Now liveThe Skillselion MCP - thousands of ranked skills, loaded into your agent mid-task. No install.Get it →
mukul975 avatar

Analyzing Active Directory Acl Abuse

  • 438 installs
  • 27.3k repo stars
  • Updated August 2, 2026
  • mukul975/anthropic-cybersecurity-skills

analyzing-active-directory-acl-abuse is a cybersecurity agent skill (version 1.0) that uses ldap3 to query Domain Controllers, parse nTSecurityDescriptor SDDL, and flag GenericAll, WriteDACL, and WriteOwner abuse paths.

About

analyzing-active-directory-acl-abuse is an Apache-2.0 cybersecurity skill (version 1.0) from mukul975/anthropic-cybersecurity-skills that guides agents through defensive Active Directory ACL auditing. It uses the ldap3 Python library to connect to a Domain Controller, query users, groups, computers, and OUs with nTSecurityDescriptor, convert binary security descriptors to SDDL, and parse DACL access control entries for trustee SIDs and access masks. The skill flags dangerous permissions—GenericAll (0x10000000), WriteDACL (0x00040000), WriteOwner (0x00080000), GenericWrite (0x40000000), and WriteProperty extended rights—held by non-administrative principals on sensitive objects. Findings feed JSON remediation reports with object DNs, trustee identities, permission types, and attack-chain notes comparable to BloodHound ACL paths. Security engineers reach for analyzing-active-directory-acl-abuse during internal audits, purple-team assessments, or hardening sprints on enterprise AD estates. The parent library ships 817 skills across 29 security domains with NIST CSF 2.0 mappings including PR.AA-01, PR.AA-05, and PR.AA-06.

  • Focuses on Active Directory ACL abuse paths relevant to red-team and blue-team assessments
  • Fits Anthropic cybersecurity skills collection for structured agent-led security analysis
  • Supports reasoning over dangerous ACE combinations and delegation chains in AD
  • Intended for enterprise identity attack-surface review, not general app linting
  • Apache 2.0 licensed skill package from the community cybersecurity repo

Analyzing Active Directory Acl Abuse by the numbers

  • 438 all-time installs (skills.sh)
  • +26 installs in the week ending Aug 4, 2026 (Skillselion tracking)
  • Ranked #527 of 2,203 Security skills by installs in the Skillselion catalog
  • Security screen: LOW risk (skills.sh audit)
  • Data as of Aug 5, 2026 (Skillselion catalog sync)
npx skills add https://github.com/mukul975/anthropic-cybersecurity-skills --skill analyzing-active-directory-acl-abuse

Add your badge

Show developers this skill is listed on Skillselion. Paste this into your README.

Listed on Skillselion
Installs438
repo stars27.3k
Security audit2 / 3 scanners passed
Last updatedAugust 2, 2026
Repositorymukul975/anthropic-cybersecurity-skills

How do you detect dangerous Active Directory ACL misconfigurations?

Guide an agent through analyzing Active Directory ACL misconfigurations that enable privilege-escalation and lateral-movement abuse paths.

Who is it for?

Security engineers and identity admins auditing enterprise Active Directory for ACL-based privilege-escalation paths before remediation or BloodHound correlation.

Skip if: Cloud-only IAM environments without on-prem Active Directory, or teams lacking domain read credentials and ldap3 Python runtime access to a Domain Controller.

When should I use this skill?

An AD security review must find non-admin principals with GenericAll, WriteDACL, WriteOwner, or GenericWrite on sensitive users, groups, computers, or GPOs.

What you get

A JSON remediation report listing dangerous ACEs, affected object DNs, non-admin trustee SIDs, permission bitmasks, and documented privilege-escalation attack chains.

  • JSON ACL remediation report
  • SDDL-parsed ACE findings
  • Documented privilege-escalation attack chains

By the numbers

  • Skill version 1.0 with Apache-2.0 license in a library of 817 cybersecurity skills across 29 domains
  • Checks 5 dangerous AD permission bitmasks including GenericAll (0x10000000) and WriteDACL (0x00040000)
  • Maps to NIST CSF 2.0 categories PR.AA-01, PR.AA-05, and PR.AA-06

Files

SKILL.mdMarkdownGitHub ↗

Analyzing Active Directory ACL Abuse

Overview

Active Directory Access Control Lists (ACLs) define permissions on AD objects through Discretionary Access Control Lists (DACLs) containing Access Control Entries (ACEs). Misconfigured ACEs can grant non-privileged users dangerous permissions such as GenericAll (full control), WriteDACL (modify permissions), WriteOwner (take ownership), and GenericWrite (modify attributes) on sensitive objects like Domain Admins groups, domain controllers, or GPOs.

