Case PtH Timestomp

Case study — Pass-the-Hash with timestomp pre-existence

Representative walkthrough of an Agentic-DART run on the SANS SIFT Workstation. The four images referenced below are sample-run stills rendered for documentation purposes; the live screencast in the June 2026 hackathon submission video will replace them.

This case study walks through a full dart-agent invocation (python3 -m dart_agent --case <case-id> --out <output-dir> --mode deterministic) against a representative breach scenario. It is intended for two audiences:

1. Hackathon judges — to see the full senior-analyst loop end to end, including what happens when artifacts disagree.
2. DFIR engineers evaluating the project — to see exactly which dart-mcp functions get called in what order, and how dart-corr surfaces a contradiction that forces the agent to revise its hypothesis.

---

The case

A breach is suspected on a small Windows network with two hosts:

• DESKTOP-7K2L   (192.168.10.42)   — analyst workstation
• FILE-SRV-01   (192.168.10.10)   — file server holding HR data

The IR analyst hands the case folder to dart-agent and walks away. The agent has no prompt about where to look or what to find — only the senior-analyst playbook (dart_playbook/senior-analyst-v1.yaml at the time of this case; senior-analyst-v3.yaml is now default and follows the same 10-phase methodology) and the read-only MCP surface (dart-mcp, 60 typed functions: 35 native + 25 SIFT adapters).

---

Stage 1 — Initialization & first hypothesis

The agent loads the senior-analyst playbook, spawns dart-mcp over stdio, verifies the read-only mount, and opens the SHA-256 audit chain. Tool surface is enumerated to 60 typed forensic functions (35 native + 25 SIFT adapters) — anything outside that list (e.g. execute_shell, write_file, mount) is not callable by construction.

hypothesis_v1 is generated from the case metadata alone:

Suspected lateral movement following credential theft on host DESKTOP-7K2L. Need: process tree + auth logs.

Confidence: 0.34. The agent immediately calls two typed tools to gather facts:

Tool	Result
get_process_tree(process_csv=...)	142 procs, audit_id a7d4…c19f
analyze_windows_logons(security_events_json=...)	38 logon events, audit_id b2e1…8f44

Every call is recorded in the audit chain — inputs, outputs, audit_id, token count, timestamp, and a SHA-256 hash linked to the previous entry.

---

Stage 2 — MITRE chain begins to form

By iteration 3, evidence has converged on a Pass-the-Hash hypothesis. The agent issues three more calls in quick succession:

Tool	Finding	MITRE
detect_credential_access()	comsvcs.dll LOLBin LSASS dump in PowerShell event 4104	T1003.001
parse_prefetch(prefetch_path=...)	First run 14:17:51 UTC, parent chain explorer → cmd → powershell	T1059.001
detect_lateral_movement()	PsExec service install on FILE-SRV-01 at 14:23:09 UTC	T1021.002

The agent now has a coherent partial chain:

T1059.001 → T1003.001 → T1021.002

Confidence climbs to 0.78. A weaker reasoning loop would stop here and produce a confident-sounding report. dart-agent doesn't. The senior-analyst playbook requires a contradiction check before the chain can be accepted — that's the next call.

---

Stage 3 — Contradiction detected, hypothesis revised ⚡

correlate_events(hypothesis_id=h_002) invokes dart-corr (the DuckDB-backed cross-artifact correlator) and it surfaces a problem:

Source	Claim
Auth events	PtH attack at 14:23:09 — admin token used on FILE-SRV
MFT timestamp check	Admin profile timestomp at 14:21:55 — $SI < $FN by 11 seconds (anti-forensic activity)

The contradiction is mechanical: the timestomp happened before the credential was supposedly used. That can only mean the attacker already had access to FILE-SRV before the PtH event. The PtH wasn't the lateral movement; it was a re-entry.

dart-corr flags this as UNRESOLVED rather than letting the LLM decide which artifact "wins". This is the architectural guarantee: when artifacts disagree, the agent is forced to revise.

hypothesis_v3 rewrites the story:

Persistence on FILE-SRV pre-existed the PtH event. Need: scheduled tasks + service installs before 14:21 UTC.

A single follow-up call tells us why:

list_scheduled_tasks()
  → rogue task: \Microsoft\Windows\System\WindowsUpdate
    created: 2024-10-29 03:14:17 UTC  (5 days earlier)

The initial vector is now 5 days earlier than the auth log suggested. Confidence rises to 0.89.

---

Stage 4 — Final verdict & audit verification

The agent's final hypothesis (confidence 0.94):

Persistent foothold established 2024-10-29 03:14 UTC via scheduled task on FILE-SRV-01. Dormant for 5 days. Pivot to DESKTOP-7K2L on 2024-11-03 14:17 UTC, LSASS dump via comsvcs LOLBin, PtH back to FILE-SRV at 14:23 UTC.

Verified MITRE ATT&CK chain:

Technique	Tactic
T1053.005   Scheduled Task / Job	Persistence
T1059.001   PowerShell	Execution
T1003.001   LSASS Memory	Credential Access
T1070.006   Timestomp	Defense Evasion
T1021.002   SMB / Admin Shares	Lateral Movement

Audit verification

[audit]  Verifying chain integrity ...
         ✓ 47 entries  ·  SHA-256 chain unbroken
         ✓ tail hash: 4f7a9c1b3e8d2046...8a13c5
         ✓ chain integrity check: 47/47 entries verified

A human reviewer can replay the entire reasoning trace from the audit log alone — every input, every output, every MCP call, every hypothesis revision. Tampering with any entry breaks the chain at that point.

---

What this case study demonstrates

1. Architecture beats prompts. The agent never had a prompt instruction to "look for timestomp activity". The contradiction surfaced because dart-corr mechanically joined MFT timestamps against authentication events. The agent then had to revise.

2. Read-only by construction. At no point did the agent attempt to modify evidence. Not because it was told not to — because the MCP surface does not expose any function that could.

3. Tamper-evident reasoning. The 47-entry SHA-256 chain means a reviewer can verify, after the fact, that the agent saw exactly what it claims to have seen.

4. Honest uncertainty. The agent didn't lock onto its first hypothesis. The system isn't "confidence inflation by repetition" — contradictions get a fair hearing because dart-corr is structurally required to flag them.

---

Reproducing this run

The sample evidence and playbook live in the repo:

git clone https://github.com/Juwon1405/agentic-dart.git
cd agentic-dart
export DART_EVIDENCE_ROOT="$PWD/examples/sample-evidence"
export PYTHONPATH="$PWD/dart_audit/src:$PWD/dart_mcp/src:$PWD/dart_agent/src"
python3 -m dart_agent --case demo --max-iterations 25

The deterministic demo lands on the same MITRE chain on every run. The audit chain is self-consistent (every entry hash matches the next entry's prev_hash); per-run ID and timestamp differ by design (prevents replay attacks).

---

See also

• Case-IP-KVM — the second bundled case study
• Architecture deep dive
• dart-corr — the engine that found the contradiction
• Accuracy — measured metrics