A deep dive into the Kerberos Diamond Ticket technique, addressing its original proof-of-concept limitations in Rubeus and introducing significant OPSEC improvements. The post explains how the original Diamond Ticket left PAC fields blank or with default IOC-triggering group RIDs, then details enhancements: adding LDAP integration to populate realistic PAC fields (logon times, real group memberships, password policy data), implementing an /opsec flag to mimic genuine Windows AS-REQ/AS-REP two-step authentication on the wire, and extending the technique to forge Service Tickets — directly challenging the relevance of traditional Silver Tickets. A comparison table contrasts Golden, Silver, Diamond, and Sapphire tickets across detection risk and authentication flow legitimacy. Defenders are advised to monitor authentication patterns holistically rather than relying solely on PAC inspection.
