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Every technique
T1555.005Detection written

Password Managers

Credential AccessLinux, macOS, Windows

Where this stands

One published detection covers this technique. Every one is unverified — no rule on Siemphony has been executed against real telemetry.

What the technique is

Adversaries may acquire user credentials from third-party password managers. Password managers are applications designed to store user credentials, normally in an encrypted database. Credentials are typically accessible after a user provides a master password that unlocks the database. After the database is unlocked, these credentials may be copied to memory. These databases can be stored as files on disk. Adversaries may acquire user credentials from password managers by extracting the master password and/or plain-text credentials from memory. Adversaries may extract credentials from memory via Exploitation for Credential Access. Adversaries may also try brute forcing via Password Guessing to obtain the master password of a password manager.

Read it on attack.mitre.org

What MITRE says you would watch

  • AN1641

    Detection of suspicious access to password manager processes (KeePass, 1Password, LastPass, Bitwarden) through abnormal process injection, memory reads, or command-line usage of vault-related DLLs. Correlates process creation with OS API calls and file access to vault databases (.kdbx,.opvault,.ldb).

  • AN1642

    Suspicious access to password manager vaults (KeePassXC, gnome-keyring, pass) via memory scraping or unauthorized file reads. Detects unusual command execution involving gdb/strace attached to password manager processes.

  • AN1643

    Detection of password manager database access (1Password.opvault, LastPass caches, KeePass.kdbx) outside expected parent processes. Identifies memory scraping attempts via suspicious API calls or tools attaching to password manager processes.

Technique names and descriptions © MITRE ATT&CK®, CC BY 4.0. Not endorsed by MITRE.