Attack Type NTLMv1 NTLMv2 Description
Offline Cracking ✅ Yes (hashcat -m 5500) ✅ Yes (hashcat -m 5600) Crack captured hashes using brute-force or wordlist attacks. NTLMv1 is much easier to crack.
Pass-the-Hash (PtH) ✅ Yes (pth-winexe, Mimikatz) ❌ No NTLMv1 hashes can be directly reused for authentication. NTLMv2 requires a challenge-response, preventing PtH.
Relay Attack ✅ Yes (ntlmrelayx.py) ✅ Yes (ntlmrelayx.py) Forward captured hashes to another system for authentication. Fails if SMB signing is enabled.
Pass-the-Challenge (PtC) ❌ No ✅ Yes (Pass-The-Challenge (PtC)) NTLMv2 hashes include a challenge, which can sometimes be replayed in specific environments.
SMB Authentication Relay ✅ Yes ✅ Yes Relay NTLM authentication attempts to another system. Works only if SMB signing is disabled.
Cracking with Responder ✅ Yes ✅ Yes Capture NTLM handshakes and crack them using Hashcat or John the Ripper.
MITM Attack (Responder + ntlmrelayx) ✅ Yes ✅ Yes Redirect NTLM authentication requests and relay them to a target system.
Extracting NTDS.dit (Active Directory Hash Dump) ✅ Yes ✅ Yes If an attacker gets Domain Admin, they can extract NTLM hashes from NTDS.dit and crack them offline.
Pass-the-Ticket (PtT) ❌ No ❌ No NTLM does not use Kerberos tickets. Instead, this applies to Kerberos TGT tickets.
Kerberoasting ❌ No ❌ No NTLM is not used for Kerberos-based attacks.
LSASS Dumping ✅ Yes (mimikatz sekurlsa::logonpasswords) ✅ Yes (mimikatz sekurlsa::logonpasswords) Extract NTLM hashes from memory if you have admin privileges on the machine.
NTLM Downgrade Attack ✅ Yes ❌ No Force a system to use NTLMv1 instead of NTLMv2, making it easier to crack.

Key Takeaways