These synthetic entries often appear as "Account Unknown" or long strings of numbers in the security tab, which administrators frequently ignore as remnants of deleted accounts rather than active threats.
Once a new user or group is created and assigned that specific SID, they automatically inherit all the "synthetic" permissions previously injected, often without appearing in standard audit logs as a new permission grant. Why This Matters
Standard security tools often monitor for changes to ACLs for existing users. Since the injection happens before the user exists, it can bypass traditional monitoring. These synthetic entries often appear as "Account Unknown"
This attack involves threat actors with existing high privileges injecting "synthetic" into an Active Directory Access Control List (ACL) . This allows attackers to pre-assign permissions to a SID that does not yet exist in the environment, creating a silent "backdoor" that activates the moment a new account is created with that matching SID. Key Mechanics of the Attack
A low-level account created later can suddenly "wake up" with Administrative or Domain Admin rights if those rights were pre-injected into the synthetic SID. Since the injection happens before the user exists,
For more detailed technical analysis, you can view the original research on the Varonis Blog .
An attacker with high privileges (but perhaps needing to maintain long-term, hidden access) adds a non-existent SID to a resource's ACL. Key Mechanics of the Attack A low-level account
Yes, identified a technique known as Synthetic SID Injection .