HV-NESTED-CREDCredential Access

Hypervisor Credential Caches

Cached SSO tokens for vSphere SSO / Azure Local / AWS Outposts on the hypervisor — broad pivot into the cloud control plane.

§ Where this technique fits

HV-NESTED-CRED is catalogued under the Credential Access tactic of the offensive-security kill-chain. It appears in 1 approved dossier in the registry, typically at step 3 on average.

§ Dossiers chaining this technique

vCenter pre-auth RCE → root on every ESXi → mass encrypt
Pre-auth RCE on vCenter Server (DCERPC or vSphere Client class CVE). Deploy SSH key via vCenter to every managed ESXi, then mass-encrypt every .vmdk — the ESXiArgs / Black Basta playbook.
step 3 / 6

§ What commonly comes next

01
Account Manipulation
T1098 · Persistence
seen 1×

§ Where this technique fits

§ Dossiers chaining this technique

vCenter pre-auth RCE → root on every ESXi → mass encrypt

§ What commonly comes next