revoked. This "privilege creep" broadens the attack surface attackers can exploit, as excessive permissions make lateral movement and privilege escalation easier.

Excessive permissions in Active Directory enable various attack techniques, including Silver Ticket compromises where adversaries forge Kerberos tickets for unauthorized access. Without least-privilege enforcement, attackers can exploit over-permissioned accounts to move laterally and access sensitive resources undetected. Proper privilege management is essential to prevent these and other AD-based cyberattacks.

• Implement automated monthly scans: These can identify accounts with excessive privileges or permissions, flagging them for immediate review.
• Use role-based permission templates: These can standardize access across accounts, ensuring only the necessary privileges are granted.
• Enforce a 24-hour revoke policy: This limits temporary or emergency access, quickly closing off potential attack paths.
• Regularly audit service accounts: Giving service providers a regular "check-up" ensures their privileges align with their job description and that they aren't offering attackers any uninvited perks.

Your security mindset sets the stage for securing AD. We all know that responding to incidents after they occur is painful, especially when there is a chance to preemptively identify and address potential threats. The nature of the Five Eyes guidance is proactive. Understanding Indicators of Exposure (IoE) and looking for those early warning signs can help teams address vulnerabilities before they become an attacker's foothold in the network.

A reactive approach leaves security teams in constant catch-up mode, dealing with incidents as they happen instead of eliminating root causes. Focusing on IoE systematically closes off pathways that adversaries exploit to infiltrate environments. It also allows security teams to expand their protective reach without adding to their alert fatigue. This equates to a broader security strategy prioritizing long-term resilience over short-term fixes.

• Adopt an "assume breach" mindset: Treat every vulnerability as a potential entry point and monitor for exposure gaps around critical assets.
• Focus on IoE: Identify and track early signs of risk, such as misconfigurations or unusual permission changes. It is better to prevent breaches than to detect them after they happen.
• Battle-test defenses: Red team like you mean it. Don't just defend — pressure test. The best defenders aren't the ones who've never been hit — they're the ones who've learned from every attempted breach, actual or simulated.
• Continuously tune detection and response processes: Ensure your detection and response strategies are agile and adapt to the evolving threat landscape.

Enterprise expansion pits cybersecurity teams against a sprawling landscape of domains, assets and identities — each adding layers of complexity. When security forms a phalanx, with a unified approach of shared insights and tools, efficiency emerges and gaps close. Scaling security demands a cohesive strategy that seamlessly integrates identity management, asset visibility and threat detection into a single, unified framework, ensuring consistent security practices.

Lack of unification is a recipe for disaster. Without a platform that normalizes data and promotes shared understanding, teams work in silos, widening gaps in coverage and leaving critical assets vulnerable. In complex, multi-domain environments, it’s essential to take a unified approach — fostered by integrated, scalable platforms — for fast, coordinated responses to cyberthreats. By closing these gaps, organizations can maintain comprehensive oversight, enabling teams to keep pace with growth while ensuring consistent security across the enterprise.

• Integrate AD monitoring with broader IT operations: Align AD security monitoring with other IT functions through a unified platform. This will ensure all domains, whether cloud-based or on-premises, are monitored under a single pane of glass.
• Streamline IAM: Implement centralized IAM solutions to consistently manage identities across all environments, reducing the risk of orphaned accounts or inconsistent permissions.
• Automate policy enforcement: Use automation to enforce security policies across all domains, ensuring real-time adjustments and adherence to best practices as infrastructure changes.
• Enable cross-functional collaboration: Break down silos by fostering collaboration between IT, security and operations teams, enabling quicker response times and better information sharing.

The above five steps offer a solid foundation for operationalizing the Five Eyes guidance. But stopping there misses important considerations for enhancing and adapting security strategies. In part two of this series, we go beyond the basics, offering guidance on achieving full coverage, addressing modern attack techniques and securing Active Directory and Entra ID as part of a holistic identity security approach.

