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AD Rights Management Service (Part 2): Extraction, Offline Decryption, and the Unrotatable Key

Huntress research shows AD RMS SLC root key is unrotatable and never expires, so its compromise permanently exposes all RMS-protected documents.

Part 2 of Huntress's AD RMS series details server-side attacks: extracting the Server Licensor Certificate (SLC) private key and performing offline decryption of protected documents. The SLC key has no expiry or rotation mechanism, with a 255-year certificate validity (2002–2258), so whoever recovers it can decrypt every document the deployment ever protected, indefinitely. The author released SharpRMS, a unified tool combining the 2016 DisARMS client-side attacks with new server-side key extraction and decryption capabilities. The research frames the SLC as comparable to KRBTGT and the DPAPI domain backup key, though not equivalent to domain compromise.

Huntress·Sep 10, 04:00 UTC · 6d agoResearch

AD Rights Management Service (Part 1): Architecture, Deprecation, and Reconnaissance

Huntress maps AD RMS architecture and recon paths, setting up an offline key-extraction attack against its unrotatable 255-year root key.

Huntress's multi-part research examines Active Directory Rights Management Services, Microsoft's enterprise DRM role that still ships in Windows Server 2025 despite migration guidance favoring Azure Information Protection. Part 1 covers the trust model and how an ordinary domain account can locate RMS clusters and read rights-policy templates. Part 2 will detail four independent paths for extracting the Server Licensor Certificate (SLC) private key via service-group membership and the configuration database, enabling fully offline decryption of protected documents. The SLC certificate is valid from 2002 to 2258 and has no key-rotation mechanism, so a stolen key decrypts protected content indefinitely.

Huntress·Sep 8, 04:00 UTC · 8d agoResearch1

CISA Shares 17 Techniques Used by Hackers to Compromise Active Directory

CISA and five international agencies publish joint guidance detailing 17 techniques attackers use to compromise Microsoft Active Directory environments.

CISA, NSA, and the Australian Signals Directorate's ACSC, with contributions from Canadian, UK, and New Zealand cyber centers, released technical guidance on 17 Active Directory attack techniques. It covers AD Domain Services, AD Certificate Services, and AD Federation Services, including Kerberoasting, DCSync, Golden Ticket, Golden SAML, Skeleton Key, and Shadow Credentials. The guidance recommends treating domain controllers, CAs, AD FS servers, and Entra Connect systems as Tier 0 assets with phishing-resistant MFA, Kerberos pre-authentication enforcement, and disabling NTLM/SMBv1.

Cyber Security News·Sep 15, 16:05 UTC · 1d agoAdvisory

ZeroTier Quantum brings quantum-resistant security to high-performance global networking

Help Net Security·Mar 24, 00:00 UTC · Mar 24, 2026AI tools & infra

2026 Cyber Insurance Trends Report: What's Changed and What You Need to Know

Huntress survey: CIRCIA reporting mandates now live, BEC claims exceed ransomware, exfiltration-heavy attacks cost twice as much, premiums rising.

Huntress's 2026 cyber insurance trends report, based on its own survey, finds 79% of respondents carry cyber insurance while 58% report shrinking coverage over five years. New CIRCIA federal reporting mandates and EU NIS2 requirements are reshaping policies, business email compromise now drives more claims than ransomware, and data exfiltration has replaced encryption as the dominant ransomware tactic at roughly twice the cost. After three years of declining premiums, rates are climbing again, and most businesses now refuse to pay ransoms.

Huntress·Sep 1, 17:00 UTC · 15d agoIndustry1

Top 10 Best Ransomware Protection Solutions in 2026

A 2026 buyer's guide ranks ten ransomware protection tools by kill-chain role as extortion shifts from encryption to data theft.

The roundup organizes defenses across the ransomware kill chain: prevention-grade EPP/EDR platforms, containment layers, rollback specialists, and immutable recovery. Recommended products include CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender, Sophos, SentinelOne, Bitdefender, Trend Micro, Halcyon, Huntress, and Malwarebytes. It stresses that many crews now extort on stolen data without encrypting, making exfiltration detection and response speed as important as rollback.

Cyber Security News·Sep 10, 08:18 UTC · 6d agoIndustry1

Risky Bulletin: Russia starts blocking DoH and DoT

Russian users report blocks on DoH and DoT servers, including Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 and Google 8.8.8.8, in an apparent censorship crackdown.

Russian internet users began reporting failures connecting to DNS-over-HTTPS and DNS-over-TLS servers, suggesting a government crackdown on the two privacy protocols. The blocks reportedly cover Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 and Google's 8.8.8.8 resolvers; Roskomnadzor has not officially confirmed the action. The agency tested a similar block in March on Beeline's network and had named DoH for blocking as early as 2021. The bulletin also briefly notes state-sponsored phishing of EU officials, a DDoS against Norway's Digdir, the ReliaQuest/ShinyHunters dispute, and older ransomware and breach disclosures.

Risky Business News·Aug 26, 03:07 UTC · 21d agoPolicy & legal1

15 Minutes Saved Per Alert: How a Lean German Manufacturer Protects 10,000 Endpoints with ANY.RUN

A five-person security team at a German manufacturer protecting 10,000 endpoints cut triage time by 15 minutes per alert after adopting ANY.RUN's cloud sandbox.

Philipp Z., Security Lead at a leading German manufacturer, described how a five-person team protects 10,000 endpoints and users using ANY.RUN's Interactive Sandbox in a private cloud. The firm previously relied on a single air-gapped forensic laptop running Flare VM, which caused 5-10 minute setup delays, single-user bottlenecks, and selective triage. The switch reportedly saved roughly 15 minutes per alert and reduced forced wiping and reimaging of user machines. ANY.RUN data cited in the piece puts manufacturing security workloads 22% above other major industries.

ANY.RUN·Sep 9, 07:47 UTC · 7d agoIndustry