PingCastle
PingCastle is a legitimate Active Directory security assessment and reconnaissance utility. In the provided reporting, it is described as being used for Active Directory reconnaissance, including by the financially motivated threat actor Octo Tempest alongside ADRecon, and it is also listed by Kaspersky as a utility shared across ransomware-linked groups including Crypt Ghouls, MorLock, BlackJack, and Twelve. The cited use cases are focused on post-compromise enumeration of Active Directory environments. No specific infection vector, persistence mechanism, or indicators of compromise for PingCastle itself are provided in the content.
Hunt this family in your stack
Mallory pivots from this family to the IOCs, detections, and named campaigns that touch your stack, and pages you when something new lands.
Groups observed using it
4 distinct threat actors attributed by public researchers. Open in Mallory to see the full evidence chain and overlapping campaigns.
"...utilities, including SoftPerfect Network Scanner, PingCastle..."
"...utilities, including SoftPerfect Network Scanner, PingCastle..."
"...utilities, including SoftPerfect Network Scanner, PingCastle..."
"...utilities, including SoftPerfect Network Scanner, PingCastle..."
Techniques & procedures
2 distinct techniques documented for this family, organized by ATT&CK tactic.
Discovery
1 techniqueainsi que PingCastle et BloodHound afin d’identifier de mauvaises configurations de l’Active Directory.
Lateral Movement
1 techniqueThe threat actor moved cab files to the remote hosts using SMB and then expanded and ran them using wmiexec.py commands.
Recent activity
2 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Active Directory assessment/recon tool used to enumerate AD posture and identify paths for privilege escalation and lateral movement.
Active Directory assessment/reconnaissance tool used to enumerate AD posture and configuration during discovery.
The version that knows your environment.
Match every observed IP, domain, and hash against your live telemetry.
Named campaigns wielding this family, with evidence pinned to each claim.
CVEs this family uses for access and lateral movement.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Every documented technique, ranked by evidence weight.
Reddit, Mastodon, and CTI community discussion around this family.