• Read part two in this series, Five Cyber Agencies Sound Alarm About Active Directory Attacks: Beyond the Basics
• View the on-demand webinar Detect and Mitigate 16 Commonly Deployed AD Compromises
• Read the data sheet Tenable ThreatMap for AD

The post Active Directory Under Attack: Five Eyes Guidance Targets Crucial Security Gaps appeared first on Security Boulevard.

A landmark global report from cybersecurity agencies emphasizes 17 attack techniques against Microsoft Active Directory and cautions organizations to step up protections. In the first of our two-part series, we offer five steps you can take today to shore up your AD defenses.

Microsoft’s Active Directory (AD) is at the heart of identity and access management (IAM) for organizations worldwide, making it an attractive target for cyberattackers. Concerns over the risks of AD compromise prompted cybersecurity agencies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, U.K. and U.S. to issue a landmark report, Detecting and Mitigating Active Directory Compromises. The report, released in September, details 17 attack techniques, from Kerberoasting to Golden Ticket attacks, which, left unchecked, can enable attackers to take total control over systems.

In the first of our two-part series, we look beyond the report’s guidance for detecting and mitigating AD compromises to explore how organizations can institute a dynamic, proactive AD cybersecurity strategy. We discuss how continuous monitoring, adaptive defenses and risk-based prioritization can help security leaders protect their AD infrastructure. We provide five action items you can use to operationalize your identity security strategy.

In part two, we go beyond the basics to provide insight and guidance about additional areas of AD exposure worth addressing.

As the backbone of authentication and authorization in most organizations, AD controls access to sensitive data and critical systems. Identity has become the modern control plane for enterprises, and attackers know that compromising AD can be their gateway to a treasure trove of information and control. High-profile attacks, such as those by Storm-0501 and Conti ransomware, demonstrate the devastating financial and operational impact that can result when AD security is breached.

It’s important to note that the report issued by the cyberagencies — known collectively as the Five Eyes Alliance — is much more than a compliance checklist. Too often, we see organizations approach such cybersecurity guidance by taking a series of one-off actions, assuming that ticking a few boxes ensures lasting security.

In reality, attackers exploit vulnerabilities as soon as they arise. Point-in-time compliance efforts can't keep up with the adaptive nature of today's cyberthreats. To stay ahead, organizations must go beyond compliance, adopting a continuous, adaptive approach that anticipates and mitigates risks in real-time, ensuring that AD remains secure against evolving threats.

The guidance from the cybersecurity agencies makes it clear: Active Directory isn't a "set-it-and-forget-it" system.

As AD environments continuously evolve — whether through new users, permission updates or expanded cloud integrations — cybersecurity strategies must evolve in tandem. Misconfigurations and identity-based vulnerabilities open new doorways to risk because they don't stay put. This is precisely why organizations must adopt a structured, real-time approach to managing AD, including continuous monitoring, risk-based prioritization and adaptive security practices responsive to the shifting threat landscape.

Operationalizing the report’s guidance requires more than static point-in-time tech fixes. It calls for a series of game-changing steps to keep your AD secure.

Below, we break down five key areas to focus on as you turn the report's guidance into actionable steps.

Organizations often behave as though AD is a static system, a thing to be configured once and then assumed to be secure. However, as the Five Eyes report illustrates, AD is in constant flux, with each change potentially opening new vulnerabilities. From new hires and permission updates to expanding cloud connections, any shift in AD can create an unseen entry point for attackers. Real-time visibility and continuous monitoring are behavioral steps to stay ahead of evolving risks.

Attackers thrive on hidden weaknesses, like subtle misconfigurations and creeping permission drift, exploiting tactics like DCSync and Kerberoasting to infiltrate your systems silently. Without real-time oversight, these tactics can remain undetected. That's why it’s essential to identify and prioritize identity weaknesses as soon as they surface — catching risks early stops attackers in their tracks.

