CFA-001 practice question 3 of 25
Hash injection attack allows attackers to inject a compromised hash into a local session and use the hash to validate network resources.
Full set: 180 questionsDomain Network Forensics
The statement accurately describes a credential access and lateral movement technique commonly known as a Pass-the-Hash (PtH) attack. In this attack, an adversary compromises a system and extracts a user's password hash (e.g., an NTLM hash) from memory or the Security Account Manager (SAM) database. The attacker then uses this hash to authenticate to other systems or services on the network as that user. This is achieved by "injecting" the stolen hash into a new logon session, bypassing the need for the original plaintext password. The authentication protocol uses the hash directly, making the attack successful.
B. False: This option is incorrect because the described process is a well-documented and valid cyberattack technique. Security frameworks and vendor documentation extensively detail this method of using compromised hashes for unauthorized access.
1. Microsoft Corporation. (2015). Mitigating Pass-the-Hash (PtH) Attacks and Other Credential Theft, Version 2. Microsoft Downloads. On page 6, the document states, "In a PtH attack, an attacker extracts a password hash from one computer and uses it to authenticate to another computer... The attacker has accomplished this without access to the user’s password." This confirms the mechanism described in the question.
2. MITRE. (2023). Use Alternate Authentication Material: Pass the Hash, Technique T1550.002. MITRE ATT&CK Framework. The framework describes the attack: "Once a hash is captured, it can be injected into a process's memory and used to authenticate to remote systems... The hash can then be used to perform actions on remote systems." This directly validates the concept of injecting a hash to access network resources.
3. Birk, D., & Pustogarov, F. (2016). On the Security of NTLM: A Deeper Look at Pass-the-Hash and Other Attacks. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (pp. 1520-1531). ACM. Section 3, "Pass-the-Hash Attacks," details the mechanics: "...the attacker can use the hash to impersonate the user and authenticate to a server." (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/2976749.2978393).
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