What it does. Hunts for MITRE ATT&CK T1098 account manipulation - shadow admin creation, SID history injection, group membership changes, and credential modifications - by analyzing Windows Security Event Log IDs 4738, 4728, 4732, 4756, 4670, and 5136. Use when investigating suspected privilege persistence in Active Directory, after detecting anomalous group/credential changes, or during incident response to trace account tampering. Part of mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills (817 security skills) (mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills).

Install

• npx skills add mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills --skill hunting-for-t1098-account-manipulation, or copy the skill folder into ~/.claude/skills/hunting-for-t1098-account-manipulation/.
• Raw file: curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills/HEAD/skills/hunting-for-t1098-account-manipulation/SKILL.md

SKILL.md (verbatim)

name: hunting-for-t1098-account-manipulation
description: Hunts for MITRE ATT&CK T1098 account manipulation - shadow admin creation, SID history injection, group membership changes, and credential modifications - by analyzing Windows Security Event Log IDs 4738, 4728, 4732, 4756, 4670, and 5136. Use when investigating suspected privilege persistence in Active Directory, after detecting anomalous group/credential changes, or during incident response to trace account tampering.
domain: cybersecurity
subdomain: threat-hunting
tags:
- threat-hunting
- mitre-attack
- t1098
- account-manipulation
- active-directory
- persistence
version: '1.0'
author: mahipal
license: Apache-2.0
d3fend_techniques:
- Token Binding
- Restore Access
- Application Protocol Command Analysis
- Password Authentication
- Biometric Authentication
nist_csf:
- DE.CM-01
- DE.AE-02
- DE.AE-07
- ID.RA-05
mitre_attack:
- T1046
- T1057
- T1082
- T1083
- T1003

Hunting for T1098 Account Manipulation

Overview

MITRE ATT&CK T1098 (Account Manipulation) covers adversary actions to maintain or expand access to compromised accounts, including adding credentials, modifying group memberships, SID history injection, and creating shadow admin accounts. This skill covers detecting these techniques through Windows Security Event Log analysis (Event IDs 4738, 4728, 4732, 4756, 4670, 5136), correlating group membership changes with privilege escalation indicators, and identifying anomalous account modification patterns.

When to Use

• When investigating security incidents that require hunting for t1098 account manipulation
• When building detection rules or threat hunting queries for this domain
• When SOC analysts need structured procedures for this analysis type
• When validating security monitoring coverage for related attack techniques

Prerequisites

• Windows Security Event Logs (EVTX format) or SIEM access
• Python 3.9+ with python-evtx, lxml libraries
• Understanding of Active Directory group structure and SID architecture
• Familiarity with MITRE ATT&CK T1098 sub-techniques

Steps

Step 1: Parse Account Modification Events

Extract Event IDs 4738 (user account changed), 4728/4732/4756 (member added to security groups), and 5136 (directory service object modified).

Step 2: Detect Privileged Group Changes

Flag additions to Domain Admins, Enterprise Admins, Schema Admins, Administrators, and Backup Operators groups.

Step 3: Identify Shadow Admin Indicators

Detect accounts receiving AdminSDHolder protection, direct privilege assignment, or SID history injection.

Step 4: Correlate with Attack Timeline

Cross-reference account changes with authentication events to identify initial compromise and persistence establishment.

Expected Output

JSON report with detected account manipulation events, privileged group changes, shadow admin indicators, and timeline correlation.

Other files in this skill

• LICENSE
• references/api-reference.md
• scripts/agent.py

references/api-reference.md (verbatim)

API Reference: Hunting for T1098 Account Manipulation

Key Windows Security Event IDs

Privileged Groups to Monitor

Sensitive AD Attributes

python-evtx Parsing

import Evtx.Evtx as evtx

with evtx.Evtx("Security.evtx") as log:
    for record in log.records():
        xml_str = record.xml()
        # Parse XML to extract EventID and Data fields

Install: pip install python-evtx lxml

MITRE T1098 Sub-Techniques

References

• MITRE T1098: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1098/
• CISA Eviction Guide: https://www.cisa.gov/eviction-strategies-tool/info-attack/T1098
• Windows Event Mapping: https://www.socinvestigation.com/mapping-mitre-attck-with-window-event-log-ids/
• python-evtx: https://github.com/williballenthin/python-evtx

Back to mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills (817 security skills) or Agent skills.