Tenable Identity Exposure
Secure Active Directory and Eliminate Attack Paths
Take control of your Active Directory (AD) and Azure AD security to find and fix flaws before they become business-impacting issues.
Tenable Identity Exposure (formerly Tenable.ad) is a fast, agentless Active Directory security solution that allows you to see everything in your complex Active Directory environment, predict what matters to reduce risk and eliminate attack paths before attackers exploit them.
Request a Demo
No
Privilege Escalation
Lateral Movement
Next Step for Attackers
Find and Fix Active Directory Weaknesses Before Attacks Happen
Discover and prioritize exposures within Active Directory using Tenable's Identity Risk Score. Reduce your identity risk with step-by-step remediation guidance.
Detect and Respond to Active Directory Attacks in Real Time
Detect Active Directory attacks like DCShadow, Brute Force, Password Spraying, DCSync and more. Tenable Identity Exposure enriches your SIEM, SOC or SOAR with attack insights so you can quickly respond and stop attacks.
"The Tenable solution freed us from Active Directory security concerns so that we could focus on new business incorporation."Dominique Tessaro, CIO, Vinci Energies

How the Pharmaceutical Leader Sanofi Successfully Protects Its Global Active Directory Infrastructures
Read the Case Study
How Vinci Energies Achieved Strong Security Parameters on Its Ever-evolving Active Directory Infrastructures
Read the Case Study
How Lagardère’s Small Entities Protect Their Active Directory Infrastructures With Limited Resources
Read the Case StudyAvailable Through Tenable One Exposure Management Platform
Tenable One is an exposure management platform designed to help your organization gain visibility across your modern attack surface, focus efforts to prevent likely attacks, and accurately communicate cyber risk to support optimal business performance. The Tenable One platform offers broad vulnerability coverage spanning IT assets, cloud resources, containers, web apps and identity systems.
Learn moreSecure Active Directory
- Discover underlying issues threatening your Active Directory security
- Identify dangerous trust relationships
- Score exposures and prioritize remediations with the Identity Risk Score
- Catch every change in your Active Directory and Azure AD
- Make the link between Active Directory changes and malicious actions
- Unify identities in Active Directory and Azure AD
- Visualize in-depth attack details
- Explore MITRE ATT&CK descriptions directly from incident details

FAQs
- Uncover any hidden weaknesses within your Active Directory configurations
- Discover underlying issues threatening your Active Directory security
- Dissect each misconfiguration – in simple terms
- New Asset Exposure Score capability quantifies asset risk by combining vulnerability, exposure and identity entitlements (powered by Tenable’s Artificial Intelligence and Data Science Engine
- Get recommended fixes for each issue
- Create custom dashboards to manage your Active Directory security to drive risk reduction
- Discover dangerous trust relationships
- New View Unified Identities from Active Directory and Azure AD
- Catch every change in your AD
- Uncover major attacks per domain in your Active Directory
- Visualize every threat from an accurate attack timeline
- Consolidate attack distribution in a single view
- Make the link between Active Directory changes and malicious actions
- Analyze in-depth details of an Active Directory attack
- Explore MITRE ATT&CK ® descriptions directly from detected incidents
Attack Vector |
Description |
Known Offensive tools |
Mitre Attack Matrix |
Privileged accounts running Kerberos services |
Highly privileged accounts using a brute-forceable Kerberos Service Principal Name |
Kerberom |
Privilege Escalation, Lateral movement, Persistence |
Dangerous Kerberos delegation |
Check that no dangerous delegation (unconstrained, protocol transition, etc.) is authorized |
Nishang |
Privilege Escalation, Lateral movement, Persistence |
Use of weak cryptography algorithms into Active Directory PKI |
Root certificates deployed on internal Active Directory PKI must not use weak cryptographic algorithms |
ANSSI-ADCP |
Persistence, Privilege escalation, Lateral movement |
Dangerous access rights delegation on critical objects |
