IT pros are well aware that Active Directory has two types of groups: security groups, which are used to assign permissions to shared resources, and distribution groups, which are used to create email distribution lists. But not everyone understands that each of these Active Directory groups has a scope — and understanding how scope works is vital to security and business continuity. This blog post dives into what group scope is and exactly why it’s important.

Group Policy objects are critical for managing Windows Server infrastructure. To avoid severe service issues, administrators must configure GPOs carefully and be prepared to revert any changes quickly by backing them up before modifying them.

Abusing a gMSA is relatively simple conceptually. First, get its password using a tool like Mimikatz or by querying it directly due to insecure configurations in Active Directory. Since gMSAs are service accounts, they’re usually relatively privileged, so you’ll usually be able to move laterally or escalate. Let’s walk through an example scenario.

Digest Authentication is a challenge/response protocol that was primarily used in Windows Server 2003 for LDAP and web-based authentication. It utilizes Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Simple Authentication Security Layer (SASL) exchanges to authenticate. At a high level, a client requests access to something, the authenticating server challenges the client, and the client responds to the challenge by encrypting its response with a key derived from the password.