Kerberos Unconstrained Delegation
Qu'est-ce que Kerberos Unconstrained Delegation ?
Kerberos Unconstrained DelegationAn Active Directory configuration that lets a service receive and store TGTs for any authenticating user, allowing it to impersonate them to any other service — a high-impact misconfiguration repeatedly abused for credential theft and domain compromise.
Unconstrained delegation is the original Kerberos delegation mode in Active Directory. A computer or service account marked 'Trust this computer for delegation to any service' (the TRUSTED_FOR_DELEGATION user-account-control flag) receives the user's TGT inside the Kerberos service ticket as part of the standard double-hop sign-in. The service can then use that TGT to request service tickets for the user to any other service in the forest — there is no scoping. Attackers love this for two reasons. First, any user (including high-privilege accounts and even Domain Admins) who interacts with a compromised unconstrained-delegation host effectively donates their TGT to the attacker. Second, the 'Print Spooler bug' (and similar coerced-auth tricks like PetitPotam) can force domain controllers to authenticate to such a host, yielding the DC's TGT. Mitigations are categorical: never enable unconstrained delegation on new servers, migrate existing usage to constrained or resource-based constrained delegation, mark sensitive accounts as 'Account is sensitive and cannot be delegated', deploy Protected Users group membership for high-privilege users, and audit `userAccountControl` for the `TRUSTED_FOR_DELEGATION` flag.
● Exemples
- 01
A red-team coerces a Domain Controller to authenticate to a compromised IIS server with unconstrained delegation, harvests the DC's TGT, and proceeds to a DCSync attack.
- 02
A blue-team sweep removes the TRUSTED_FOR_DELEGATION flag from all member servers and migrates a small set of legacy SQL servers to resource-based constrained delegation.
● Questions fréquentes
Qu'est-ce que Kerberos Unconstrained Delegation ?
An Active Directory configuration that lets a service receive and store TGTs for any authenticating user, allowing it to impersonate them to any other service — a high-impact misconfiguration repeatedly abused for credential theft and domain compromise. Cette notion relève de la catégorie Identité et accès en cybersécurité.
Que signifie Kerberos Unconstrained Delegation ?
An Active Directory configuration that lets a service receive and store TGTs for any authenticating user, allowing it to impersonate them to any other service — a high-impact misconfiguration repeatedly abused for credential theft and domain compromise.
Comment fonctionne Kerberos Unconstrained Delegation ?
Unconstrained delegation is the original Kerberos delegation mode in Active Directory. A computer or service account marked 'Trust this computer for delegation to any service' (the TRUSTED_FOR_DELEGATION user-account-control flag) receives the user's TGT inside the Kerberos service ticket as part of the standard double-hop sign-in. The service can then use that TGT to request service tickets for the user to any other service in the forest — there is no scoping. Attackers love this for two reasons. First, any user (including high-privilege accounts and even Domain Admins) who interacts with a compromised unconstrained-delegation host effectively donates their TGT to the attacker. Second, the 'Print Spooler bug' (and similar coerced-auth tricks like PetitPotam) can force domain controllers to authenticate to such a host, yielding the DC's TGT. Mitigations are categorical: never enable unconstrained delegation on new servers, migrate existing usage to constrained or resource-based constrained delegation, mark sensitive accounts as 'Account is sensitive and cannot be delegated', deploy Protected Users group membership for high-privilege users, and audit `userAccountControl` for the `TRUSTED_FOR_DELEGATION` flag.
Comment se défendre contre Kerberos Unconstrained Delegation ?
Les défenses contre Kerberos Unconstrained Delegation combinent habituellement des contrôles techniques et des pratiques opérationnelles, comme détaillé dans la définition ci-dessus.
Quels sont les autres noms de Kerberos Unconstrained Delegation ?
Noms alternatifs courants : UD, Trust for delegation to any service.
● Termes liés
- identity-access№ 652
Kerberos
Protocole d'authentification réseau à base de tickets utilisant la cryptographie symétrique et un Centre de Distribution de Clés de confiance pour offrir une authentification unique sécurisée.
- identity-access№ 014
Active Directory
Service d'annuaire d'entreprise de Microsoft pour les réseaux Windows, qui assure l'authentification, l'autorisation et la gestion centralisée des stratégies pour utilisateurs, machines et ressources.
- identity-access№ 653
Kerberos Constrained Delegation
An Active Directory delegation mode that allows a service to impersonate users only to a specified set of target services — safer than unconstrained delegation, but still abused via S4U2Self / S4U2Proxy attacks when misconfigured.
- attacks№ 651
Kerberoasting
Attaque de mot de passe hors ligne qui demande des tickets de service Kerberos pour des comptes de service et casse la portion chiffree afin de retrouver le mot de passe en clair.
- attacks№ 886
Pass-the-Ticket
Attaque sur Active Directory qui rejoue un ticket Kerberos derobe afin d'usurper l'identite d'un utilisateur ou d'un service sans connaitre son mot de passe.
- attacks№ 836
Attaque NTLM Relay
Attaque de l'homme du milieu (MITRE T1557.001) ou un attaquant relaie l'authentification NTLM d'une victime vers un autre service pour usurper son identite sans connaitre son mot de passe.