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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
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Christopher Korban
Cody Thomas
HOPE - July 2018
ATT&CKing with Threat
Intelligence
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
ATT&CK T1033 – User Discovery
 Christopher Korban
– Lead Cyber Security Engineer
– ATT&CKing for the past 5+ years
– Creates Adversary Emulation Plans
– @ckorban
 Cody Thomas
– Senior Cyber Security Engineer
– Created Mac/Linux ATT&CK
– Red Teamer and Tool Developer
– @its_a_feature_
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Traditional Offensive Testing Workflow
Intel
Gathering
Vulnerability
Assessment
Target
Acquisition
Exploitation
Privilege
Escalation
Lateral
Movement
Persistence Exfiltration
Report
Findings
Collect Protect Detect Triage Investigate Coordinate Remediate
 Typical Red vs Blue event flow
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Traditional Outcomes
 Red
– Creates report of offensive techniques and IoCs for what they did
– Wants to make sure they ‘win’ again next time
– Leaves for a year
 Blue
– Deciphers Red’s report
– Continues to deal with daily incident reports
– Creates static detections for Red’s tools and IoCs
– Might try to characterize malicious behavior
 Typically has small sample size
 No good way to keep testing
https://aconsciouslifenow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Health-Wealth-Purpose-and-Love-thru-Releasing-the-Adversary.jpg
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
How do these outcomes progress?
 Blue signatures Red tool (MD5=4de587ac29…)
– Red changes tool slightly (new hash)
 Blue signatures Red tool (string=“mimikatz”)
– Red changes tool slightly (string=“mimidogz”)
 Blue stops single red instantiation (psexec)
– Red modifies implementation (psexec manually)
 …
 This isn’t really helping blue or red
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Change the game, even for Red
David Bianco’s Pyramid of Pain
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Need Common Language for TTPs
 What do we need from this common language?
– Communicate and articulate what happened in a test, and results
– Do so at a level that’s specific enough that it’s repeatable
– Enable us to create metrics that make sense
 What do we use for this?
– MITRE’s Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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ATT&CK™ is increasingly
being used by the community
as a common way to describe
adversary behavior.
ATT&CK™ is a globally-accessible
knowledge base of adversary tactics
and techniques, developed by
MITRE based on real-world
observations of adversaries’
operations.
attack.mitre.org
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
ATT&CK Matrix Format
Tactic: Adversary’s technical goal, the “Why”
Technique: Adversary’s action to achieves the goal, the “What”
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Example of Technique: New Service
 Description: When operating systems boot up, they can start programs or applications called
services that perform background system functions. … Adversaries may install a new service
which will be executed at startup by directly modifying the registry or by using tools.
 Platform: Windows
 Permissions required: Administrator, SYSTEM
 Effective permissions: SYSTEM
 Detection:
– Monitor service creation through changes in the Registry and common utilities using command-
line invocation
– Tools such as Sysinternals Autoruns may be used to detect system changes that could be
attempts at persistence
– Monitor processes and command-line arguments for actions that could create services
 Mitigation:
– Limit privileges of user accounts and remediate Privilege Escalation vectors
– Identify and block unnecessary system utilities or potentially malicious software that may be used
to create services
 Data Sources: Windows Registry, process monitoring, command-line parameters
 Examples: Carbanak, Lazarus Group, TinyZBot, Duqu, CozyCar, CosmicDuke, hcdLoader, …
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
ATT&CK Spans Multiple Tech Domains
PRE-ATT&CK: left
of exploit
behaviors
Enterprise:
Windows, Linux, Mac
Mobile:
Android,
iOS
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Key ATT&CK use cases:
 Guide threat hunting campaigns
 Leverage threat intelligence to
prioritize technique detection
 Remediate gaps by mapping
solutions back to ATT&CK techniques
 Emulate adversaries to measure
defenses against relevant threats
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Adversary Emulation
 AKA: Threat-based Red Teaming
 Adversary Emulation
– Emulate the techniques of an adversary that’s most likely to target
your environment
– Focus on the behaviors of those techniques instead of specific
implementations
https://giphy.com/explore/hackerman https://tenor.com/view/hackerman-transformation-kung-fury-kung-fury-gif-7263543
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Adversary Emulation with ATT&CK
Prototype APT3 emulation plan on attack.mitre.org
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
How to start doing adversary emulation?
