ad-certipy-esc-chain

ad-certipy-esc-chain is a skill for Claude Code from PurpleAILAB/Decepticon. It costs 94 tokens per session (1,662 once invoked), scanned B, original, Apache-2.0.

A security testing playbook for finding and exploiting vulnerable Active Directory Certificate Services configurations with Certipy. Active Directory Certificate Services issues identity certificates for Windows domains, and misconfigured certificate templates can allow account impersonation.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it during authorized security assessments to check for ESC1–ESC15 certificate-service weaknesses, request test certificates, authenticate with them, and assess domain-compromise risk.
Why use it?
It explains a path from a low-privilege account to wider domain access when certificate templates or certificate authorities are incorrectly configured.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter.

Good fit Use it during authorized security assessments to check for ESC1–ESC15 certificate-service weaknesses, request test certificates, authenticate with them, and assess domain-compromise risk.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/purpleailab/decepticon/certipy-esc-chain
About the project

Decepticon is an autonomous red-team agent that coordinates AI agents, security tools, sandboxes, and supporting services for authorized cybersecurity assessments. Security researchers and red teams can run it through its Docker stack, cloud service, command-line interface, or Python SDK, with the catalogue entries representing its available skills.

PurpleAILAB/Decepticon · 5,491 stars · on GitHub · decepticon.red

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add PurpleAILAB/Decepticon --skill certipy-esc-chain
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/PurpleAILAB/Decepticon

Made for: Claude Code.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for ad-certipy-esc-chain

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/purpleailab/decepticon/certipy-esc-chain/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/purpleailab/decepticon/certipy-esc-chain)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/purpleailab/decepticon/certipy-esc-chain"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/purpleailab/decepticon/certipy-esc-chain/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for ad-certipy-esc-chain

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/purpleailab/decepticon/certipy-esc-chain"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/purpleailab/decepticon/certipy-esc-chain.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 94 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,662 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector warn 7 Sept 2026
SkillSpector: 2 findings, up to high

These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →

  • high YARA Match · line 68
    YARA rule matched a hack tool or exploit indicator (offensive tools, reconnaissance, privilege escalation, or exploit frameworks).
    Fix: Remove offensive tool references and exploit code. Legitimate agent skills should not contain penetration testing tools, exploit frameworks, or reconnaissance utilities.
  • medium Privilege Escalation · line 85
    Commands invoke sudo or root privileges. Verify this elevated access is necessary and justified.
    Fix: Avoid sudo/root unless strictly required. Prefer least-privilege patterns. If elevation is needed, document the justification and scope.
How audits are shown
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00094 $0.01662
Opus 5 $0.00047 $0.00831
Sonnet 5 $0.00019 $0.00332
Haiku 4.5 $0.00009 $0.00166

Measured 12d ago against content hash 947d3922a74d, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

ad-certipy-esc-chain scanned grade B with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 12d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Asks for rootmediumPrivilege escalation

A mod that escalates privileges can change anything on the machine, not only the project.

sudo impacket-ntlmrelayx -t http://ca.target.local/certsrv/certfnsh.asp \
Origin

Copies of this mod

1 near-identical copy found in the catalogue:

packages/decepticon/decepticon/skills/standard/ad/certipy-esc-chain/SKILL.md · 131 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 131 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

ADCS Abuse via Certipy

certipy (Oliver Lyak / ly4k) is the single best tool for ADCS attack. Full domain compromise from a low-priv user in 4 commands, given a vulnerable template.

1. Find vulnerable templates

certipy find -u '[email protected]' -p 'pass' -dc-ip <dc-ip> \
  -enabled -vulnerable -text -stdout

# Output: shows every ESC1-ESC15 finding with the affected template
# Look for: "ESC1", "ESC2", "ESC3" sections in the report

If you can't auth, use -username '' -password '' (anonymous LDAP — sometimes works) or use the local LDAP from a compromised machine.

2. The ESC catalog — quick reference

ESC Misconfiguration Exploitation primitive
ESC1 Template allows SAN (Subject Alt Name) + Client Auth EKU + low-priv enrollee Request cert as any user (-upn [email protected])
ESC2 Template allows Any Purpose EKU Same as ESC1, any role
ESC3 Template has Certificate Request Agent EKU + low-priv enrollee Use the cert to request "on behalf of" another user
ESC4 Vulnerable ACL on template (WriteOwner/WriteDacl/GenericAll) Modify template to make it ESC1, then exploit
ESC5 Vulnerable ACL on PKI objects (CA, OID containers) Same — modify, then exploit
ESC6 EDITF_ATTRIBUTESUBJECTALTNAME2 flag on CA Request ANY template with -upn target
ESC7 Low-priv has Manage CA / Manage Certificates Approve own requests, issue certs to anyone
ESC8 HTTP-based enrollment endpoint exists NTLM relay to /certsrv/certfnsh.asp (see ad-coercer)
ESC9 msPKI-Enrollment-Flag lacks STRONG_KEY_PROTECTION_REQUIRED and template has UPN mapping Spoof UPN, get cert
ESC10 Weak certificate mapping (UPN-only, no SID extension) Same as ESC9 but for kerberos PKINIT
ESC11 RPC binding without packet integrity Relay over RPC instead of HTTP
ESC13 Template grants OID group membership (ADCS-managed groups) Get cert → become member of high-priv group
ESC14 Specific weak ACE patterns on cert templates Edit template, ESC1-chain
ESC15 EKUwu — EKU manipulation on V1 templates Add Client Auth EKU to a template that lacked it

Read the full file on GitHub · 131 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 12d ago First seen · 131 lines · 94 tokens per session scan B 947d3922a74d

Subscribe to this mod's changes

ad-certipy-esc-chain is a skill published in the GitHub repository PurpleAILAB/Decepticon (5,491 stars, last pushed 12d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 94 tokens to every session and 1,662 once invoked, about $0.0005 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (asks for root). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.