Query public DNS records and certificate transparency logs to enumerate subdomains and infrastructure without touching the target. Completely passive — leaves zero logs on the target's systems.
"note": "Passive recon leaves NO direct logs on your infrastructure", "detection_vector": "Certificate Transparency monitoring (external)", "recommend": "Subscribe to crt.sh alerts for your domains", "siem_rule": "N/A — blind spot by design"
Collect employee email addresses from LinkedIn, breach dumps, and search engine dorking. Email lists feed directly into phishing campaigns and password sprays. theHarvester aggregates multiple OSINT sources automatically.
Adversary-in-the-Middle phishing proxies the real login page so the victim completes MFA while the attacker captures the session cookie. The IRON CHIMNEY campaign used this against Ficsit Inc. via invoices-ficsit.io to compromise marcus.chen's account.
{
"alert_id": "THREAT-001",
"rule": "Typosquat Domain — Phishing Link Delivered",
"severity": "HIGH",
"sender": "billing@invoices-ficsit.io",
"recipient": "marcus.chen@ficsit-pioneer.corp",
"subject": "Invoice #INV-2024-0847 — Action Required",
"phishing_url": "https://invoices-ficsit.io/login",
"technique": "AiTM proxy — session cookie capture",
"mitre": "T1566.002",
"campaign": "IRON CHIMNEY"
}
Test one or a few common passwords across a large list of accounts, staying below lockout thresholds. Highly effective against orgs with weak password policies. The Ficsit Inc. priya.khatri account was compromised using this technique (Welcome1!).
{
"alert_id": "ALT-2024-8847",
"rule": "Password Spray — Low-and-Slow LDAP",
"severity": "HIGH",
"source_ip": "192.168.2.50",
"target_domain": "ficsit-pioneer.corp",
"event_id": 4625,
"unique_accounts_targeted": 29,
"total_failures": 86,
"spray_window_mins": 30,
"compromised": ["priya.khatri"],
"mitre": "T1110.003",
"timestamp": "2024-03-15T14:22:41Z"
}
Request Kerberos TGS tickets for service accounts (SPNs) and crack them offline. Service accounts often have long-lived, weak passwords set by humans years ago. RC4-encrypted tickets crack much faster than AES256 — look for etype 0x17 in Event 4769.
{
"alert_id": "ALT-2024-4769",
"rule": "Kerberoasting — RC4 TGS Bulk Request",
"event_id": 4769,
"ticket_encryption": "0x17 (RC4-HMAC) — crackable offline",
"requester": "marcus.chen@ficsit-pioneer.corp",
"spns_requested": 7,
"time_window_secs": 8,
"severity": "HIGH"
}
Authenticate to remote services using a captured NTLM hash — no plaintext password needed. Particularly effective when the same local admin hash is shared across many machines (pre-LAPS environments). Works against SMB, WMI, WinRM, RDP (NLA disabled).
{
"alert_id": "ALT-2024-5140",
"rule": "Lateral Movement — SMB Admin Share Access",
"event_id": 5140,
"account": "FICSIT\\Administrator",
"source_host": "RESEARCH-STATION-01",
"targets_accessed": ["FIC-DC-01", "FIC-EXCH-01", "FINANCE-WS-01"],
"share": "ADMIN$",
"logon_type": 3,
"mitre": "T1550.002",
"campaign": "INV-2024-0087 IRON CHIMNEY"
}
Encode data in DNS queries/responses to exfiltrate through firewalls that allow outbound DNS. DNS is almost universally permitted outbound — even strict firewall rules rarely block it. The m.blake scenario in Ficsit also included Dropbox and Telegram exfil via CASB-visible channels.
{
"alert_id": "FW-2024-3391",
"rule": "DNS Tunneling — High Query Volume + Long Labels",
"source_host": "m.blake workstation (192.168.3.88)",
"dns_queries_per_min": 847,
"avg_query_length_chars": 118,
"external_domain": "*.tunnel.attacker.com",
"entropy": "HIGH (base64 encoded data)",
"mitre": "T1048.003"
}