Active Directory Containment

1. Prerequisites

• Domain Controller logs
• Authentication telemetry
• Privileged account activity
• EDR alerts
• SIEM detections
• Access to Active Directory
• Access to EDR platform
• Access to SIEM
• Access to identity provider
• Access to PowerShell
• Access to AD auditing tools

2. Step-by-Step Instructions

Common Failure Modes

• Leaving privileged sessions active
• Failing to rotate service account credentials
• Ignoring shadow admin persistence
• Restoring systems before AD validation

1. Review Privileged Account Activity

   • Identify:
     • Domain Admin usage
     • Enterprise Admin activity
     • Service account anomalies
     • Newly created privileged accounts

2. Disable Suspected Compromised Accounts

   • Immediately:
     • Disable compromised privileged accounts
     • Rotate privileged credentials
     • Reset KRBTGT if required

3. Identify Persistence Mechanisms

   • Review for:
     • Scheduled tasks
     • Startup scripts
     • GPO modifications
     • Malicious services
     • Shadow admin accounts

4. Protect Domain Controllers

   • Restrict administrative access
   • Isolate DCs if required
   • Review replication anomalies
   • Monitor authentication spikes

5. Validate Identity Infrastructure Integrity

   • Confirm:
     • GPO integrity
     • Replication health
     • Authentication stability
     • Administrative group integrity

3. Post-Action

• Document all containment steps taken in the incident ticket, along with the time each action was taken

Contributor

Vishal Thakur GitHub: https://github.com/malienist

Jayden Vo GitHub: https://github.com/jayden-vo

Contributed to the Arcana Incident Response Documentation Framework.