A golden ticket attack gives an attacker full access to the target domain. Silver tickets are more specific in their use but are still a dangerous tool for malicious attackers.

In the context of cybersecurity and Active Directory exploitation, these terms refer to levels of Kerberos authentication compromise. A Golden Ticket is the ultimate "skeleton key"; it is a forged Ticket Granting Ticket (TGT) created by compromising the KRBTGT account. It grants an attacker permanent, unrestricted access to any service or computer within the entire domain, effectively making them a Domain Admin. In contrast, a Silver Ticket is a forged Ticket Granting Service (TGS) ticket. It is created by compromising a specific service account's password hash. While a Golden Ticket provides total domain control, a Silver Ticket is "targeted," granting access only to that specific service (e.g., just SQL or CIFS) on a particular server. Silver Tickets are harder to detect because they do not require communication with the Domain Controller, but they offer much more limited lateral movement compared to the all-encompassing power of a Golden Ticket.