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Short answer: Microsoft documents a 10-hour default maximum lifetime for a user Kerberos ticket (TGT). If the KRBTGT secret may have been stolen, reset the KRBTGT password twice, let the first change replicate, and wait at least 10 hours between resets by default—or longer than your configured maximum ticket lifetime. That rotation invalidates tickets that depend on the older KRBTGT secrets, but it can disrupt applications and does not by itself remove an attacker who still controls domain systems.
What Kerberos tickets do—and why lifetime matters
Active Directory uses Kerberos to authenticate users and services without sending a reusable password across the network. A domain controller’s Key Distribution Center (KDC) issues a ticket-granting ticket (TGT) after a user authenticates. The client presents that TGT to request service tickets (TGS tickets) for file servers, databases, applications, and other services.
Ticket lifetime is a security and availability setting. A longer lifetime gives an attacker more time to use a stolen ticket, while a very short lifetime increases authentication traffic and can break applications, disconnected clients, or systems that cannot renew promptly. Microsoft’s documented policy default and recommendation for the maximum lifetime of a user ticket is 10 hours. The policy is legacy Windows 10 documentation, so treat 10 hours as Microsoft’s documented default—not proof that every domain uses it.
A value of zero for Maximum lifetime for user ticket means TGTs never expire. That setting materially changes recovery planning and should be treated as an exceptional configuration requiring deliberate review. Check the effective policy in the affected domain before calculating a reset interval.
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How to check the effective ticket lifetime
- On a management workstation or domain controller, open Group Policy Management.
- Locate the Group Policy Object that applies to the domain controllers and open Computer Configuration > Policies > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Account Policies > Kerberos Policy.
- Record Maximum lifetime for user ticket and Maximum lifetime for service ticket. Microsoft’s forest-recovery procedure bases the default KRBTGT wait on both values.
- Confirm the effective result on representative domain controllers. A report from
gpresult /h c:tempgpresult.htmlcan show which policy won for a computer; review the report rather than relying on an unlinked or obsolete GPO. - Check domain-controller replication before making a recovery change. Commands such as
repadmin /replsummaryandrepadmin /showreplhelp identify partners that have not received policy or password updates.
If either configured maximum is longer than 10 hours, use a wait that exceeds the longer value. If a policy sets a lifetime to zero, stop and obtain incident-response and identity-architecture guidance; a normal timed wait cannot guarantee expiration.
Golden Tickets, Silver Tickets, and Kerberoasting are different attacks
| Attack | Forged or obtained material | Secret or condition involved | Typical scope and investigation focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Golden Ticket | Forged ticket-granting ticket (TGT) | KRBTGT account password hash | Can be used to request service tickets through the KDC for accounts and resources in the domain. Investigate KRBTGT exposure, domain-controller access, ticket characteristics, and persistence. |
| Silver Ticket | Forged service ticket (TGS) | Target service account secret, often associated with an SPN | Usually limited to the targeted service and may not require the same KDC interaction as a Golden Ticket. Investigate the service account, SPN, host, and local service logs. |
| Kerberoasting | Legitimate service-ticket material collected for offline password guessing | A user or computer account with a service principal name (SPN); weak service-account password increases exposure | Investigate unusual TGS requests, service-account password strength, SPN inventory, and offline-guessing risk. This is password cracking, not ticket forgery. |
A Golden Ticket depends on the KRBTGT hash, so rotating KRBTGT is directly relevant to it. A Silver Ticket depends on a service account’s secret; a KRBTGT reset does not rotate that account. Kerberoasting likewise requires service-account remediation, not just a domain-ticket reset.
What a Golden Ticket can and cannot tell you
With the KRBTGT hash, an attacker can create a TGT containing chosen identity and authorization data and then ask the KDC for service tickets. A forged ticket may have an unusual lifetime, unexpected encryption type, or other attributes, but no single anomaly proves forgery. Compare the event with normal behavior for that domain, account, client, and encryption policy.
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Microsoft Defender for Identity describes several useful leads: suspiciously long ticket lifetimes, an encryption downgrade compared with learned behavior, and service requests without an associated preceding authentication request. Its Kerberoasting-related alert can identify exposure around SPNs. Use these detections to build a timeline with domain-controller, endpoint, identity, and application evidence; do not close an investigation solely because one alert is absent or present.
Why KRBTGT must be reset twice
The KRBTGT account maintains a two-password history. Domain controllers can therefore accept tickets signed with the current secret and the immediately previous secret during normal password rollover. One reset changes the current secret but leaves the previous secret available. A ticket forged with the older hash could remain usable.
The second reset removes that still-retained older secret. After the first change has replicated to all domain controllers, the second change replaces the history again, so tickets relying on the compromised older secrets can no longer be validated once their remaining lifetime and replication conditions have passed. MITRE describes this two-reset sequence as the mitigation for Golden Tickets based on the prior KRBTGT hash.
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How long to wait between the two resets
Microsoft’s Active Directory forest-recovery guidance uses 10 hours because that is the documented default maximum for both user and service tickets. The wait is not a universal timer: it must exceed the longest effective ticket lifetime in your environment, and the first password change must replicate successfully before the second reset.
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- Default policies: wait at least 10 hours after replication of the first reset.
- Longer policies: wait longer than the greater of the configured user-ticket and service-ticket maximums.
- Unknown policy or unhealthy replication: do not guess. Establish the effective values and repair or document replication before proceeding.
- Zero (never-expire) policy: a fixed waiting period is insufficient; obtain specialized recovery guidance and plan to invalidate or replace dependent credentials and sessions.
