Adversaries may upload, install, or otherwise set up capabilities that can be used during targeting. To support their operations, an adversary may need to take capabilities they developed (Develop Capabilities) or obtained (Obtain Capabilities) and stage them on infrastructure under their control. These capabilities may be staged on infrastructure that was previously purchased/rented by the adversary (Acquire Infrastructure) or was otherwise compromised by them (Compromise Infrastructure). Capabilities may also be staged on web services, such as GitHub or Pastebin, or on Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings that enable users to easily provision applications.[1],[2],[3],[4],[5]
Staging of capabilities can aid the adversary in a number of initial access and post-compromise behaviors, including (but not limited to):
- Staging web resources necessary to conduct Drive-by Compromise when a user browses to a site.[6],[7],[8]
- Staging web resources for a link target to be used with spearphishing.[9],[10]
- Uploading malware or tools to a location accessible to a victim network to enable Ingress Tool Transfer.[1]
- Installing a previously acquired SSL/TLS certificate to use to encrypt command and control traffic (ex: Asymmetric Cryptography with Web Protocols).[11]
References
- Adair, S. and Lancaster, T. (2020, November 6). OceanLotus: Extending Cyber Espionage Operations Through Fake Websites. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
- Kent Backman. (2021, May 18). When Intrusions Don’t Align: A New Water Watering Hole and Oldsmar. Retrieved August 18, 2022.
- Jérôme Segura. (2019, December 4). There's an app for that: web skimmers found on PaaS Heroku. Retrieved August 18, 2022.
- Ashwin Vamshi. (2019, January 24). Targeted Attacks Abusing Google Cloud Platform Open Redirection. Retrieved August 18, 2022.
- Ashwin Vamshi. (2020, August 12). A Big Catch: Cloud Phishing from Google App Engine and Azure App Service. Retrieved August 18, 2022.
- Kindlund, D. (2012, December 30). CFR Watering Hole Attack Details. Retrieved November 17, 2024.
- Gallagher, S.. (2015, August 5). Newly discovered Chinese hacking group hacked 100+ websites to use as “watering holes”. Retrieved January 25, 2016.
- Blasco, J. (2014, August 28). Scanbox: A Reconnaissance Framework Used with Watering Hole Attacks. Retrieved October 19, 2020.
- Malwarebytes Threat Intelligence Team. (2020, October 14). Silent Librarian APT right on schedule for 20/21 academic year. Retrieved February 3, 2021.
- Proofpoint Threat Insight Team. (2019, September 5). Threat Actor Profile: TA407, the Silent Librarian. Retrieved February 3, 2021.
- DigiCert. (n.d.). How to Install an SSL Certificate. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
Sotto-ticket
| Titolo | Descrizione |
|---|---|
| Drive-by Target | Adversaries may prepare an operational environment to infect systems that visit a website over the normal course of browsing. Endpoint systems may be compromised through browsing to adversary controlled sites, as in Drive-by Compromise. In such cases, the user's web browser is typically targeted for exploitation (often not requiring any extra user interaction once landing on the site), but adversaries may also set up websites for non-exploitation behavior such as Application Access Token. Prior to Drive-by Compromise, adversaries must stage resources needed to deliver that exploit to users who browse to an adversary controlled site. Drive-by content can be staged on adversary controlled infrastructure that has been acquired (Acquire Infrastructure) or previously compromised (Compromise Infrastructure). Adversaries may upload or inject malicious web content, such as JavaScript, into websites.[1],[2] This may be done in a number of ways, including:
In addition to staging content to exploit a user's web browser, adversaries may also stage scripting content to profile the user's browser (as in Gather Victim Host Information) to ensure it is vulnerable prior to attempting exploitation.[3] Websites compromised by an adversary and used to stage a drive-by may be ones visited by a specific community, such as government, a particular industry, or region, where the goal is to compromise a specific user or set of users based on a shared interest. This kind of targeted campaign is referred to a strategic web compromise or watering hole attack. Adversaries may purchase domains similar to legitimate domains (ex: homoglyphs, typosquatting, different top-level domain, etc.) during acquisition of infrastructure (Domains) to help facilitate Drive-by Compromise. References
|
