Detailed attack pattern

Stable

CAPEC-645: Use of Captured Tickets (Pass The Ticket)

An adversary uses stolen Kerberos tickets to access systems/resources that leverage the Kerberos authentication protocol. The Kerberos authentication protocol centers around a ticketing system which is used to request/grant access to services and to then access the requested services. An adversary can obtain any one of these tickets (e.g. Service Ticket, Ticket Granting Ticket, Silver Ticket, or Golden Ticket) to authenticate to a system/resource without needing the account's credentials. Depending on the ticket obtained, the adversary may be able to access a particular resource or generate TGTs for any account within an Active Directory Domain.

Last updated June 1, 2026

High

Typical severity

Per MITRE

Low

Likelihood of attack

Per MITRE

3

Related weaknesses

CWEs this targets

Detailed

Abstraction

MITRE classification

Overview

CAPEC-645 (Use of Captured Tickets (Pass The Ticket)) is a detailed-level attack pattern catalogued by MITRE in the Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC). It describes a recurring method attackers use to exploit software weaknesses.

What the attacker needs

Prerequisites

The adversary needs physical access to the victim system.
The use of a third-party credential harvesting tool.

Skills required

Low skill: Determine if Kerberos authentication is used on the server.
High skill: The adversary uses a third-party tool to obtain the necessary tickets to execute the attack.

Consequences

What a successful CAPEC-645 attack can achieve.

Gain Privileges

Affects: Integrity

How to mitigate it

Defenses that reduce the risk of CAPEC-645.

Reset the built-in KRBTGT account password twice to invalidate the existence of any current Golden Tickets and any tickets derived from them.
Monitor system and domain logs for abnormal access.

Examples

Bronze Butler (also known as Tick), has been shown to leverage forged Kerberos Ticket Granting Tickets (TGTs) and Ticket Granting Service (TGS) tickets to maintain administrative access on a number of systems. [REF-584]

Terminology & mappings

Mapped taxonomies

ATTACK: Use Alternate Authentication Material:Pass The Ticket (1550.003)

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about CAPEC-645.

What is CAPEC-645?

An adversary uses stolen Kerberos tickets to access systems/resources that leverage the Kerberos authentication protocol. The Kerberos authentication protocol centers around a ticketing system which is used to request/grant access to services and to then access the requested services. An adversary can obtain any one of these tickets (e.g. Service Ticket, Ticket Granting Ticket, Silver Ticket, or Golden Ticket) to authenticate to a system/resource without needing the account's credentials. Depending on the ticket obtained, the adversary may be able to access a particular resource or generate TGTs for any account within an Active Directory Domain.

How do you prevent CAPEC-645?

Reset the built-in KRBTGT account password twice to invalidate the existence of any current Golden Tickets and any tickets derived from them.

What weaknesses does CAPEC-645 target?

CAPEC-645 exploits 3 CWE weaknesses, including CWE-294 (Authentication Bypass by Capture-replay), CWE-308 (Use of Single-factor Authentication), CWE-522 (Insufficiently Protected Credentials).

How severe is CAPEC-645?

MITRE rates CAPEC-645 as High severity with low likelihood of attack.

References

Attack-pattern data is sourced from the MITRE CAPEC catalog (v3.9). Weakness associations link to the corresponding CWE entries on RadicalNotion.AI.

Defend against CAPEC-645

Track the CVEs and weaknesses attackers exploit with this technique, with AI-written analysis and remediation guidance.

Start free See pricing

Overview

Overview

What the attacker needs

Prerequisites

Skills required

Consequences

How to mitigate it

Examples

Related weaknesses

Related attack patterns

Parent

Can precede

Terminology & mappings

Mapped taxonomies

Frequently asked questions

What is CAPEC-645?

How do you prevent CAPEC-645?

What weaknesses does CAPEC-645 target?

How severe is CAPEC-645?

References

Defend against CAPEC-645