This skill uses the ldap3 Python library to connect to a Domain Controller, query objects with their nTSecurityDescriptor attribute, parse the binary security descriptor into SDDL (Security Descriptor Definition Language) format, and identify ACEs that grant dangerous permissions to non-administrative principals. These misconfigurations are the basis for ACL-based attack paths discovered by tools like BloodHound.

When to Use

  • When investigating security incidents that require analyzing active directory acl abuse
  • When building detection rules or threat hunting queries for this domain
  • When SOC analysts need structured procedures for this analysis type
  • When validating security monitoring coverage for related attack techniques

Prerequisites

  • Python 3.9 or later with ldap3 library (pip install ldap3)
  • Domain user credentials with read access to AD objects
  • Network connectivity to Domain Controller on port 389 (LDAP) or 636 (LDAPS)
  • Understanding of Active Directory security model and SDDL format

Steps

1. Connect to Domain Controller: Establish an LDAP connection using ldap3 with NTLM or simple authentication. Use LDAPS (port 636) for encrypted connections in production.

2. Query target objects: Search the target OU or entire domain for objects including users, groups, computers, and OUs. Request the nTSecurityDescriptor, distinguishedName, objectClass, and sAMAccountName attributes.

3. Parse security descriptors: Convert the binary nTSecurityDescriptor into its SDDL string representation. Parse each ACE in the DACL to extract the trustee SID, access mask, and ACE type (allow/deny).

4. Resolve SIDs to principals: Map security identifiers (SIDs) to human-readable account names using LDAP lookups against the domain. Identify well-known SIDs for built-in groups.

5. Check for dangerous permissions: Compare each ACE's access mask against dangerous permission bitmasks: GenericAll (0x10000000), WriteDACL (0x00040000), WriteOwner (0x00080000), GenericWrite (0x40000000), and WriteProperty for specific extended rights.

6. Filter non-admin trustees: Exclude expected administrative trustees (Domain Admins, Enterprise Admins, SYSTEM, Administrators) and flag ACEs where non-privileged users or groups hold dangerous permissions.

7. Map attack paths: For each finding, document the potential attack chain (e.g., GenericAll on user allows password reset, WriteDACL on group allows adding self to group).

8. Generate remediation report: Output a JSON report with all dangerous ACEs, affected objects, non-admin trustees, and recommended remediation steps.

Expected Output

{
  "domain": "corp.example.com",
  "objects_scanned": 1247,
  "dangerous_aces_found": 8,
  "findings": [
    {
      "severity": "critical",
      "target_object": "CN=Domain Admins,CN=Users,DC=corp,DC=example,DC=com",
      "target_type": "group",
      "trustee": "CORP\\helpdesk-team",
      "permission": "GenericAll",
      "access_mask": "0x10000000",
      "ace_type": "ACCESS_ALLOWED",
      "attack_path": "GenericAll on Domain Admins group allows adding arbitrary members",
      "remediation": "Remove GenericAll ACE for helpdesk-team on Domain Admins"
    }
  ]
}

Related skills

How it compares

Pick analyzing-active-directory-acl-abuse over generic pentest skills when the task is LDAP-driven ACL SDDL parsing with JSON remediation output for enterprise AD objects.

FAQ

What permissions does analyzing-active-directory-acl-abuse flag?

analyzing-active-directory-acl-abuse flags GenericAll, WriteDACL, WriteOwner, GenericWrite, and WriteProperty extended rights when non-administrative principals hold them on sensitive Active Directory objects.

What library does analyzing-active-directory-acl-abuse use?

analyzing-active-directory-acl-abuse uses the ldap3 Python library to query Domain Controllers, retrieve nTSecurityDescriptor attributes, and convert binary descriptors into SDDL for ACE analysis.

What output does analyzing-active-directory-acl-abuse generate?

analyzing-active-directory-acl-abuse generates a JSON remediation report listing dangerous ACEs, affected distinguished names, non-admin trustees, permission bitmasks, and recommended attack-chain context.

Is Analyzing Active Directory Acl Abuse safe to install?

skills.sh reports 2 of 3 security scanners passed. Review the Security Audits panel on this page before installing in production.

Securityappsecaudit

This week in AI coding

Five minutes, every Monday - the tools, releases and tactics for developers.

unsubscribe anytime.