• Automate monitoring: Implement tools that trigger real-time alerts on AD changes — flagging unexpected privilege escalations, risky permission shifts and service account modifications that could indicate an active breach attempt.
• Detect toxic combinations: Continuous monitoring allows security teams to spot dangerous combinations of permissions and misconfigurations — such as high privileges combined with weak passwords or accounts with overlapping permissions — before they're exploited.
• Implement immediate remediation: Establish processes for immediate response when high-risk changes are detected. The ability to revoke excessive permissions or adjust configurations in real-time significantly limits opportunities for attackers to escalate their actions.

Not every weakness in Active Directory carries the same level of risk Treating each issue with equal priority can drain resources while leaving critical exposures unattended. A risk-based model automatically prioritizes AD weaknesses and allows security teams to focus on the exposures that matter most, rather than getting bogged down in low-risk issues.

Among the 17 attack tactics highlighted in the Five Eyes report, some — like DCSync — might be more critical in traditional infrastructures, while others, such as password spraying, may pose a higher risk in cloud-heavy environments. Automated risk scoring tailors prioritization to your organization's unique setup, ensuring that high-impact threats are addressed promptly.

• Focus on dynamic risk scoring: Leverage tools that continuously evaluate and rank vulnerabilities, prioritizing them by exposure level, privilege escalation risks and known attack vectors. Start pinpointing the most exploitable risks so teams can zero in, ensuring critical exposures don't go unnoticed.
• Map potential attack paths: Visualizing attack paths to critical assets helps pinpoint which weaknesses are likely to be targeted and enables teams to allocate resources effectively.
• Prioritize for your environment: Tailor prioritization to fit your specific infrastructure — whether it's primarily on-premises, cloud-based or hybrid — so that the highest-risk exposures in your unique environment are addressed first.

A resilient Active Directory environment relies on enforcing least-privilege access, granting users only the permissions they need to perform their roles. However, over time, privileges can expand unintentionally — through changes in group memberships, role adjustments or emergency access that is not promptly revoked. This "privilege creep" broadens the attack surface attackers can exploit, as excessive permissions make lateral movement and privilege escalation easier.

Excessive permissions in Active Directory enable various attack techniques, including Silver Ticket compromises where adversaries forge Kerberos tickets for unauthorized access. Without least-privilege enforcement, attackers can exploit over-permissioned accounts to move laterally and access sensitive resources undetected. Proper privilege management is essential to prevent these and other AD-based cyberattacks.

• Implement automated monthly scans: These can identify accounts with excessive privileges or permissions, flagging them for immediate review.
• Use role-based permission templates: These can standardize access across accounts, ensuring only the necessary privileges are granted.
• Enforce a 24-hour revoke policy: This limits temporary or emergency access, quickly closing off potential attack paths.
• Regularly audit service accounts: Giving service providers a regular "check-up" ensures their privileges align with their job description and that they aren't offering attackers any uninvited perks.

Your security mindset sets the stage for securing AD. We all know that responding to incidents after they occur is painful, especially when there is a chance to preemptively identify and address potential threats. The nature of the Five Eyes guidance is proactive. Understanding Indicators of Exposure (IoE) and looking for those early warning signs can help teams address vulnerabilities before they become an attacker's foothold in the network.

A reactive approach leaves security teams in constant catch-up mode, dealing with incidents as they happen instead of eliminating root causes. Focusing on IoE systematically closes off pathways that adversaries exploit to infiltrate environments. It also allows security teams to expand their protective reach without adding to their alert fatigue. This equates to a broader security strategy prioritizing long-term resilience over short-term fixes.

• Adopt an "assume breach" mindset: Treat every vulnerability as a potential entry point and monitor for exposure gaps around critical assets.
• Focus on IoE: Identify and track early signs of risk, such as misconfigurations or unusual permission changes. It is better to prevent breaches than to detect them after they happen.
• Battle-test defenses: Red team like you mean it. Don't just defend — pressure test. The best defenders aren't the ones who've never been hit — they're the ones who've learned from every attempted breach, actual or simulated.
• Continuously tune detection and response processes: Ensure your detection and response strategies are agile and adapt to the evolving threat landscape.

