• 👉 Overview
• 👀 What ?
• 🧐 Why ?
• ⛏️ How ?
• ⏳ When ?
• ⚙️ Technical Explanations
• 🖇️ References

👉 Overview

👀 What ?

Windows Unconstrained Delegation is a feature provided by Microsoft's Active Directory that allows a service to impersonate a user to other services. This means that the service has the ability to authenticate on behalf of the user to any other service in the network.

🧐 Why ?

Understanding Windows Unconstrained Delegation is essential because it can potentially lead to security risks if not configured correctly. A misconfiguration may allow an attacker to impersonate any user in the network and gain unauthorized access to sensitive resources.

⛏️ How ?

To use Windows Unconstrained Delegation, you first need to enable the delegation on the service's account in Active Directory. This can be done through the 'Delegation' tab in the account's properties. However, it's important to only use this feature when necessary and to understand the potential security implications.

⏳ When ?

Windows Unconstrained Delegation has been a feature in Active Directory since Windows 2000. It's often used in scenarios where a service needs to access resources on behalf of a user, such as a web server accessing a database.

⚙️ Technical Explanations

Under the hood, Windows Unconstrained Delegation uses Kerberos, a network authentication protocol, to authenticate users to services. When a user authenticates to a service that has unconstrained delegation enabled, the service receives a special ticket called a Ticket Granting Ticket (TGT). This TGT allows the service to request service tickets on behalf of the user, effectively impersonating the user to other services.

🖇️ References