| Upload Malware | Adversaries may upload malware to third-party or adversary controlled infrastructure to make it accessible during targeting. Malicious software can include payloads, droppers, post-compromise tools, backdoors, and a variety of other malicious content. Adversaries may upload malware to support their operations, such as making a payload available to a victim network to enable Ingress Tool Transfer by placing it on an Internet accessible web server. Malware may be placed on infrastructure that was previously purchased/rented by the adversary (Acquire Infrastructure) or was otherwise compromised by them (Compromise Infrastructure). Malware can also be staged on web services, such as GitHub or Pastebin; hosted on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), where decentralized content storage makes the removal of malicious files difficult; or saved on the blockchain as smart contracts, which are resilient against takedowns that would affect traditional infrastructure.[1],[2],[3],[4] Adversaries may upload backdoored files, such as software packages, application binaries, virtual machine images, or container images, to third-party software stores, package libraries, extension marketplaces, or repositories (ex: GitHub, CNET, AWS Community AMIs, Docker Hub, PyPi, NPM).[5] By chance encounter, victims may directly download/install these backdoored files via User Execution. Masquerading, including typosquatting legitimate software, may increase the chance of users mistakenly executing these files. References
|
| Upload Tool | Adversaries may upload tools to third-party or adversary controlled infrastructure to make it accessible during targeting. Tools can be open or closed source, free or commercial. Tools can be used for malicious purposes by an adversary, but (unlike malware) were not intended to be used for those purposes (ex: PsExec). Adversaries may upload tools to support their operations, such as making a tool available to a victim network to enable Ingress Tool Transfer by placing it on an Internet accessible web server. Tools may be placed on infrastructure that was previously purchased/rented by the adversary (Acquire Infrastructure) or was otherwise compromised by them (Compromise Infrastructure).[1] Tools can also be staged on web services, such as an adversary controlled GitHub repo, or on Platform-as-a-Service offerings that enable users to easily provision applications.[2],[3],[4] Adversaries can avoid the need to upload a tool by having compromised victim machines download the tool directly from a third-party hosting location (ex: a non-adversary controlled GitHub repo), including the original hosting site of the tool. References
|
| Link Target | Adversaries may put in place resources that are referenced by a link that can be used during targeting. An adversary may rely upon a user clicking a malicious link in order to divulge information (including credentials) or to gain execution, as in Malicious Link. Links can be used for spearphishing, such as sending an email accompanied by social engineering text to coax the user to actively click or copy and paste a URL into a browser. Prior to a phish for information (as in Spearphishing Link) or a phish to gain initial access to a system (as in Spearphishing Link), an adversary must set up the resources for a link target for the spearphishing link. Typically, the resources for a link target will be an HTML page that may include some client-side script such as JavaScript to decide what content to serve to the user. Adversaries may clone legitimate sites to serve as the link target, this can include cloning of login pages of legitimate web services or organization login pages in an effort to harvest credentials during Spearphishing Link.[1],[2] Adversaries may also Upload Malware and have the link target point to malware for download/execution by the user. Adversaries may purchase domains similar to legitimate domains (ex: homoglyphs, typosquatting, different top-level domain, etc.) during acquisition of infrastructure (Domains) to help facilitate Malicious Link. Links can be written by adversaries to mask the true destination in order to deceive victims by abusing the URL schema and increasing the effectiveness of phishing.[3],[4] Adversaries may also use free or paid accounts on link shortening services and Platform-as-a-Service providers to host link targets while taking advantage of the widely trusted domains of those providers to avoid being blocked while redirecting victims to malicious pages.[5],[6],[7],[8] In addition, adversaries may serve a variety of malicious links through uniquely generated URIs/URLs (including one-time, single use links).[9],[10],[11],[12] Finally, adversaries may take advantage of the decentralized nature of the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) to host link targets that are difficult to remove.[13] References
