Adversaries may gather information on Group Policy settings to identify paths for privilege escalation, security measures applied within a domain, and to discover patterns in domain objects that can be manipulated or used to blend in the environment. Group Policy allows for centralized management of user and computer settings in Active Directory (AD). Group policy objects (GPOs) are containers for group policy settings made up of files stored within a predictable network path `\<DOMAIN>\SYSVOL\<DOMAIN>\Policies\`.(Citation: TechNet Group Policy Basics)(Citation: ADSecurity GPO Persistence 2016)

Adversaries may use commands such as <code>gpresult</code> or various publicly available PowerShell functions, such as <code>Get-DomainGPO</code> and <code>Get-DomainGPOLocalGroup</code>, to gather information on Group Policy settings.(Citation: Microsoft gpresult)(Citation: Github PowerShell Empire) Adversaries may use this information to shape follow-on behaviors, including determining potential attack paths within the target network as well as opportunities to manipulate Group Policy settings (i.e. [Domain or Tenant Policy Modification](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1484)) for their benefit.
Group Policy Discovery
source_name: mitre-attack  url: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1615  external_id: T1615     source_name: ADSecurity GPO Persistence 2016  description: Metcalf, S. (2016, March 14). Sneaky Active Directory Persistence #17: Group Policy. Retrieved March 5, 2019.  url: https://adsecurity.org/?p=2716     source_name: Microsoft gpresult  description: Microsoft. (2017, October 16). gpresult. Retrieved August 6, 2021.  url: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/gpresult     source_name: Github PowerShell Empire  description: Schroeder, W., Warner, J., Nelson, M. (n.d.). Github PowerShellEmpire. Retrieved April 28, 2016.  url: https://github.com/PowerShellEmpire/Empire     source_name: TechNet Group Policy Basics  description: srachui. (2012, February 13). Group Policy Basics – Part 1: Understanding the Structure of a Group Policy Object. Retrieved March 5, 2019.  url: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/musings_of_a_technical_tam/2012/02/13/group-policy-basics-part-1-understanding-the-structure-of-a-group-policy-object/     