Service accounts are prevalent in Windows networks, but are often mismanaged and ripe for exploitation. Too often these accounts are over-privileged, dual-used (both by human users and automated processes), and have credentials omnipresent in the network. The services that use these accounts are easily discovered, as they are registered as SPNs on the Active Directory, thus presenting a lucrative target for an attacker.In this talk we will discuss how service accounts can be mismanaged and thus exploited, and present new research examining the exposure of service accounts in real-world networks.We will demonstrate exploitation techniques and introduce an open source tool for detecting potentially vulnerable service accounts in Windows networks. We will also discuss how targeted behavioral analytics can be employed to detect potential abuse of service accounts.Armed with the knowledge and tools from this presentation, you can now go and test your own networks – and, perhaps, prevent that sneaky attacker from exploiting your service accounts.

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