Windows Steal Authentication Certificates Certificate Issued
The following analytic identifies the issuance of a new certificate by Certificate Services - AD CS, detected via Event ID 4887. This event logs the requester user context, DNS hostname of the requesting machine, and…
Description
The following analytic identifies the issuance of a new certificate by Certificate Services - AD CS, detected via Event ID 4887. This event logs the requester user context, DNS hostname of the requesting machine, and the request time. Monitoring this activity is crucial as it can indicate potential misuse of authentication certificates. If confirmed malicious, an attacker could use the issued certificate to impersonate users, escalate privileges, or maintain persistence within the environment. This detection helps in identifying and correlating suspicious certificate-related activities for further investigation.
Detection logic
Detection requirements
- Platform
- Identity ProviderLinuxmacOSWindows
The rule states no platform. This is derived from the ATT&CK technique it maps to.
- Log source category
- windows_event_log_security_4887
Known benign triggers
- False positives will be generated based on normal certificates issued. Leave enabled to generate Risk, as this is meant to be an anomaly analytic.
MITRE ATT&CK mappings
0 exclusive techniques.This is coverage no other published rule has; it is not this rule's total technique count.
References
| Reference | Cited by |
|---|---|
| specterops.io/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2022/06/Certified_Pre-Owned.pdf | 8 |
From the source
- At source
- Open at source
- Upstream identifier
- 9b1a5385-0c31-4c39-9753-dc26b8ce64c2
- Tagged by the source as
- Windows Certificate ServicesEndpointendpointSplunk CloudSplunk EnterpriseSplunk Enterprise Securityendpoint
Licence
- Published under
- Apache License 2.0Read the licence
- Attribution
- Required
- Obtained under
- Apache-2.0Read the origin licence
Authorship
- Written by
- Published
- Aug 26, 2026
- Version
- 1