Some access rights allowing illegitimate users to control critical objects have been found |
BloodHound |
Exfiltration, Lateral movement, Command and control, Credential access, Privilege escalation |
Multiple issues in the password policy |
On some specific accounts, the current password policies are insufficient to ensure robust credentials protection |
Patator |
Defense evasion, Lateral movement, Credential access, Privilege escalation |
Dangerous RODC management accounts |
The administrative groups in charge of Read-Only Domain Controllers contain abnormal accounts |
Impacket |
Credential access, Defense evasion, Privilege escalation |
Sensitive GPO linked to critical objects |
Some GPO managed by non-administrative accounts are linked to sensitive Active Directory objects (e.g. the KDC account, Domain Controllers, administrative groups, etc.) |
ANSSI-ADCP |
Command and control, Credential access, Persistence, Privilege escalation |
Administrative accounts allowed to connect to other systems than the Domain Controllers |
The security policies deployed on the monitored infrastructure does not prevent administrative accounts to connect to resources other than DC, leading to sensitive credentials exposure |
CrackMapExec |
Defense evasion, Credential access |
Dangerous trust relationship |
Misconfigured trust relationship attributes decrease the security of a directory infrastructure |
Kekeo |
Lateral movement, Credential access, Privilege escalation, Defense evasion |
Reversible passwords in GPO |
Verify that no GPO contain passwords stored in a reversible format |
SMB Password crawler |
Credential access, Privilege escalation |
Computers running an obsolete OS |
Obsolete systems are not supported by the editor anymore and greatly increase the infrastructure vulnerability |
Metasploit |
Lateral movement, Command and control |
Accounts using a pre-Windows 2000 compatible access control |
Account member of the pre-Windows 2000 Compatible Access Group can bypass specific security measures |
Impacket |
Lateral movement, Defense evasion |
Local administrative account management |
Ensure local administrative accounts are managed centrally and securely using LAPS |
CrackMapExec |
Defense evasion, Credential access, Lateral movement |
Dangerous anonymous users configuration |
Anonymous access is activated on the monitored Active Directory infrastructure leading to sensitive information leak |
Impacket |
Exfiltration |
Abnormal RODC filtered attributes |
The filtering policies applied on some Read-Only Domain Controllers can lead to sensitive information caching, allowing privilege escalations |
Mimikatz (DCShadow) |
Privilege escalation, Defense evasion |
Lacking restriction on lateral movements attack scenario |
Lateral movement restriction has not been activated on the monitored Active Directory infrastructure, allowing attackers to bounce from machine to machine with the same level of privileges |
CrackMapExec |
Lateral movement |
Clear-text password stored in DC shares |
Some files on DC shares, accessible by any authenticated user, are likely to contain clear-text password, allowing privilege escalation |
SMBSpider |
Credential access, Privilege escalation, Persistence |
Dangerous access control rights on logon scripts |
Some scripts, run during a computer or a user logon, have dangerous access rights, leading to privilege escalation |
Metasploit |
Lateral movement, Privilege escalation, Persistence |
Dangerous parameters are used in GPO |
Some dangerous parameters (e.g. restricted groups, LM hash computation, NTLM authentication level, sensitive parameters, etc.) are set by GPO, creating security breaches |
Responder |
Discovery, Credential access, Execution, Persistence, Privilege escalation, Defense evasion |
Dangerous parameters defined in the User Account Control configuration |
The User Account Control attribute of some user accounts defines dangerous parameters (e.g. PASSWD_NOTREQD or PARTIAL_SECRETS_ACCOUNT), which endanger the security of said account |
Mimikatz (LSADump) |
Persistence, Privilege escalation, Defense evasion |
Lacking application of security patches |
Some server registered in Active Directory did not recently apply security updates |
Metasploit |
Command and control Privilege escalation, Defense evasion |
Brute force attempt on user accounts |
Some user accounts have been targeted by a brute force attempt |
Patator |