Enterprise expansion pits cybersecurity teams against a sprawling landscape of domains, assets and identities — each adding layers of complexity. When security forms a phalanx, with a unified approach of shared insights and tools, efficiency emerges and gaps close. Scaling security demands a cohesive strategy that seamlessly integrates identity management, asset visibility and threat detection into a single, unified framework, ensuring consistent security practices.

Lack of unification is a recipe for disaster. Without a platform that normalizes data and promotes shared understanding, teams work in silos, widening gaps in coverage and leaving critical assets vulnerable. In complex, multi-domain environments, it’s essential to take a unified approach — fostered by integrated, scalable platforms — for fast, coordinated responses to cyberthreats. By closing these gaps, organizations can maintain comprehensive oversight, enabling teams to keep pace with growth while ensuring consistent security across the enterprise.

• Integrate AD monitoring with broader IT operations: Align AD security monitoring with other IT functions through a unified platform. This will ensure all domains, whether cloud-based or on-premises, are monitored under a single pane of glass.
• Streamline IAM: Implement centralized IAM solutions to consistently manage identities across all environments, reducing the risk of orphaned accounts or inconsistent permissions.
• Automate policy enforcement: Use automation to enforce security policies across all domains, ensuring real-time adjustments and adherence to best practices as infrastructure changes.
• Enable cross-functional collaboration: Break down silos by fostering collaboration between IT, security and operations teams, enabling quicker response times and better information sharing.

The above five steps offer a solid foundation for operationalizing the Five Eyes guidance. But stopping there misses important considerations for enhancing and adapting security strategies. In part two of this series, we go beyond the basics, offering guidance on achieving full coverage, addressing modern attack techniques and securing Active Directory and Entra ID as part of a holistic identity security approach.

• Read part two in this series, Five Cyber Agencies Sound Alarm About Active Directory Attacks: Beyond the Basics
• View the on-demand webinar Detect and Mitigate 16 Commonly Deployed AD Compromises
• Read the data sheet Tenable ThreatMap for AD

A landmark global report emphasizes 17 attack techniques against Microsoft Active Directory and cautions organizations to step up protections. In the second of our two-part series, we take you beyond the basics to highlight three key areas to focus on.

The landmark report Detecting and Mitigating Active Directory Compromises — released in September by cybersecurity agencies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, U.K. and U.S. — shines a bright light on the risks organizations face if their identity and access management (IAM) system is targeted by cyberattackers.

In the first of our two-part series, we discussed five steps organizations can take to operationalize the report findings and develop a cybersecurity strategy for protecting their Microsoft Active Directory (AD) infrastructure. While these steps are important, stopping there misses crucial considerations that can further enhance security strategies.

Here, in part two, we look beyond the basics to provide three key areas cybersecurity leaders can consider in order to achieve full coverage, address modern attack techniques and secure Active Directory and its cloud-based counterpart Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) as part of a holistic identity security approach.

While basic AD assessment tools provide valuable insights, they fall short in today's hybrid environments, where on-premises AD and cloud identities intersect. Point-in-time scans risk missing active threats like Kerberoasting, DCSync and password spraying — techniques that cyberattackers can execute repeatedly to evade periodic checks.

• Classic AD threats persist: Traditional attacks targeting AD authentication and replication remain powerful weapons for attackers, requiring constant vigilance.
• Unified identity monitoring: Modern environments sync on-premises AD with cloud services. Changes in either domain can create vulnerabilities in the other, demanding unified visibility.
• Cross-environment risks: Attackers combine classic AD exploitation with cloud service attacks. Monitoring must track permissions and configurations across this expanded attack surface.
• Real-time response: Effective security requires immediate visibility into hybrid threats — from password spraying against synced accounts to privileged credential theft.

