Adversaries may match or approximate the names of legitimate accounts to make newly created ones appear benign. This will typically occur during [Create Account](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1136), although accounts may also be renamed at a later date. This may also coincide with [Account Access Removal](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1531) if the actor first deletes an account before re-creating one with the same name.(Citation: Huntress MOVEit 2023) Often, adversaries will attempt to masquerade as service accounts, such as those associated with legitimate software, data backups, or container cluster management.(Citation: Elastic CUBA Ransomware 2022)(Citation: Aquasec Kubernetes Attack 2023) They may also give accounts generic, trustworthy names, such as “admin”, “help”, or “root.”(Citation: Invictus IR Cloud Ransomware 2024) Sometimes adversaries may model account names off of those already existing in the system, as a follow-on behavior to [Account Discovery](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1087). Note that this is distinct from [Impersonation](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1684/001), which describes impersonating specific trusted individuals or organizations, rather than user or service account names.

Linked Issues

Issuelinks
is related to Techniques
is blocked by Detection Strategy for Masquerading via Account Name Similarity
is blocked by Audit
is blocked by User Account Management
is blocked by Secure Baseline Configurations
is blocked by Continuous Monitoring
is blocked by Identification & Authentication for Organizational Users
is blocked by Account Management
is blocked by Access Enforcement
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