22.10 (L1) Ensure 'ASR: Block credential stealing from the Windows local security authority subsystem' is set to 'Block'

Information

This rule helps prevent credential stealing by locking down Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS).

LSASS authenticates users who sign in on a Windows computer. Microsoft Defender Credential Guard in Windows normally prevents attempts to extract credentials from LSASS. Some organizations can't enable Credential Guard on all of their computers because of compatibility issues with custom smartcard drivers or other programs that load into the Local Security Authority (LSA). In these cases, attackers can use tools like Mimikatz to scrape cleartext passwords and NTLM hashes from LSASS.

Note: Enabling this rule doesn't provide additional protection if you have LSA protection enabled since the ASR rule and LSA protection work similarly. However, when LSA protection cannot be enabled, this rule can be configured to provide equivalent protection against malware that target lsass.exe

The recommended state for this setting is: Block

Attack surface reduction helps prevent actions and apps that are typically used by exploit-seeking malware to infect machines.

Solution

To establish the recommended configuration via configuration profiles, set the following Settings Catalog path to Block

Defender\Block credential stealing from the Windows local security authority subsystem

Impact:

When a rule is triggered, a notification will be displayed from the Action Center.

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/benchmarks/21719

Item Details

Category: SYSTEM AND INFORMATION INTEGRITY

References: 800-53|SI-16, CSCv7|8.3

Plugin: Windows

Control ID: 9821db9a6d7f4f5e0e050a40eafc49fb66649a7a690174ff9509ce86a2784d78