MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise
T1087

Account Discovery

Description

Adversaries may attempt to get a listing of valid accounts, usernames, or email addresses on a system or within a compromised environment. This information can help adversaries determine which accounts exist, which can aid in follow-on behavior such as brute-forcing, spear-phishing attacks, or account takeovers (e.g., [Valid Accounts](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1078)). Adversaries may use several methods to enumerate accounts, including abuse of existing tools, built-in commands, and potential misconfigurations that leak account names and roles or permissions in the targeted environment. For examples, cloud environments typically provide easily accessible interfaces to obtain user lists.(Citation: AWS List Users)(Citation: Google Cloud - IAM Servie Accounts List API) On hosts, adversaries can use default [PowerShell](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1059/001) and other command line functionality to identify accounts. Information about email addresses and accounts may also be extracted by searching an infected system’s files.

Mapped SPARTA techniques

No techniques mapped to this control.

Cite as SafeMode Space, mitre-attack-enterprise T1087.

Built 2026-07-25 from 216 techniques, 334 regulation articles, 125 ENISA controls, 2,610 framework controls, and 90 countermeasures.