Active Directory Security Assessment & Penetration Testing

Active Directory serves as the identity and access management backbone of many organizations. User accounts, workstations, servers, applications, and administrative processes are often deeply integrated with the domain. As a result, Active Directory frequently becomes one of the most valuable targets during an attack. Gaining control of the domain often means gaining control of the environment.

 

Security incident investigations consistently show that attackers focus heavily on privilege escalation within Active Directory after obtaining an initial foothold. While the initial compromise may originate from phishing, credential theft, or an exposed service, the ultimate objective is often domain-wide access and administrative control.

Most Active Directory environments evolve over many years. New systems are introduced, permissions are delegated, exceptions are added, and legacy configurations remain in place long after their original purpose has been forgotten.

 

Over time, this complexity creates opportunities for attackers. A single misconfiguration may not represent a significant risk on its own, but multiple weaknesses can often be combined into a viable path toward highly privileged accounts.

 

From an attacker's perspective, the goal is not simply to find vulnerabilities. The goal is to identify a path that leads to administrative access and broader control of the environment.

Once access to a standard user account has been obtained, attackers typically begin mapping the environment. Group memberships, delegated permissions, trust relationships, service accounts, and administrative systems are analyzed to identify opportunities for privilege escalation.

 

Common attack techniques include abusing excessive permissions, exploiting insecure delegation settings, targeting service accounts, extracting credentials, and leveraging legacy authentication protocols. In many cases, multiple low-severity issues can be chained together to achieve complete domain compromise.

 

These attack paths are often difficult to identify through routine administration because they emerge from the interaction of many different configurations across the environment.

An Active Directory pentest evaluates the environment from the perspective of an attacker operating with limited privileges. The objective is to identify realistic paths that could be used to escalate privileges, move laterally, and gain control of critical assets.

 

The assessment includes the analysis of permissions, delegated administration, service accounts, Group Policy Objects, trust relationships, privileged groups, authentication mechanisms, and other security-relevant components of the domain.

 

I also evaluate common attack vectors such as Kerberoasting, AS-REP Roasting, insecure ACLs, delegation weaknesses, credential exposure, weak password controls, and other conditions that could facilitate privilege escalation.

A secure Active Directory environment requires more than simply eliminating individual misconfigurations. The greatest risk often comes from the way multiple weaknesses interact with one another.

 

For example, a seemingly insignificant permission assignment may allow control over a service account. That account may provide access to additional systems, which in turn expose credentials belonging to privileged users. Individually, none of these issues may appear critical. Combined, they can provide a direct path to full domain compromise.

 

A pentest focuses on identifying these real-world attack paths and assessing their practical impact.

At the conclusion of the engagement, I provide a detailed report outlining identified weaknesses, privilege escalation opportunities, attack paths, and remediation recommendations.

 

Rather than presenting isolated findings, the report highlights how weaknesses can be combined to impact the security of the environment as a whole. This helps organizations prioritize remediation efforts and reduce the risk of domain compromise through realistic attack scenarios.

For inquiries or to schedule an appointment, please contact me at: info@pb-sec.ch

 

I strongly recommend not including confidential information in your initial contact email that could reveal details about your organization's internal structure. Detailed information regarding the project scope and conditions can be discussed in a personal conversation.