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T1134: T1134

View on MITRE ATT&CK The MITRE Corporation · Published 14/12/2017 17:46 · Modified 27/03/2026 01:12

Essential information

MITRE technique ID
T1134
Confidence
100/100
Revoked
No
Published
14/12/2017 17:46
Modified
27/03/2026 01:12
Author / Source
The MITRE Corporation

Aliases

Access Token Manipulation

Platforms

windows

Description

Adversaries may modify access tokens to operate under a different user or system security context to perform actions and bypass access controls. Windows uses access tokens to determine the ownership of a running process. A user can manipulate access tokens to make a running process appear as though it is the child of a different process or belongs to someone other than the user that started the process. When this occurs, the process also takes on the security context associated with the new token. An adversary can use built-in Windows API functions to copy access tokens from existing processes; this is known as token stealing. These token can then be applied to an existing process (i.e. [Token Impersonation/Theft](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1134/001)) or used to spawn a new process (i.e. [Create Process with Token](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1134/002)). An adversary must already be in a privileged user context (i.e. administrator) to steal a token. However, adversaries commonly use token stealing to elevate their security context from the administrator level to the SYSTEM level. An adversary can then use a token to authenticate to a remote system as the account for that token if the account has appropriate permissions on the remote system.(Citation: Pentestlab Token Manipulation) Any standard user can use the `runas` command, and the Windows API functions, to create impersonation tokens; it does not require access to an administrator account. There are also other mechanisms, such as Active Directory fields, that can be used to modify access tokens.

Kill chain phases

Kill chainPhase
mitre-attack defense-evasion
mitre-attack privilege-escalation

Marking (TLP)

TLP:CLEAR Copyright 2015-2025, The MITRE Corporation. MITRE ATT&CK and ATT&CK are registered trademarks of The MITRE Corporation.

External references

Related entities

Intrusion sets, malware, reports, vulnerabilities, indicators and other entities linked to this technique.