Sigma rule: Suspicious Kerberos Ticket Request via CLI

Rule

Title

Suspicious Kerberos Ticket Request via CLI

Status

experimental

Level

high

Author

Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)

Date

2025-11-18

Modified

2026-09-14

File

rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_powershell_kerberos_kerberos_ticket_request_via_cli.yml

Commit

ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

Detects suspicious Kerberos ticket requests via command line using System.IdentityModel.Tokens.KerberosRequestorSecurityToken class.
Threat actors may use command line interfaces to request Kerberos tickets for service accounts in order to
perform offline password cracking attacks commonly known as Kerberoasting or other Kerberos ticket abuse
techniques like silver ticket attacks. Encoded commands will not surface the class name, so the ps_script
rule covers that instead.

Log source

product

windows

category

process_creation

Detection

selection_img:
    - Image|endswith:
          - '\powershell.exe'
          - '\pwsh.exe'
    - OriginalFileName:
          - 'powershell.exe'
          - 'pwsh.dll'
selection_cli:
    CommandLine|contains: 'System.IdentityModel.Tokens.KerberosRequestorSecurityToken'
condition: all of selection_*

False positives (as the rule lists them)

• Legitimate command line usage by administrators or security tools

Tags

• attack.credential-access
• attack.t1558.003

MITRE ATT&CK ids this rule names

• T1558.003

Related rules

• a861d835-af37-4930-bcd6-5b178bfb54df (similar)

References

• https://www.huntress.com/blog/gootloader-threat-detection-woff2-obfuscation
• https://github.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/blob/f339e7da7d05f6057fdfcdd3742bfcf365fee2a9/atomics/T1558.003/T1558.003.md#atomic-test-4---request-a-single-ticket-via-powershell
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.identitymodel.tokens.kerberosrequestorsecuritytoken?view=netframework-4.8.1

Read on 2026-11-03T00:58:21.399Z under licence sigma-drl-1.1@d5f4c36a from https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_powershell_kerberos_kerberos_ticket_request_via_cli.yml