Credential dumping occurs when a threat actor steals your credentials, such as your password, to perform various malicious activities, including ransomware. It is often confused with credential stuffing, a type of cyber attack that “stuffs” stolen credentials into multiple websites. Essentially, credential stuffing is akin to “throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing which one sticks,” whereas credential dumping exploits vulnerabilities in your RAM to steal and copy your credentials. Once your credentials are accessed, these data are said to have been “dumped”.
Regardless, both threats necessitate a robust credential management strategy in your organization.
How does credential dumping work?
Typically, cybercriminals hack into your device’s RAM (and not your ROM) and look for whatever credentials they can find, such as usernames and passwords. Once malicious actors receive your credentials, they will then try to access your accounts or infect other devices connected to the same network (This is a common “preparation” strategy for a company-wide ransomware-as-a-service attack, for example).
As such, credential dumping is rarely a one-off threat and usually precedes a much more comprehensive and multi-pronged cyber attack. For instance, the “dump” could be the first attempt to access your device’s Security Account Manager (SAM), which contains a list of password hashes used to log into your devices. Cybercriminals may, at that point, use the stolen hashed credentials to gain authorized access to other computers on the same network (This is known as a Pass the Hash (PtH) attack).
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Why is credential dumping so dangerous?
Arguably, most data breaches begin with credential dumping. This is a significant concern, primarily as experts have found a 78% increase in publicly reported data compromises in 2023 compared to 2022 (2023 Data Breach Report, Identity Theft Resource Center). This number is expected to increase in the next few years, costing companies millions of dollars in lost productivity. Let’s look at some numbers:
- The global cost of data breaches in 2023 was $4.45 million—a 15% increase over three years (Cost of Data Breach Report, IBM).
- 6.41 million data records were leaked worldwide in the first quarter of 2023 alone (Statista).
- The average number of days to identify a data breach is 204, and the mean time it takes to contain these breaches is 73 days (Statistica).
- There was a 71% spike in cyberattacks caused by stolen credentials and identity exploitation (IBM).
What can credential dumping lead to?
Credential dumping can be the stepping stone to much more dangerous cyberattacks, including:
Pass the Hash (PtH)
Hackers steal hashed user credentials (a type of cryptography) and reuse them to create a new user session on the same network. Rather than cracking the credential, PtH attacks use stored, encrypted passwords to initiate a new session.
Pass the Ticket (PtT)
PtT attacks steal your authentication ticket within your Windows domain to impersonate you and gain unauthorized access to your IT network. While PtH and PtT are authentication-based attacks, PtT abuses Kerberos tickets through theft and is more specific to Windows domain environments.
Reduce the risk of credential dumping
There are many ways to reduce your risk of credential dumping. Some ways to mitigate the risk include, but are not limited, to:
- Review and update weak or outdated algorithms used in SSL/TLS encryption.
- Keep strong passwords for every app or software (Avoid using the same password for everything).
- Limit the number of accounts with administrator rights.
- Implement multi-factor authentication or 2FA on all accounts.
- Conduct regular cybersecurity training for all team members in your organization.
- Design password protection strategies on PowerShell, such as requiring a password after sleep or configuring password expiration.
- Set up a firewall.
- Keep your IT network healthy with a robust patch management system.
Defend against credential dumping
Credential dumping will continue to be a significant threat, mainly as more people use various devices to store their personal or sensitive information. While we cannot eliminate the risk of your credentials being stolen, you can reduce it by making it as difficult for hackers to access them.
