MITRE ATT&CKtechnique

T1525 Implant Internal Image

Published 2019-09-04 Modified 2025-10-24 Official page ↗
Domain
enterprise
Tactics
Persistence
Platforms
IaaS, Containers
Version
2.2
Created
2019-09-04

Description

Adversaries may implant cloud or container images with malicious code to establish persistence after gaining access to an environment. Amazon Web Services (AWS) Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Images, and Azure Images as well as popular container runtimes such as Docker can be implanted or backdoored. Unlike Upload Malware, this technique focuses on adversaries implanting an image in a registry within a victim’s environment. Depending on how the infrastructure is provisioned, this could provide persistent access if the infrastructure provisioning tool is instructed to always use the latest image. A tool has been developed to facilitate planting backdoors in cloud container images. If an adversary has access to a compromised AWS instance, and permissions to list the available container images, they may implant a backdoor such as a Web Shell.

Related

Tactic · MITRE ATT&CK (1)

Referenced by MITRE ATT&CK · mitigates (3)

  • M1045 Code Signing mitigation
  • M1047 Audit mitigation
  • M1026 Privileged Account Management mitigation

Referenced by Compliance · mitigates (16)

  • CIS-6.8 Define and Maintain Role-Based Access Control CIS Safeguard v8.1
  • NIST-AC-2 Account Management NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-AC-3 Access Enforcement NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-AC-5 Separation of Duties NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-AC-6 Least Privilege NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-CM-2 Baseline Configuration NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-CM-5 Access Restrictions for Change NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-CM-6 Configuration Settings NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-CM-7 Least Functionality NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-IA-2 Identification and Authentication (Organizational Users) NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-IA-9 Service Identification and Authentication NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-RA-5 Vulnerability Monitoring and Scanning NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-SI-2 Flaw Remediation NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-SI-3 Malicious Code Protection NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-SI-4 System Monitoring NIST 800-53 control
  • NIST-SI-7 Software, Firmware, and Information Integrity NIST 800-53 control

References