CHAIN-135 — Windows VM with Legacy Auth / NTLM enabled

Summary

Severity: High · Likelihood: Medium · Logic: ALL

Why this chain matters

A Windows VM accepts NTLM authentication and exposes SMB (445) to the VNet. An attacker who compromises a low-privilege VM can SMB-relay against the target, capturing a domain-hashed credential for offline crack.

Component rules

This chain fires when its trigger conditions are met by the following rules. Click any rule to see its detection logic and compliance mappings.

Rule ID	Role
zt_wl_023	Trigger
zt_net_001	Trigger

Attack walkthrough

Step 1 — Run ntlmrelayx against target VM.

Actor: Attacker on low-priv VM
MITRE ATT&CK: T1557.001
Enabled by: zt_wl_023

Attacker gain: NTLM auth response captured.

Step 2 — Crack offline; pass the hash.

Actor: Attacker
MITRE ATT&CK: T1550.002
Enabled by: zt_net_001

Attacker gain: Domain cred or admin access.

Blast radius

Initial access	Low-priv VM + target VM.
Max privilege	Domain credentials.
Data at risk	Domain-wide AD-joined systems
Services at risk	Windows domain

How the logic works

The chain fires only when every rule above has at least one finding in the current scan. Missing any one rule breaks the chain — so remediating any single step disrupts the attack path.