Honey pot user count should be investigated

Contributed by Michael SouleAll contributors →

Part of Active Directory · Active Directory · Users · All checks

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Invoke-Maester -TestId AD-USER-26

Overview

Accounts with names that look especially attractive to attackers can be useful as deliberate decoys, but they can also reflect risky naming practices or forgotten identities that warrant review.

• Threat detection support: Decoy-style names can be monitored for malicious interaction.
• Naming hygiene: Identifies user names likely to draw attacker attention.
• Access review: Confirms whether these accounts are intentional and documented.

Control Type

Operational

Security Recommendation

• Document whether identified accounts are real users, service accounts, or deception assets.
• Apply strong monitoring to any deliberate honey pot or lure account.
• Disable or clean up misleading accounts that no longer serve a purpose.

How the Test Works

This test counts non-system user accounts whose names match attractive terms such as admin, root, test, backup, or sql.

Related Tests

• Test-MtAdUserHoneyPotDetails
• Test-MtAdUserBuiltInAdminEnabledDetails

Details

Every attribute of this check

Field	Value
Test ID	AD-USER-26
Severity	Info
Suite	Active Directory
Product	Active Directory
Feature	Users
Area	Logging and detection
Resource type	User
MITRE ATT&CK	None
PowerShell test	Test-MtAdUserHoneyPotCount
Services	ActiveDirectory
Permissions	ActiveDirectory:Ldap:user:ReadProperty

Source

• Test: tests/ad/user/Test.AD-USER-26.ps1
• Documentation: tests/ad/user/Test.AD-USER-26.md