Credential access |
Kerberos configuration on user account |
Some accounts are using weak Kerberos configuration |
Mimikatz (Silver Ticket) |
Credential access, Privilege escalation |
Abnormal share or file stored on the DC |
Some domain controllers are used to host non-necessary files or network shares |
SMBSpider |
Discovery, Exfiltration |
Backdooring technique |
Description |
Known Offensive tools |
Mitre attack Matrix |
Ensure SDProp consistency |
Control that the adminSDHolder object is in a clean state |
Mimikatz (Golden Ticket) |
Privilege escalation, Persistence |
Ensure SDProp consistency |
Verify that users’ primary group has not been changed |
BloodHound |
Privilege escalation, Persistence |
Verify root domain object permissions |
Ensure the permissions set on the root domain object are sane |
BloodHound |
Privilege escalation, Persistence |
Verify sensitive GPO objects and files permissions |
Ensure that permissions set on the GPO objects and files linked to sensitive containers (like the Domain Controllers OU) are sane |
BloodHound |
Execution, Privilege escalation, Persistence |
Dangerous access rights on RODC KDC account |
The KDC account used on some Read-Only Domain Controllers can be controlled by illegitimate user account, leading to credential leaks |
Mimikatz (DCSync) |
Privilege escalation, Persistence |
Sensitive certificates mapped to user accounts |
Some X509 certificates are stored in the altSecurityIdentities user account attribute, allowing certificate’s private key owner to authenticate as this user |
Command and control, Credential access, Privilege escalation, Persistence |
|
Rogue Krbtgt SPN set on regular account |
The Service Principal Name of the KDC is present on some regular user account, leading to Kerberos tickets forgery |
Mimikatz (Golden Ticket) |
Privilege escalation, Persistence |
KDC password last change |
KDC account password must be changed regularly |
Mimikatz (Golden Ticket) |
Credential access, Privilege escalation, Persistence |
Accounts having a dangerous SID History attribute |
Check user or computer accounts using a privileged SID in SID history attribute |
DeathStar |
Privilege escalation, Persistence |
Rogue domain controllers |
Ensure only legitimate Domain controller servers are registered into Active Directory infrastructure |
Mimikatz (DCShadow) |
Execution, Defense evasion, Privilege escalation, Persistence |
Illegitimate Bitlocker key access control |
Some Bitlocker recovery keys stored in Active Directory can be accessed by other people than administrators and linked computers |
ANSSI-ADCP |
Credential access, Privilege escalation, Persistence |
Abnormal entries in the Schema security descriptor |
The Active Directory Schema has been modified leading to new standard access rights or objects that can endanger the monitored infrastructure |
BloodHound |
Privilege escalation, Persistence |
DSRM account activated |
The Active Directory recovery account has been activated, exposing it to credential theft |
Mimikatz (LSADump) |
Credential access, Execution, Defense evasion, Privilege escalation, Persistence |
Authentication hash not renewed when using smartcard |
Some user accounts using smartcard authentication do not renew their credentials hash frequently enough |
Mimikatz (LSADump) |
Persistence |
Reversible passwords for User accounts |
Verify no parameter make passwords stored in a reversible format |
Mimikatz (DC Sync) |
Credential access |
Use of explicit denied access on containers |
Some Active Directory containers or OUs define explicit denied access, leading to potential backdoor concealment |
BloodHound |
Defense evasion, Persistence |
AD misconfigurations happen all the time, so that point-in-time audits become deprecated only minutes after they start and focus on misconfigurations rather than including indicators of compromise.
On the other hand, Tenable Identity Exposure is a security platform that continuously scans your AD for new weaknesses and attacks - alerting users in real-time to issues.
AD security is an important piece of your security puzzle, and Tenable Identity Exposure blends into your security ecosystem seamlessly.
Our Syslog integration ensures that all SIEM and most ticketing systems can integrate with Tenable Identity Exposure right out of the box. We also have native apps available for QRadar, Splunk, and Phantom.