Adversaries may create a local account to maintain access to victim systems. Local accounts are those configured by an organization for use by users, remote support, services, or for administration on a single system or service. With a sufficient level of access, the net user /add command can be used to create a local account.

Such accounts may be used to establish secondary credentialed access that do not require persistent remote access tools to be deployed on the system.

ID: T1136.001

Sub-technique of: T1136

Tactic: Persistence

Platforms: Linux, Windows, macOS

Permissions Required: Administrator

Data Sources: Authentication logs, Process command-line parameters, Process monitoring, Windows event logs

Version: 1.0

Created: 28 January 2020

Last Modified: 23 March 2020

Version Permalink

Live Version

Procedure Examples

Name	Description
APT3	APT3 has been known to create or enable accounts, such as `support_388945a0`.^[15]
APT39	APT39 has created accounts on multiple compromised hosts to perform actions within the network.^[17]
APT41	APT41 created user accounts and adds them to the User and Admin groups.^[16]
Calisto	Calisto has the capability to add its own account to the victim's machine.^[7]
Carbanak	Carbanak can create a Windows account.^[8]
Dragonfly 2.0	Dragonfly 2.0 created accounts on victims, including administrator accounts, some of which appeared to be tailored to each individual staging target.^[12]^[13]
Empire	Empire has a module for creating a local user if permissions allow.^[3]
Flame	Flame can create backdoor accounts with login "HelpAssistant" on domain connected systems if appropriate rights are available.^[5]^[6]
HiddenWasp	HiddenWasp creates a user account as a means to provide initial persistence to the compromised machine.^[10]
Leafminer	Leafminer used a tool called Imecab to set up a persistent remote access account on the victim machine.^[14]
Mis-Type	Mis-Type may create a temporary user on the system named "Lost_{{Unique Identifier}}."^[4]
Net	The `net user username \password` commands in Net can be used to create a local account.^[1]
Pupy	Pupy can user PowerView to execute "net user" commands and create local system accounts.^[2]
S-Type	S-Type may create a temporary user on the system named "Lost_{{Unique Identifier}}" with the password "pond~!@6"{{Unique Identifier}}."^[4]
ServHelper	ServHelper has created a new user and added it to the "Remote Desktop Users" and "Administrators" groups.^[9]
ZxShell	ZxShell has a feature to create local user accounts.^[11]

Mitigations

Mitigation	Description
Multi-factor Authentication	Use multi-factor authentication for user and privileged accounts.
Privileged Account Management	Limit the usage of local administrator accounts to be used for day-to-day operations that may expose them to potential adversaries.

Detection

Monitor for processes and command-line parameters associated with local account creation, such as net user /add or useradd. Collect data on account creation within a network. Event ID 4720 is generated when a user account is created on a Windows system. ^[18] Perform regular audits of local system accounts to detect suspicious accounts that may have been created by an adversary.

Create Account: Local Account

Other sub-techniques of Create Account (3)

Procedure Examples

Mitigations

Detection

References