Platforms / Security resources

MITRE ATT&CK

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

Stealth / T1078.003

Local Accounts

Sub-technique / Enterprise ATT&CK

Official MITRE entry

Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of a local account as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Local accounts are those configured by an organization for use by users, remote support, services, or for administration on a single system or service.

Local Accounts may also be abused to elevate privileges and harvest credentials through OS Credential Dumping. Password reuse may allow the abuse of local accounts across a set of machines on a network for the purposes of Privilege Escalation and Lateral Movement.

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