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The Rise of Identity-Based Attacks and How Deception Can Help

  • Sarika Sharma

Identity-based attacks have become the predominant vector for sophisticated threat actors targeting enterprise networks, particularly those using Microsoft Active Directory. Active Directory (AD), which serves as the authentication and authorization framework in over 90% of organizations, represents a critical attack surface that, when compromised, provides adversaries with extensive capabilities for lateral movement, privilege escalation, and data exfiltration.

Common Identity-Based Attack Vectors

Understanding the specific techniques adversaries use to compromise identity systems is essential for effective defense:

Attack Vector Technical MechanismImpactDetection Challenges
Kerberoasting
  • Requests service tickets for SPNs
  • Offline cracking of encrypted ticket
  • Exploits static, long-lived service account passwords
  • Compromise of privileged service accounts
  • Lateral movement
  • Persistent access
  • Looks like normal auth traffic
  • Hard to distinguish from real ticket requests
  • Offline cracking bypasses monitoring
DCSync Attacks
  • Registers as domain controller
  • Invokes DRS GetNCChanges
  • Requests replication data
  • Extracts password hashes
  • Complete domain credential compromise
  • Golden Ticket creation
  • Access to all passwords
  • Requires replication rights
  • Mimics legitimate DC traffic
  • Evades monitoring
DCShadow Attacks
  • Creates rogue DC
  • Injects malicious changes into replication
  • Bypasses security logs
  • Covertly modifies AD objects
  • Stealth AD modifications
  • Backdoor account creation
  • Security policy manipulation
  • Appears as legitimate DC changes
  • Bypasses standard logs
  • Hard to detect
LLMNR/NBT-NS Poisoning
  • Listens for broadcast name resolutions
  • Responds with attacker system
  • Captures auth hashes
  • Cracks hashes offline
  • Credential harvesting
  • Initial access
  • Privilege escalation potential
  • Exploits built-in protocols
  • Appears as network noise
  • Minimal footprint
Password Sniffing
  • Captures auth traffic via MITM
  • Exploits legacy protocols
  • Extracts unencrypted credentials
  • Direct credential theft
  • Account takeover
  • Access to resources
  • Hides in normal traffic
  • Requires traffic visibility
  • Passive and stealthy
AD Reconnaissance
  • Maps DCs, OUs, trusts
  • Identifies admins/services
  • Finds misconfigurations
  • Charts potential attack paths
  • Maps AD environment
  • Identifies high-value targets
  • Reveals security gaps
  • Uses admin tools
  • Looks like routine IT activity
  • Difficult to flag

Access Control and Identity-Based

Access control is a crucial aspect of identity security, as it determines which users have access to specific resources and systems. Identity-based access control involves granting or denying access based on a user’s identity, rather than their role or group membership. This approach allows for more fine-grained control and can help prevent unauthorized access to sensitive data. By implementing identity-based access control, organizations can reduce the risk of identity-based attacks and protect their sensitive information. Additionally, access control can be integrated with other security measures, such as multi-factor authentication and behavior analytics, to provide an additional layer of protection against identity-based threats.

The Limitations of Traditional Identity Security Approaches

While organizations continue to invest in identity security, many traditional approaches fall short in several critical areas:

  • Detection Gaps: Struggle to distinguish between legitimate admin activity and malicious behavior within identity systems, allowing attackers to exploit these gaps.
  • Attacker Camouflage: Once inside Active Directory, attackers often mimic normal behavior and avoid detection.
  • Reactive Posture: Focuses on responding to attacks already in progress rather than preventing early-stage activity like reconnaissance and credential misuse.
  • Alert Overload: High volume of alerts causes alert fatigue, making it hard for teams to identify real threats.
  • Lack of Context: Alerts often lack depth, providing minimal insight into attacker behavior or overall impact, highlighting the need for comprehensive endpoint detection.

How Deception Technology Changes the Game

Deception technology offers a fundamentally different approach to identity security by turning the tables on attackers. Rather than simply detecting known malicious signatures or behaviors, deception actively manipulates the attack surface to detect, mislead, and counter adversaries.

