AD-SPN-11: User SPN non-FQDN hosts should be investigated
| ID | AD-SPN-11 |
| Severity | Info |
| Suite | Active Directory (on-premises) |
| Product | Active Directory |
| Feature | Service principal names |
| Security area | Authentication |
| Resource type | User |
| Reads from | On-premises Active Directory |
What this checks and how to fix it
Section titled “What this checks and how to fix it”User account SPNs with non-FQDN hosts can cause:
- Authentication failures: Kerberos may fail to resolve short names
- Cross-domain issues: Non-FQDNs don’t work across domain trusts
- Service disruptions: Applications may fail to authenticate
- Configuration drift: Indicates inconsistent SPN management
Since user accounts with SPNs are already high-value targets, ensuring proper FQDN configuration is essential.
Control Type
Section titled “Control Type”Operational
Security Recommendation
Section titled “Security Recommendation”Review and fix non-FQDN user SPNs:
- Update SPNs to use fully qualified domain names
- Establish SPN registration standards
- Use FQDNs consistently for all service principal names
- Consider this as part of a migration to gMSAs
How the Test Works
Section titled “How the Test Works”This test parses all user SPNs and checks if the host portion contains a dot (indicating FQDN format). SPNs without dots in the host portion are flagged as non-FQDN.
Related Tests
Section titled “Related Tests”Test-MtAdComputerSpnNonFqdnHosts- Checks computer SPNs for non-FQDN hostsTest-MtAdUserSpnTotalCount- Overall user SPN analysis
Mito check. Author: soulemike. Open-source licences.
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