Attacking Active Directory

As an aspiring penetration tester, it's important to understand how to simulate real-world cyber-attacks during a penetration test to perform both lateral and vertical movement within an Active Directory domain. Over the next few sections, you will explore various popular tools that are definitely needed within your arsenal as a cybersecurity professional.

Lateral movement with CrackMapExec

CrackMapExec (CME) is a post-exploitation tool that allows penetration testers to easily automate the process of gathering sensitive information from an Active Directory domain within an organization. This tool is very useful as it also allows penetration testers to compromise the trust between domain clients and domain controllers within the network.

Using a tool such as CME within an Active Directory domain, penetration testers and red team professionals are able to quickly identify whether a user credential can be used to gain access to other systems...