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Detections · Rule
← Cortex XDR detectionsCortex XDR · Behaviour (ATT&CK technique)

NTDS.dit copy via ntdsutil IFM (T1003.003)

XQLhighconfidence 85/100generated 2026-10-18

ntdsutil creating Install-From-Media output, which writes a copy of NTDS.dit and the SYSTEM hive — the domain's password hashes — to disk. Observed for: APT10, APT15, APT28, Chimera, ENERGETIC BEAR, FIN13 and 10 more.

ATT&CK
T1003.003 mitre ↗
Correlation
set the rule's MITRE tactic to TA0006 and technique to T1003.003
Linked actors
APT10 · APT15 · APT28 · Chimera · ENERGETIC BEAR · FIN13 · FIN6 · Fox Kitten · HAFNIUM · LAPSUS · Medusa Group · MirrorFace · Sandworm · Scattered Spider · Volt Typhoon · WIZARD SPIDER
False positives
Matches only ntdsutil with both 'ifm' and 'create'; routine ntdsutil maintenance (metadata cleanup, snapshot listing) does not match.

XQL query

skopnix-cortex-ttp-t1003-003-5af37f54.xqldownload .xql ↓
dataset = xdr_data
| filter event_type = ENUM.PROCESS and event_sub_type = ENUM.PROCESS_START
| filter lowercase(action_process_image_name) = "ntdsutil.exe" and lowercase(action_process_image_command_line) contains "ifm" and lowercase(action_process_image_command_line) contains "create"
| fields _time, agent_hostname, actor_effective_username, action_process_image_name, action_process_image_command_line, actor_process_image_name, causality_actor_process_image_name
| sort desc _time

How to deploy on Cortex XDR

  1. 1.Paste the XQL into Incident Response > Investigation > Query Builder > XQL Search.
  2. 2.To alert, save it as a Correlation Rule and set the MITRE tactic and technique printed with the rule.
  3. 3.Schedule it on the interval you hunt at; keep the fields stage for the alert's columns.

Check · CVE rules read PAN-OS URL logs (panw_ngfw_url_raw), which need the NGFW integration and, for HTTPS, decryption.

References