ExtraHop named a Leader in the 2025 Forrester Wave™: Network Analysis And Visibility Solutions

Search
  • Platformchevron right
  • Solutionschevron right
  • Modern NDRchevron right
  • Resourceschevron right
  • Companychevron right

DETECTION OVERVIEW

Impacket SecretsDump SAM and LSA Activity

Risk Factors

Impacket is an open-source collection of tools for manipulating packets and network protocols such as SMB/CIFS. An attacker with local administrator privileges can run the SecretsDump tool to steal account names and cached credentials and move laterally across the network.

Category

Lateral Movement
Detection diagram
Next in Lateral Movement: Impacket WMIExec Activity

Attack Background

Impacket is a toolset that includes SecretsDump, a python script that can remotely retrieve cached credentials from the Security Account Manager (SAM) and Local Security Authority (LSA) Windows registry hives. SAM is a database file that stores local accounts for the host. LSA stores plaintext passwords and credentials, such as credentials for service accounts.

An attacker that has obtained local administrator privileges can run SecretsDump to access SAM and LSA. The script sends a Microsoft remote procedure call (MS-RPC) command to dump cached credentials from the Windows registry hive into a temporary file. The attacker can then read the temporary file over SMB to retrieve credentials.

Mitigation Options

Disable or restrict NTLM authentication

Limit the caching of plaintext credentials by adding users to the Protected Users Active Directory security group

Limit the number of cached credentials stored in the Windows registry (HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Winlogon\cachedlogonscountvalue)

Restrict file share access in Windows firewall settings to only authorized IP addresses

Do not allow remote access by users with local administrator credentials

Do not allow user or admin domain accounts in the local Administrator group

Require separate administrator credentials for different types of remote activity

MITRE ATT&CK ID

Associated content

Breaking Through Encrypted East-West Traffic: How to Detect Impacket’s Hidden Lateral Movement — ExtraHop

Learn how attackers use the Impacket tool to move laterally in encrypted east-west traffic. Discover how ExtraHop RevealX provides the crucial visibility to detect these hidden threats.

Blog

Announcing The Forrester Wave™: Network Analysis And Visibility Solutions, Q4 2025

Network analysis and visibility solutions remain underrepresented in enterprises. Find out why in this preview of a new Wave report.

Report

ExtraHop® Named a Leader in First-Ever Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Network Detection and Response — ExtraHop

ExtraHop® Named a Leader in First-Ever Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Network Detection and Response

News

Detections

Visit this resource for more information.

Docs

The 2025 ExtraHop Global Threat Landscape Report: The Alarming Reality of Threat Actor Dwell Time and Deeper Network Access — ExtraHop

This analysis exposes the critical link between an organization's lack of internal visibility and the escalating cost of compromise, demanding an urgent re-evaluation of how core business assets are protected.

Blog

ExtraHop RevealX MITRE ATT&CK Coverage 2024 — ExtraHop

Learn why you need to be wary of the claims certain network detection and response providers make about their coverage against the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

Blog

MITRE ATT&CK - Network Detection & Response with RevealX — ExtraHop

Learn how NDR from RevealX helps security teams detect and investigate more adversary TTPs in the MITRE ATT&CK framework than rule-based tools.

External
Periodic Table of Use Cases

What else can RevealX do for you?