|
| Install Digital Certificate | Adversaries may install SSL/TLS certificates that can be used during targeting. SSL/TLS certificates are files that can be installed on servers to enable secure communications between systems. Digital certificates include information about the key, information about its owner's identity, and the digital signature of an entity that has verified the certificate's contents are correct. If the signature is valid, and the person examining the certificate trusts the signer, then they know they can use that key to communicate securely with its owner. Certificates can be uploaded to a server, then the server can be configured to use the certificate to enable encrypted communication with it.[1] Adversaries may install SSL/TLS certificates that can be used to further their operations, such as encrypting C2 traffic (ex: Asymmetric Cryptography with Web Protocols) or lending credibility to a credential harvesting site. Installation of digital certificates may take place for a number of server types, including web servers and email servers. Adversaries can obtain digital certificates (see Digital Certificates) or create self-signed certificates (see Digital Certificates). Digital certificates can then be installed on adversary controlled infrastructure that may have been acquired (Acquire Infrastructure) or previously compromised (Compromise Infrastructure). References |
| SEO Poisoning | Adversaries may poison mechanisms that influence search engine optimization (SEO) to further lure staged capabilities towards potential victims. Search engines typically display results to users based on purchased ads as well as the site’s ranking/score/reputation calculated by their web crawlers and algorithms.[1],[2] To help facilitate Drive-by Compromise, adversaries may stage content that explicitly manipulates SEO rankings in order to promote sites hosting their malicious payloads (such as Drive-by Target) within search engines. Poisoning SEO rankings may involve various tricks, such as stuffing keywords (including in the form of hidden text) into compromised sites. These keywords could be related to the interests/browsing habits of the intended victim(s) as well as more broad, seasonably popular topics (e.g. elections, trending news).[3],[1] In addition to internet search engines (such as Google), adversaries may also aim to manipulate specific in-site searches for developer platforms (such as GitHub) to deceive users towards Supply Chain Compromise lures. In-site searches will rank search results according to their own algorithms and metrics such as popularity[4] which may be targeted and gamed by malicious actors.[5] Adversaries may also purchase or plant incoming links to staged capabilities in order to boost the site’s calculated relevance and reputation.[2],[6] SEO poisoning may also be combined with evasive redirects and other cloaking mechanisms (such as measuring mouse movements or serving content based on browser user agents, user language/localization settings, or HTTP headers) in order to feed SEO inputs while avoiding scrutiny from defenders.[3],[7] References
|
| AI Result Poisoning | Adversaries may manipulate publicly accessible web content to influence generative AI systems or AI-powered search engines into retrieving, citing, or recommending attacker-controlled information.[1],[2] Unlike traditional SEO Poisoning, which primarily attempts to influence the ordering of conventional search results, AI Result Poisoning targets systems that synthesize information from multiple sources and provide a direct answer to the user. Adversaries may create malicious or misleading websites, publish fabricated claims, generate supporting articles, or establish multiple apparently independent sources that reinforce the same information. These sources may then be retrieved by AI systems using web search or retrieval-augmented generation and incorporated into generated responses. Adversaries may use this technique to recommend or link to phishing sites, fraudulent online stores, malicious downloads, impersonation pages, or other attacker-controlled infrastructure.[3],[4],[5] It can also be used to promote misinformation or fabricated claims without requiring access to the underlying AI model, system prompt, or application infrastructure.[6] Because the malicious content can resemble ordinary marketing, editorial, or informational material, traditional prompt injection and malware-focused detections may not identify the activity. References
|
Ticket collegati
| Tipo di collegamento | Ticket |
|---|---|
| is related to | Techniques |
| is blocked by | Detection of Stage Capabilities |
| is blocked by | Pre-compromise |
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