Hello, My Name Is Domain Admin

Forest Druid is a free attack path discovery tool that protects Tier 0 assets first in hybrid AD and Entra ID environments. Shows IR teams the hops a compromised identity needs to reach Tier 0.

Semperis' free Forest Druid helps find and close attack paths to Tier 0 AD assets; deployments show prioritizing low-hanging fixes speeds hardening alongside Purple Knight.

Semperis argues AI-driven attacks are outpacing identity teams as machine identities outnumber human ones 10:1, and urges building organization-wide cyber resilience around hybrid identity protection before the next crisis.

NTDS.DIT, AD's core database, stores password hashes for the whole domain; extracting it lets attackers crack them offline or reuse them via Pass the Hash. Defenses and detection covered.

Twelve AD security best practices: minimize privileged users, secure admin accounts, modern password policies, disable SMBv1, restrict NTLM, plan recovery, use SID filtering, and monitor activity.

User rights assigned via GPOs—debug programs, back up files, take ownership, and more—become risky when misassigned. Explains how to review and lock down dangerous user rights in Active Directory.