MITRE ATT&CKtechnique
T1608 Stage Capabilities
- Domain
- enterprise
- Tactics
- Resource Development
- Platforms
- PRE
- Version
- 1.2
- Created
- 2021-03-17
Description
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.
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.
• Staging web resources for a link target to be used with spearphishing.
• Uploading malware or tools to a location accessible to a victim network to enable Ingress Tool Transfer.
• Installing a previously acquired SSL/TLS certificate to use to encrypt command and control traffic (ex: Asymmetric Cryptography with Web Protocols).
Related
Tactic · MITRE ATT&CK (1)
- TA0042 Resource Development tactic
Referenced by MITRE ATT&CK · mitigates (1)
- M1056 Pre-compromise mitigation
Referenced by MITRE ATT&CK · subtechnique of (7)
Referenced by MITRE ATT&CK · uses (1)
- G0129 Mustang Panda group
References
- https://www.volexity.com/blog/2020/11/06/oceanlotus-extending-cyber-espionage-operations-through-fake-websites/ Volexity Ocean Lotus November 2020
- https://www.netskope.com/blog/targeted-attacks-abusing-google-cloud-platform-open-redirection Netskope GCP Redirection
- https://www.netskope.com/blog/a-big-catch-cloud-phishing-from-google-app-engine-and-azure-app-service Netskope Cloud Phishing
- https://cybersecurity.att.com/blogs/labs-research/scanbox-a-reconnaissance-framework-used-on-watering-hole-attacks ATT ScanBox
- https://www.digicert.com/kb/ssl-certificate-installation.htm DigiCert Install SSL Cert
- http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/08/newly-discovered-chinese-hacking-group-hacked-100-websites-to-use-as-watering-holes/ Gallagher 2015
- https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2019/12/theres-an-app-for-that-web-skimmers-found-on-paas-heroku Malwarebytes Heroku Skimmers
- https://www.dragos.com/blog/industry-news/a-new-water-watering-hole/ Dragos Heroku Watering Hole
- https://web.archive.org/web/20201024230407/https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2012/12/council-foreign-relations-water-hole-attack-details.html FireEye CFR Watering Hole 2012
- https://blog.malwarebytes.com/malwarebytes-news/2020/10/silent-librarian-apt-phishing-attack/ Malwarebytes Silent Librarian October 2020
- https://www.proofpoint.com/us/threat-insight/post/threat-actor-profile-ta407-silent-librarian Proofpoint TA407 September 2019