Platforms / Security resources

MITRE ATT&CK

Enterprise v20 / 15 tactics / 227 techniques / 479 sub-techniques

Privilege Escalation / T1134.003

Make and Impersonate Token

Sub-technique / Enterprise ATT&CK

Official MITRE entry

Adversaries may make new tokens and impersonate users to escalate privileges and bypass access controls. For example, if an adversary has a username and password but the user is not logged onto the system the adversary can then create a logon session for the user using the LogonUser function.(Citation: LogonUserW function) The function will return a copy of the new session's access token and the adversary can use SetThreadToken to assign the token to a thread.

This behavior is distinct from Token Impersonation/Theft in that this refers to creating a new user token instead of stealing or duplicating an existing one.

Source references

Source: MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v20, retrieved 2026-10-31. MITRE ATT&CK is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation.