Pass-the-hash attacks: Tools and Mitigation

Although pass-the-hash attacks have been around for a little over thirteen years, the knowledge of its existence is still poor. This paper tries to fill a gap in the knowledge of this attack through the testing of the freely available tools that facilitate the attack. While other papers and resources focus primarily on running the tools and sometimes comparing them, this paper offers an in-depth, systematic comparison of the tools across the various Windows platforms, including AV detection rates. It also provides extensive advice to mitigate pass-the-hash attacks and discusses the pros and cons of some of the approaches used in mitigating the attack.