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AD-DACL-08: DACL ACE distribution per identity should be investigated

ID AD-DACL-08
Severity Info
Suite Active Directory (on-premises)
Product Active Directory
Feature Permissions and delegation
Security area Access control
Resource type Permission
Reads from On-premises Active Directory

Knowing which identities appear most frequently in DACLs helps identify central delegation patterns, inherited administrative groups, and accounts that may have accumulated permissions over time.

  • Hotspot Detection: Frequently occurring identities can represent broad administrative reach.
  • Permission Hygiene: Distribution data helps distinguish expected administrative groups from unusual direct assignments.
  • Operational Review: Repeated counts per identity make it easier to validate changes after cleanup or redesign.

Operational

Review identities with unusually high ACE counts. Confirm they are expected administrative groups and not stale accounts, orphaned SIDs, or overly broad delegated principals.

This test reads DaclEntries from Get-MtADDomainState, groups entries by IdentityReference, and reports the number of ACEs associated with each identity.

  • Test-MtAdDaclDistinctIdentityCount
  • Test-MtAdDaclPrivilegedAllowAceDetails
  • Test-MtAdDaclPrivilegedExtendedRightDetails

Mito check. Author: soulemike. Open-source licences.

Open-source licences. CIS Benchmark material © Center for Internet Security, Inc.; CISA SCuBA baselines are public domain (CC0).

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