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ATT&CK techniqueCredential Access

T1552 Unsecured Credentials

Credential AccessEnterprise

As of 2026-10-05, T1552 (Unsecured Credentials) appears in 551 tracked threats, first reported 2026-01-27 and most recently 2026-10-03, with linked actors including TeamPCP, ShinyHunters, UNC6240; it most often appears alongside T1059 (Command and Scripting Interpreter).

Tracked threats
551277 critical, 226 high, 40 medium, 1 low
First seen
2026-01-27
Last seen
2026-10-03
Threat actors
104In the threats using it
Detection rules
351Blue tier and above

Data as of:

Activity timeline

T1552 first appeared in tracked threats on and was most recently reported on . The busiest month was 2026-07 with 196 reports, and 551 of the 551 threats were reported in the twelve months to 2026-10.

How adversaries use it

T1552 Unsecured Credentials is catalogued by MITRE ATT&CK under the Credential Access tactic in the Enterprise matrix. Threadlinqs maps 551 of 2623 tracked threats (21%) to it; by severity that is 277 critical, 226 high, 40 medium, 1 low.

Threats that use T1552 most often also use T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter (382 threats), T1005 Data from Local System (341 threats), T1071 Application Layer Protocol (298 threats), T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application (292 threats), T1082 System Information Discovery (263 threats). These are the techniques an intrusion set tends to chain with it, so they are the natural next places to look when it is observed.

104 tracked threat actors appear in the threats that use T1552; the most frequent are TeamPCP (28), ShinyHunters (11), UNC6240 (8), APT38 (7), Contagious Interview (7).

Mitigations

MITRE ATT&CK lists 11 mitigations for T1552.

Data sources

Telemetry that can reveal T1552, per MITRE ATT&CK.

  • Application Log — Application Log Content
  • Command — Command Execution
  • File — File Access
  • Process — Process Creation
  • User Account — User Account Authentication
  • Windows Registry — Windows Registry Key Access

Threat actors using it

Tracked threats

The 30 most recent of 551 tracked threats that use T1552.

Detection coverage

Threadlinqs maintains 351 detection rules mapped to T1552 (SPL 113, KQL 133, Sigma 105). Rule content is available to Blue tier accounts and above; this page shows counts only.

351 detection rules (SPL/KQL/Sigma) · Blue and above. Compare plans

Sub-techniques