Active Directory Pentest Mindmap

Active Directory (AD) remains one of the most targeted components of corporate infrastructures. Due to its central role in authentication, authorization, and trust management, a single weakness in AD can quickly lead to full domain compromise.

To help security professionals better understand and structure AD attacks, Orange Cyberdefense has published an Active Directory Pentest Mindmap, a comprehensive visual reference that maps the most common attack paths, techniques, and misconfigurations used during real-world penetration tests.

What this mindmap covers

This mindmap provides a structured overview of the main phases and attack categories involved in Active Directory compromise. Below is a high-level summary of the key attack areas.

No credential attacks
Attacks with valid user
Quick compromise
Man In The Middle (Listen and Relay)
Cracking hash
Pivoting with valid credentials
Low access privilege escalation
Known vulnerabilities authenticated attack
ACLs/ACEs permissions
Kerberos Delegation
ADCS
SCCM
Admin access
Lateral move
Domain admin
Trusts
Persistence

this mindmap

is a single visual reference for AD pentesting
helps structure red team engagements
is useful for blue teams to understand attack paths
is excellent support for training and awareness

Whether you are a pentester, SOC analyst, or system administrator, this mindmap helps visualize how small misconfigurations can chain into a full domain takeover.