Adversaries may attempt to find unsecured credentials in Group Policy Preferences (GPP). GPP are tools that allow administrators to create domain policies with embedded credentials. These policies allow administrators to set local accounts.(Citation: Microsoft GPP 2016)

These group policies are stored in SYSVOL on a domain controller. This means that any domain user can view the SYSVOL share and decrypt the password (using the AES key that has been made public).(Citation: Microsoft GPP Key)

The following tools and scripts can be used to gather and decrypt the password file from Group Policy Preference XML files:

* Metasploit’s post exploitation module: <code>post/windows/gather/credentials/gpp</code>
* Get-GPPPassword(Citation: Obscuresecurity Get-GPPPassword)
* gpprefdecrypt.py

On the SYSVOL share, adversaries may use the following command to enumerate potential GPP XML files: <code>dir /s * .xml</code>

Group Policy Preferences
source_name: mitre-attack  url: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1552/006  external_id: T1552.006     source_name: Microsoft GPP 2016  description: Microsoft. (2016, August 31). Group Policy Preferences. Retrieved March 9, 2020.  url: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2012-r2-and-2012/dn581922(v%3Dws.11)     source_name: Microsoft GPP Key  description: Microsoft. (n.d.). 2.2.1.1.4 Password Encryption. Retrieved April 11, 2018.  url: https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/cc422924.aspx     source_name: Obscuresecurity Get-GPPPassword  description: Campbell, C. (2012, May 24). GPP Password Retrieval with PowerShell. Retrieved April 11, 2018.  url: https://obscuresecurity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/gpp-password-retrieval-with-powershell.html     source_name: ADSecurity Finding Passwords in SYSVOL  description: Sean Metcalf. (2015, December 28). Finding Passwords in SYSVOL & Exploiting Group Policy Preferences. Retrieved February 17, 2020.  url: https://adsecurity.org/?p=2288     