The Principles of Identity Deception

  • Identity deception operates on several key principles:
  • Attack Surface Manipulation: Altering the attacker’s perception of the identity environment to create confusion and uncertainty
  • Strategic Misdirection: Guiding attackers toward fake assets and away from critical systems
  • Early Detection: Identifying attacks during initial reconnaissance and lateral movement phases, before an attacker gains access to critical systems
  • High-Fidelity Alerts: Generating reliable, actionable alerts when deception assets are accessed
  • Intelligence Gathering: Studying attacker techniques, tactics, and procedures (TTPs) to improve security posture

Comprehensive Identity Protection Through Deception

A robust identity deception strategy includes multiple complementary elements:

Identity Decoys

These convincing fake AD objects—users, computers, groups, and domains—appear legitimate to attackers but serve as tripwires that trigger alerts when accessed, making it difficult for attackers to distinguish them from legitimate users. Unlike real assets, decoys have no legitimate business purpose, so any interaction with them indicates malicious activity with high confidence.

Strategic Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs are carefully placed clues that lead attackers toward decoys and away from legitimate assets, preventing unauthorized system access. These can include: 

  • Fake credentials stored in memory 
  • Misleading AD attributes and relationships 
  • Deceptive configuration files 
  • False service connection strings

Terrain Analysis and Risk Profiling

Advanced deception platforms continually analyze the identity environment to understand: 

  • The structure of identity systems 
  • Likely attack paths 
  • High-value targets 
  • Existing vulnerabilities

This analysis enables strategic placement of deception assets where they’ll be most effective at detecting and disrupting attacks.

The Power of AD-Aware Network Detection

  • Combining identity deception with network detection creates a powerful defense by providing:
  • Contextual Intelligence: Understanding not just that an attack is occurring, but how, where, and to what extent
  • Deep Visibility: Seeing beyond surface-level indicators to identify sophisticated attack techniques
  • Correlation Capabilities: Connecting disparate events into a coherent attack storyline
Turn the Tables: Make Attackers Chase Decoys, Not Data

Explore how deception disrupts cyber attackers—before they disrupt your operations.

  • How Fidelis Deception alters attacker perception
  • Detecting lateral movement and stopping AD compromise
  • How to build cyber resilience
Download the Solution Brief!

Fidelis Active Directory Intercept™: A Multi-Layered Approach

Fidelis Active Directory Intercept™ exemplifies the power of combining deception technology with comprehensive AD protection. This solution delivers multi-layered defense through three integrated capabilities:

1. Network Traffic Analysis

  • Fidelis Network® provides deep visibility into identity-related traffic with:
  • Active Threat Detection™ that correlates alerts and maps attempted AD attacks to MITRE ATT&CK TTPs
  • Deep Session Inspection™ that uncovers threats hidden within nested and obfuscated files as they traverse the network
  • Encrypted traffic analysis to prevent attackers from hiding malicious activity
  • Contextual intelligence to understand the full scope and impact of identity attacks
  • Activities within identity repositories to detect potential threats

2. Integrated Intelligent Deception

Fidelis Deception® automatically deploys strategic deception assets to:

  • Identify likely attack targets through terrain mapping and risk profiling
  • Create convincing AD decoys in both on-premises and Azure AD environments
  • Place breadcrumbs throughout the network to mislead attackers
  • Provide time for security teams to study and respond to threats
  • Generate high-confidence alerts that point definitively to active threats

3. Active Directory Log and Event Monitoring

At its foundation, Active Directory Intercept provides comprehensive AD monitoring:

  • Hierarchical visualization of the AD environment
  • Detailed information on all AD entities (users, computers, groups, domains)
  • Detection of AD misconfigurations that could be exploited
  • Real-time identification of suspicious activity, including attempts to access financial data
  • Drill-down capabilities for efficient investigation
See. Detect. Defend. Respond. Improve.

Find out how AD Intercept delivers full-spectrum protection—from deep visibility to decisive response.

  • Detection capabilities against attacks
  • Real-time contextual intelligence mapped to MITRE ATT&CK
  • Detailed overview of Fidelis’ multi-layered defense
Download the Datasheet!

Specific Identity Threats Detected and Countered

  • Active Directory Intercept is designed to detect, thwart, and protect against sophisticated identity-based attacks that other tools miss, including:
  • Active Directory reconnaissance activities, including the use of stolen identities to map the AD environment
  • Anomalous AD behavior patterns
  • Brute-force authentication attempts
  • Extraction of DPAPI domain backup keys
  • Kerberoasting attacks
  • Password sniffing attempts
  • LLMNR poisoning attacks
  • DCSync and DCShadow attacks
  • Detection of phishing attacks that aim to steal sensitive information through deceptive emails and messages
  • Identification of spear phishing attempts that target specific individuals with personalized messages to compromise privileged identity accounts

The Benefits of Deception for Identity Threat Detection and Response

Organizations implementing deception technology for identity protection realize numerous benefits:

Proactive Defense

Rather than waiting for attacks to reach critical assets, deception enables organizations to detect and respond to threats during early stages of the attack lifecycle, effectively protecting identities.

