Adversaries may gain access and continuously communicate with victims by injecting malicious content into systems through online network traffic. Rather than luring victims to malicious payloads hosted on a compromised website (i.e., Drive-by Target followed by Drive-by Compromise), adversaries may initially access victims through compromised data-transfer channels where they can manipulate traffic and/or inject their own content. These compromised online network channels may also be used to deliver additional payloads (i.e., Ingress Tool Transfer) and other data to already compromised systems.^[1]

Adversaries may inject content to victim systems in various ways, including:

• From the middle, where the adversary is in-between legitimate online client-server communications (Note: this is similar but distinct from Adversary-in-the-Middle, which describes AiTM activity solely within an enterprise environment)^[2]
• From the side, where malicious content is injected and races to the client as a fake response to requests of a legitimate online server^[3]

Content injection is often the result of compromised upstream communication channels, for example at the level of an internet service provider (ISP) as is the case with "lawful interception."^[3],[1],[4]

References

1. Faou, M. (2023, August 10). MoustachedBouncer: Espionage against foreign diplomats in Belarus. Retrieved September 1, 2023.
2. Kaspersky IT Encyclopedia. (n.d.). Man-in-the-middle attack. Retrieved September 1, 2023.
3. Starikova, A. (2023, February 14). Man-on-the-side – peculiar attack. Retrieved September 1, 2023.
4. Budington, B. (2015, April 2). China Uses Unencrypted Websites to Hijack Browsers in GitHub Attack. Retrieved September 1, 2023.

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