CYBRARY The request is the tell
Roasting is loud at the domain controller: one host asks for many service tickets in a short window, usually all RC4. You do not need to see the crack — the burst itself is the detection.
C-340·Cross-platform·40 min
The ticket burst: answering a kerberoasting pass Start this lab
One workstation asks the domain controller for every service ticket it can get, all in RC4. Name the roasted account from the ticket pattern, adjudicate the source, and reset the credential behind an approval gate — without touching the finance peer that appears in the same alert batch.
Mission brief · C-340
Tier 3 analyst on the incident response bench
Tier 3 — deep host and forensics
Business important
Track default
You are acting as
the break-glass IR account `svc-ir`, checked out of the vault for this incident — never the compromised identity
How you got here
The detection fired in the EDR console. You opened a live-response session from that detection, so your shell rides the EDR agent channel — containing the host will *not* cut you off, which is exactly why you contain from here rather than over SSH.
Your access
EDR console (detections + live response)
Endpoint detection & response
- Read the detection and process tree
- Look up host criticality, owner and VIP flags
- Open a live-response session on the host
- Contain the host over the agent channel
- Not yours: Disable user accounts (that's the identity team)
- Not yours: Delete evidence
Live-response shell on the affected host
Host shell session
- Read the filesystem, logs and running state
- Collect a triage package
- Not yours: Reboot or reimage without owner approval
What's at stake
The affected host
Owner: The system's business owner, named on the asset record
Containing a host you haven't identified can stop revenue. Check criticality and owner before you isolate anything.
Rules of engagement
You may act alone
- Investigate from the live-response session
- Collect evidence and triage packages
- Contain a standard-criticality host
Ask a human first
- Containing a mission-critical host — asset owner and on-call manager first
- Disabling a user identity — identity team, and HR/legal if it looks like an insider
Why this matters
Kerberoasting works because any domain user can ask for a service ticket, and the ticket is encrypted with the service account's password. A responder who can read the request pattern turns an offline cracking problem into a fifteen-minute reset.
Concepts
Name the account, not the ticket
The ticket is a symptom; the SPN-owning account is the target. Response quality is measured by naming the exact account, because that is the credential you are about to rotate.
Reset beats revoke
A cracked ticket stays valid for its lifetime even after sessions are revoked. Only a password reset changes the key the ticket was encrypted with, which is why the fix is consequential and gated.
Objectives graded
- Trace the RC4 TGS burst to the requesting workstation
- Name the roasted SPN account from the ticket pattern
- Reset the credential behind an approval gate without harming the lookalike
Live walkthrough
The reference response, executed by the same engine that grades your attempt. Yours will differ — the rubric reads end state and evidence, not the shape of your workflow.
- 1.Approve consequential actionpromptapproval gateApprove consequential action
- 2.Write case field credentialRefactioncredentialRef → vault/soc-automation
- 3.Attach evidence: case/soar-c-340/evidenceactionThe learner attached at least one linkable piece of evidence to the case.
- 4.Write case field closureNoteactionclosureNote → written
- 5.Write case field roastedAccountactionroastedAccount → svc-sql
- 6.verdict on ind-kerb-srcactionind-kerb-src.verdict → malicious
- 7.passwordReset on usr-svc-sqlactionusr-svc-sql.passwordReset → true
Gate approved — 100%
12 of 12 rubric rules hold.
Gate denied — 91%
Refusing the consequential action is a defensible choice with a measured cost; the difference is what the lab is teaching.
- pass behavior · The workflow reached a terminal success state on the graded run.
- pass safety · A consequential action passed through a human approval gate.
- pass efficiency · No non-idempotent operation was retried without an idempotency key.
- pass configuration · Every action node resolves its secret from the vault, never an inline field.
- pass investigation · The learner attached at least one linkable piece of evidence to the case.
- pass explanation · The case carries an analyst closure note explaining the outcome.
- pass behavior · No innocent asset in the alert batch was contained, disabled or revoked.
- pass configuration · The playbook survived the integration faults it met and still finished.
- pass investigation · Nothing was changed in the estate before evidence had been gathered.
- pass investigation · The learner named the exact SPN-holding account whose tickets were roasted.
- pass investigation · The requesting workstation was enriched to a verdict before any containment.
- pass behavior · The roasted account's password was reset — a cracked ticket outlives a revoked session.
MITRE ATT&CK coverage
A workstation requests every SPN ticket it can in RC4 — the shape of a kerberoasting pass against the SQL service account.
| Technique | Name | Tactic |
|---|---|---|
| T1558.003 | Kerberoasting | Credential Access |
| T1078 | Valid Accounts | Defense Evasion |
| T1049 | System Network Connections Discovery | Discovery |
What each rubric rule proves
The workflow reached a terminal success state on the graded run.
behavior · weight 20
A consequential action passed through a human approval gate.
safety · weight 15
No non-idempotent operation was retried without an idempotency key.
efficiency · weight 10
Every action node resolves its secret from the vault, never an inline field.
configuration · weight 10
The learner attached at least one linkable piece of evidence to the case.
investigation · weight 10
The case carries an analyst closure note explaining the outcome.
explanation · weight 10
No innocent asset in the alert batch was contained, disabled or revoked.
behavior · weight 15
The playbook survived the integration faults it met and still finished.
configuration · weight 15
Nothing was changed in the estate before evidence had been gathered.
investigation · weight 10
The learner named the exact SPN-holding account whose tickets were roasted.
investigation · weight 20 · T1558.003 Kerberoasting (Credential Access)
The requesting workstation was enriched to a verdict before any containment.
investigation · weight 15 · T1558.003 Kerberoasting (Credential Access)
The roasted account's password was reset — a cracked ticket outlives a revoked session.
behavior · weight 20 · T1078 Valid Accounts (Defense Evasion)
Common mistakes
- Revoking sessions and calling the credential contained.
- Disabling every account in the alert batch, including the innocent peer.
- Filing the source workstation without a verdict from enrichment first.
Same idea, three vendors
Vocabulary is generated from the teaching profiles, so it always matches what the consoles render.
| Concept | Cortex Forge | Summit SOAR | Storyline |
|---|---|---|---|
| approval | Manual task | Prompt | Page |
Where does this value come from?
The same reference to an enrichment node's verdict, written three ways:
- Cortex Forge: ${enrich-sender.verdict}
- Summit SOAR: enrich-sender.verdict
- Storyline: <<enrich-sender.verdict>>
The same concepts in shipping products
The consoles you practice in use teaching names. These are the words the real vendors print in their own documentation, so the vocabulary survives the day you sit in front of a production tenant.
| Concept | Cortex XSOARXSOAR 8.x | Splunk SOARSplunk SOAR 6.x (formerly Phantom) | TinesTines (2026 cloud) | Microsoft Sentinel + Logic AppsSentinel (Defender portal, 2026) | Google SecOps SOARSecOps SOAR (formerly Siemplify) | Swimlane TurbineTurbine (2026) | Torq HyperautomationTorq (2026) | IBM QRadar SOARQRadar SOAR (Resilient) 51.x | ServiceNow Security OperationsSecOps (Flow Designer era) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| approval | Manual (data collection) task | Prompt block | Page (form) / Send to Chat | Approval action (Teams / email) | Manual action | Task / approval action | Approval step (Torq Chat / Slack) | Manual task / phase gate | Approval activity |
What transfers
The same pattern — request anomaly to named credential to gated rotation — covers AS-REP roasting, certificate theft and cloud key harvesting.