H3XAOperational intelligence
Live analytical pictureEvidence before assessment
TypeTechnique
External ID—
First seen2026-08-14
Last seen2026-08-14

Confidence

—

Adversaries may attempt to access detailed information about the password policy used within an enterprise network or cloud environment. Password policies are a way to enforce complex passwords that are difficult to guess or crack through [Brute Force](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1110). This information may help the adversary to create a list of common passwords and launch dictionary and/or brute force attacks which adheres to the policy (e.g. if the minimum password length should be 8, then not trying passwords such as 'pass123'; not checking for more than 3-4 passwords per account if the lockout is set to 6 as to not lock out accounts). Password policies can be set and discovered on Windows, Linux, and macOS systems via various command shell utilities such as net accounts (/domain) , Get-ADDefaultDomainPasswordPolicy , chage -l , cat /etc/pam.d/common-password , and pwpolicy getaccountpolicies (Citation: Superuser Linux Password Policies) (Citation: Jamf User Password Policies). Adversaries may also leverage a [Network Device CLI](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1059/008) on network devices to discover password policy information (e.g. show aaa , show aaa common-criteria policy all ).(Citation: US-CERT-TA18-106A) Password policies can be discovered in cloud environments using available APIs such as GetAccountPasswordPolicy in AWS (Citation: AWS GetPasswordPolicy).

9 recorded

Relationships

mitigatesMitigation
uses
from Chimera
Group
usesTool
usesMalware
uses
from Net
Tool
uses
from OilRig
Group
usesCampaign
uses
from PoshC2
Tool
uses
from Turla
Group
5 external

References

mitre-attack
T1201
open
AWS GetPasswordPolicy
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/APIReference/API_GetAccountPasswordPolicy.html
open
Jamf User Password Policies
https://www.jamf.com/jamf-nation/discussions/18574/user-password-policies-on-non-ad-machines
open
Superuser Linux Password Policies
https://superuser.com/questions/150675/how-to-display-password-policy-information-for-a-user-ubuntu
open
US-CERT-TA18-106A
https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA18-106A
open