A member was added to a security-enabled universal group
A member was added to a security-enabled universal group within Active Directory.
Event ID 4756 logs changes to universal security groups in multi-domain Active Directory forests. Because universal group memberships span multiple domains across an entire forest, adding a user or group to a universal group can propagate administrative privileges forest-wide.
Failure Reason / Root Cause:
Cross-domain forest administration, enterprise restructuring, or attacker forest-wide lateral movement preparation.
Raw Event XML snippet
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing" Guid="{54849625-5478-4994-A5BA-3E3B0328C30D}" />
<EventID>4756</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>0</Level>
<Task>12544</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8020000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2026-07-17T09:54:44.903Z" />
<EventRecordID>1048576</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="612" ThreadID="1024" />
<Channel>Security</Channel>
<Computer>DC01.enterprise.internal</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="SubjectUserSid">S-1-5-18</Data>
<Data Name="SubjectUserName">SYSTEM</Data>
<Data Name="SubjectDomainName">NT AUTHORITY</Data>
<Data Name="SubjectLogonId">0x3e7</Data>
<!-- Event telemetry fields specific to A member was added to a security-enabled universal group -->
</EventData>
</Event>MITRE ATT&CK mapping
| ID | Technique | Tactic |
|---|---|---|
T1069.002 | Domain Groups | Privilege Escalation |
Recommended actions
- Monitor all changes to forest-wide universal groups (`Enterprise Key Admins`, `Schema Admins`).
- Validate cross-domain trust changes and universal group modifications against architectural change requests.