T1134.003: Make and Impersonate Token
Essential information
- MITRE technique ID
T1134.003- Confidence
- 100/100
- Revoked
- No
- Published
- 16/12/2025 19:38
- Modified
- 27/03/2026 01:11
- Author / Source
- The MITRE Corporation
Platforms
windows
Description
Adversaries may make new tokens and impersonate users to escalate privileges and bypass access controls. For example, if an adversary has a username and password but the user is not logged onto the system the adversary can then create a logon session for the user using the `LogonUser` function.(Citation: LogonUserW function) The function will return a copy of the new session's access token and the adversary can use `SetThreadToken` to assign the token to a thread.
This behavior is distinct from [Token Impersonation/Theft](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1134/001) in that this refers to creating a new user token instead of stealing or duplicating an existing one.
Kill chain phases
| Kill chain | Phase |
|---|---|
| mitre-attack | defense-evasion |
| mitre-attack | privilege-escalation |
Marking (TLP)
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