• Enable unified monitoring: Use tools that offer continuous visibility across both AD and Entra ID to catch threats wherever they arise, maintaining seamless oversight.
• Set up key threat alerts: Configure automated alerts for threats like Kerberoasting and DCSync, particularly for synced accounts, to react immediately to suspicious activity.
• Map and review permissions: Regularly audit permissions across AD and Entra ID to spot gaps or misconfigurations that attackers might exploit.
• Enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) and conditional access: Strengthen high-privilege accounts with MFA and adaptive policies, aligning access controls to risk signals across both environments.

While the report from the five cybersecurity agencies — known collectively as the Five Eyes Alliance — highlights 17 AD compromise methods, these cover only the most common tactics. If attackers were only so simple! Their approaches are also exploiting AD's connections with Entra ID, software as a service (SaaS) applications and hybrid clouds. To stay secure, organizations must look beyond static techniques and adapt to today's dynamic threat landscape.

Focusing only on known techniques can leave a lot on the table for today’s attackers, who leverage AD's complex integrations, developing methods that fall outside standard tactics yet pose serious risks. A comprehensive, adaptive security approach prepares teams to counter both established and evolving threats.

• Update your threat model: Adapt threat assessments to include new, advanced techniques relevant to your network.
• Foster a proactive culture: Encourage education on evolving threats and a flexible response approach.
• Use real-time threat intelligence: Integrate real-time insights to detect and respond to emerging techniques.

While the Five Eyes report highlights compromises in on-premises Active Directory, protecting cloud-based directory services, like Entra ID, is equally important as organizations expand into the cloud. Attackers are increasingly pivoting between on-premises AD and cloud-based directories to maximize impact, as demonstrated by recent breaches. In hybrid environments, attackers exploit the gaps between AD and Entra ID, often bypassing defenses that cover only one system. Think of your directory infrastructure as a house with two front doors: securing only one leaves the other exposed. For modern enterprises, unified security monitoring across AD and Entra ID is essential to prevent attackers from exploiting inconsistencies between on-premises and cloud defenses. Your identity security strategy is only as strong as its most vulnerable directory.

• Consistent coverage across environments: As organizations adopt hybrid environments, the separation between on-premises and cloud-based IAM systems creates potential gaps. Unified security across both prevents attackers from finding weak points in transitioning from on-premises to cloud.
• Strengthening your identity security strategy: Attackers target identity as a primary entry point. Treating AD and Entra ID as interdependent systems ensures that your entire identity framework is resilient, regardless of where the threat originates.

• Set adaptive access controls: Use conditional access policies to assess user risk in real time, blocking high-risk login attempts automatically.
• Monitor third-party access: Regularly review and control permissions granted to third-party apps, catching unsanctioned apps and shadow IT early.
• Enforce least-privilege and OAuth limits: Restrict OAuth permissions to essentials, and identify over-permissioned accounts to maintain least-privilege across cloud and AD environments.
• Enable real-time identity threat detection: Set identity protection policies to respond instantly to risky logins, such as by triggering MFA or blocking access on suspicious activity.
• Continuously audit and adjust policies: Regularly assess conditional access and third-party permissions to keep your identity security strategy aligned with evolving threats.

Active Directory compromises remain a focal point for attackers. The Five Eyes report underscores its continued relevance and clarifies why identity is the modern control plane in exposure management. As you review the guidance, refrain from letting this become another checklist. Rethink how your organization is approaching its AD security. Do you have continuous monitoring, risk-based prioritization, least-privilege access and unified operations? Are you employing an identity-first security approach that naturally achieves compliance? Are you unifying protection across on-premises AD and Entra ID to close gaps attackers exploit?

• Read part one in this series, Active Directory Under Attack: Five Eyes Guidance Targets Crucial Security Gaps
• View the on-demand webinar Detect and Mitigate 16 Commonly Deployed AD Compromises
• Read the data sheet Tenable ThreatMap for AD

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