Reduced Alert Fatigue

By generating high-fidelity alerts based on definitive malicious activity, deception technology dramatically reduces false positives and allows security teams to focus on genuine threats.

Accelerated Incident Response

The contextual intelligence provided by deception solutions enables faster, more effective response. Time-to-resolution can be reduced from weeks or months to hours or minutes. 

Improved Threat Intelligence

Each interaction with deception assets provides valuable intelligence about attacker techniques, enabling organizations to continually improve their security posture and prevent successful attacks.

Enhanced Cyber Resiliency

By identifying threats earlier and providing time to respond effectively, deception technology helps organizations maintain business continuity through attacks and prevent costly damage from ransomware, malware, and insider threats.

Optimized Security Operations

Deception solutions can be deployed with minimal configuration and administration, allowing security teams of all experience levels to efficiently track and respond to identity threats.

Implementing Identity Deception: Strategic Considerations

To maximize the effectiveness of identity deception technology, organizations should consider several key factors:

Environment Assessment

Begin with a comprehensive assessment of your identity infrastructure, including on-premises AD, cloud identity systems, and authentication workflows. This assessment should identify:

  • Critical identity assets
  • Existing vulnerabilities and misconfigurations
  • Likely attack paths
  • Authentication patterns and behaviors

Integration with Existing Security Controls

Identity deception should complement and enhance existing security controls, including:

  • Identity Governance and Administration (IGA)
  • Privileged Access Management (PAM)
  • Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR)
  • Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), allowing IT teams to effectively manage and secure identity systems.

Deployment Strategy

Strategic deployment of deception assets is critical for effectiveness:

  • Place decoys where attackers are likely to encounter them during reconnaissance
  • Deploy breadcrumbs on high-value systems to lead attackers toward decoys
  • Ensure decoys are convincing enough to fool sophisticated adversaries and that valid credentials are protected from misuse
  • Maintain a dynamic deception environment that evolves as threats change

Response Planning

Develop clear playbooks for responding to deception alerts:

  • Define escalation paths
  • Establish containment procedures
  • Create forensic analysis workflows
  • Plan for threat hunting based on intelligence gathered

Conclusion: The Future of Identity Security

Identity-based attacks targeting Active Directory infrastructure have become the predominant vector for sophisticated threat actors due to AD’s central role in 90% of enterprise authentication frameworks, with many stolen credentials available on the dark web. Technical analysis demonstrates that traditional security controls consistently fail against these attacks due to: 

  1. Fundamental detection limitations: Inability to differentiate between legitimate administrative activity and malicious actions. 
  2. Timing disadvantages: Traditional detection occurs post-compromise, often 200+ days after initial breach. 
  3. Limited visibility: Security tools operate in isolation without comprehensive visibility across network and directory layers. 
  4. Excessive false positives: High alert volumes reduce security team effectiveness and create response bottlenecks.

Deception technology transforms this defensive paradigm by providing five critical advantages: 

  1. Attack Surface Manipulation – Deployment of convincing AD decoys forces attackers to operate with uncertainty, increasing operational costs and error rates. 
  2. Early Detection Capability – Strategic placement of breadcrumbs within legitimate systems shifts detection timeline from post-compromise to reconnaissance phase, reducing dwell time by 90%+. 
  3. High-Fidelity Alerting – Alerts triggered exclusively by decoy interaction deliver near-zero false positives, eliminating alert fatigue and enabling immediate response. 
  4. Intelligence Collection – Automated capture of attacker TTPs through decoy interaction provides actionable intelligence for defensive improvement. 
  5. Operational Efficiency – Automated deployment and management of deception assets maximizes security team effectiveness while minimizing administrative overhead. 

Solutions like Fidelis Active Directory Intercept™ that combine network traffic analysis, integrated deception, and comprehensive AD monitoring provide the multi-layered defense required to detect and stop identity-based attacks. This approach enables organizations to detect lateral movement immediately, identify attacks with 99%+ confidence, gather specific intelligence about adversary techniques, maintain operational resilience during active attacks, and continuously improve security posture through adversary intelligence collection.

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About Author

Picture of Sarika Sharma
Sarika Sharma

Sarika, a cybersecurity enthusiast, contributes insightful articles to Fidelis Security, guiding readers through the complexities of digital security with clarity and passion. Beyond her writing, she actively engages in the cybersecurity community, staying informed about emerging trends and technologies to empower individuals and organizations in safeguarding their digital assets.

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