{"description":"Trending threats, MITRE ATT\u0026CK coverage, and detection metadata. Fed continuously.","favicon":"https://feed.craftedsignal.io/favicon-32x32.png","feed_url":"https://feed.craftedsignal.io/tags/local-admin/feed.json","home_page_url":"https://feed.craftedsignal.io/","icon":"https://feed.craftedsignal.io/apple-touch-icon.png","items":[{"_cs_actors":[],"_cs_cpes":[],"_cs_cves":[],"_cs_exploited":false,"_cs_has_poc":false,"_cs_poc_references":[],"_cs_products":[],"_cs_severities":["medium"],"_cs_tags":["persistence","privilege-escalation","windows","net-exe","local-admin"],"_cs_type":"advisory","_cs_vendors":[],"content_html":"\u003cp\u003eThis detection analytic identifies the creation of a local administrator account on Windows systems by monitoring the usage of 'net.exe' with the '/add' parameter in conjunction with administrator-related group names. This activity is a common indicator of attackers attempting to establish persistence or escalate privileges on a compromised host. Multiple threat actors and malware families, including Medusa Ransomware, Azorult, DarkGate, and Lapsus$ affiliates, utilize this technique to maintain access post-exploitation. Detection engineers should look for process execution patterns involving net.exe that match this command line syntax, while accounting for legitimate administrative tasks.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"impact\"\u003eImpact\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSuccessful execution of this technique allows an adversary to maintain long-term access to a system, bypass security controls, and perform further lateral movement or data exfiltration. If confirmed malicious, this activity often represents a late stage in the kill chain where an attacker has already obtained high-privileged credentials or found a path to execute system commands.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"recommendation\"\u003eRecommendation\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDeploy the Sigma rule below to monitor for local group modification commands.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEnable Sysmon Event ID 1 (Process Creation) and ensure command-line arguments are captured in logs.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eUse the Splunk Common Information Model (CIM) to map process execution data to the Endpoint data model.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePrioritize alerts where the parent process is a non-standard utility or a web-server-related process, indicating potential remote code execution exploitation.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n","date_modified":"2026-10-12T18:03:31Z","date_published":"2026-10-12T18:03:31Z","id":"https://feed.craftedsignal.io/briefs/2026-10-net-admin-creation/","summary":"This analytic identifies attackers attempting to establish persistence or escalate privileges by using net.exe to add users to local administrator groups.","title":"Detection of Local Administrator Account Creation via Net.exe","url":"https://feed.craftedsignal.io/briefs/2026-10-net-admin-creation/"}],"language":"en","title":"CraftedSignal Threat Feed - Local-Admin","version":"https://jsonfeed.org/version/1.1"}