CISA also advises verifying Active Directory replication and allowing the first change to propagate, particularly in large environments. The practical objective is that every domain controller knows the first new secret before the second reset occurs.
Safe KRBTGT double-reset procedure
Perform this as a coordinated recovery change, not as an isolated help-desk password reset. Use Microsoft’s current forest-recovery procedure or its supported tooling, and record the operator, time, domain controller, generated password custody, and verification results.
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- Confirm the trigger and scope. Determine why KRBTGT compromise is suspected: domain-controller credential theft, a Golden Ticket indicator, malware, or another source. Preserve relevant logs and memory or disk evidence before making changes when your response plan requires it.
- Inventory dependencies. List applications, federation components, scheduled tasks, services, backup systems, non-Windows clients, and appliances that use Active Directory or Kerberos. Identify maintenance windows and owners for systems that may need service restarts or fresh logons.
- Validate domain health. Check replication summaries and per-partner status. Resolve lingering replication failures, time synchronization problems, or unreachable sites that could leave a controller using stale password data.
- Generate and protect a strong reset value. Use a unique, random value through an approved administrative process. Do not email it, place it in scripts or ticket comments, or reuse a human password. Restrict who can perform and audit the operation.
- Perform the first KRBTGT reset. Use the supported Microsoft method against the intended domain. Confirm that the operation succeeds and that the account has not been accidentally disabled or otherwise modified.
- Verify replication. Check every site and domain controller that matters to authentication. A successful command on one controller is not evidence that all partners have received the new secret.
- Wait beyond the effective lifetime. For Microsoft’s defaults, wait at least 10 hours after the first reset has propagated. Use a longer interval when either ticket-lifetime policy is longer.
- Perform the second reset. Use another unique random value and the same supported method. Verify replication again.
- Refresh dependent sessions and services. Expect some applications and clients to need a new logon, a service restart, or a reboot. Coordinate with owners rather than indiscriminately restarting production systems.
- Continue investigation. Hunt for additional domain persistence, stolen administrator credentials, unauthorized scheduled tasks, new accounts, altered group membership, and access to domain controllers.
What can break during a reset
Changing KRBTGT can invalidate tickets used by Active Directory-dependent applications. CISA warns that non-Windows clients may be unable to obtain replacement tickets until existing tickets expire, and legacy encryption or replication behavior can complicate recovery. Symptoms can include repeated authentication prompts, service-to-service failures, inability to access a file share, or applications that work only after a restart.
- Keep an owner and rollback or escalation contact for every critical Kerberos-dependent application.
- Test authentication from representative Windows, Linux, macOS, appliance, and service-account clients where those platforms exist.
- Capture domain-controller and application logs before clearing or restarting anything.
- Do not “fix” a failed application by weakening encryption or extending ticket lifetimes without understanding the security consequence.
- If a service uses a long-lived process, restart it in a controlled window so it obtains fresh tickets.
Kerberoasting defenses and service-account cleanup
Kerberoasting abuses normal requests for service tickets tied to SPNs. The attacker takes the returned ticket material away for offline password guessing; MITRE notes that some material may use RC4. Because the guessing happens offline, account lockout policies do not reliably stop it.
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- Replace suitable user-based service accounts with group Managed Service Accounts (gMSAs), which can manage long random passwords automatically.
- Remove stale SPNs and disable or delete unused service accounts.
- Monitor unusual volumes or patterns of service-ticket requests and correlate them with the requesting host and identity.
- Prefer modern encryption and investigate unexpected RC4 use or encryption downgrades, while accounting for legacy compatibility requirements.
A KRBTGT reset does not remediate a weak service-account password. Treat service-account rotation as a separate workstream.
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Incident response beyond KRBTGT rotation
A double reset targets tickets that rely on older KRBTGT secrets; it does not prove that the attacker has been removed. An intruder with continuing domain-controller access can potentially obtain the new secret again, forge new tickets, or maintain persistence through other credentials and configuration changes.
- Contain active access. Isolate compromised endpoints and restrict administrative paths while preserving evidence.
- Protect privileged identities. Rotate domain, enterprise, delegated, backup, and application administrator credentials according to an ordered recovery plan. Revoke exposed secrets and review privileged-group membership.
- Assess domain controllers. Verify builds, patches, local administrators, services, scheduled tasks, replication objects, and signs of tampering. Consider forest-recovery procedures when controller integrity cannot be trusted.
- Find persistence. Review new accounts, group changes, delegation, SPNs, trusts, certificate services, startup scripts, GPO modifications, and remote-management tooling.
- Rebuild confidence. Centralize logs, establish a clean administrative workstation, enforce tiered administration, and monitor for renewed ticket anomalies after recovery.
Engage qualified incident-response support when domain-controller compromise, credential-dumping malware, or an active attacker is suspected. Password rotation without eradication can create a false sense of recovery.
Quick Recap
Practical decision checklist
- Have you recorded the effective user-ticket and service-ticket maximums?
- Is replication healthy across every domain-controller site?
- Have you preserved evidence and identified the suspected compromise path?
- Have application and non-Windows client owners accepted the maintenance window?
- Will the first reset be verified on all relevant controllers before the wait begins?
- Is the interval longer than the longest configured ticket lifetime?
- Have you planned the second reset, service refreshes, and user communication?
- Are service-account passwords, SPNs, privileged credentials, and other persistence mechanisms being handled separately?
- Who will confirm that the attacker no longer has domain-controller access?
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