 Identify an adversary you want to emulate
– Consider the target you’re going up against
 Defense Contractor
 Financial Sector
 Health Care
 E-Commerce
 Etc.
– Adversaries change accordingly
 Country Specific (APT3, APT28, APT29, APT34, ….)
 Financially Motivated (FIN6, FIN7, …)
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
How to start doing adversary emulation?
1. Threat Intelligence Acquisition
– Analyze Reporting:
 Adversary Reports (APTX)
 Reports on Adversary’s toolsets (APTX uses A,B,C)
 Aliases (APTX i.e. ThreatGroup ###, adjective-animal)
 Toolset aliases (A i.e. Trojan.malwareName)
 Associated Campaigns (OperationZ)
 Keep time of reports in mind
Threat
Intelligence
Acquisition
Extract
Actionable
Techniques
and Analyze
M.O.
Develop Tools
Set up
Infrastructure
Emulate
Adversary
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Threat Intel - Follow the Leads
https://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/buckeye-cyberespionage-group-shifts-gaze-us-hong-kong
Aliases, Aliases, Aliases everywhere!
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
How to start doing adversary emulation?
2. Extract Actionable Techniques and M.O.
– Look for adversary behaviors
– Look for tool functionality
– Establish the adversary’s goal
– Think about the what, why, and how
 In ATT&CK - Technique, Tactic, Procedure
Threat
Intelligence
Acquisition
Extract
Actionable
Techniques
and Analyze
M.O.
Develop Tools
Set up
Infrastructure
Emulate
Adversary
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Threat Intel - What does it really say?
https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2014/11/operation_doubletap.html
T1068 - Exploitation for Privilege Escalation
T1059 - Command-Line Interface
T1033 - System Owner/User Discovery
T1053 - Scheduled Task
T1065 - Uncommonly Used Port
T1094 - Custom Command and Control Protocol
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Threat Intel - Into the Binary Strings
https://recon.cx/2017/montreal/resources/slides/RECON-MTL-2017-
evolution_of_pirpi.pdf
T1069 - Permission Groups Discovery
T1049 - System Network
Connections Discovery
T1059 - Command-Line Interface
T1018 - Remote System Discovery
T1107 - File Deletion
T1057 - Process Discovery
T1034 - Path Interception?
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Threat Intel - Into the Binaries
T1056 - Input Capture T1027 - Obfuscated Files or Information
T1016 - System Network Configuration Discovery
T1077 - Windows Admin Shares
T1035 - Service Execution
T1003 - Credential Dumping
T1055 - Process Injection
https://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/buckeye-cyberespionage-group-shifts-gaze-us-hong-kong
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Threat Intel - Adversary M.O.
https://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/buckeye-cyberespionage-group-shifts-gaze-us-hong-kong
Buckeye seems to target file and print servers, which makes it likely the group is
looking to steal documents
https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2014/04/new-zero-day-exploit-targeting-internet-explorer-versions-9-through-11-
identified-in-targeted-attacks.html
They are extremely proficient at lateral movement … and typically
do not reuse command and control infrastructure
https://www.lastline.com/labsblog/an-analysis-of-plugx-malware/
The rarsfx archive is created 5-6 months before this attack … used
the same rarsfx archive with other payloads before this attack.
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Developing an Emulation Plan
 This is the hardest part of the puzzle
 No plan will be perfect, so approximate where needed
 This isn’t a replay of an incident - variation is OK
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Developing an Emulation Plan
Threat
Intelligence
Acquisition
Extract
Actionable
Techniques
and Analyze
M.O.
Develop Tools
Set up
Infrastructure
Emulate
Adversary
3. Develop Tools if needed to emulate behaviors
– What are the COTS / Open Source tools available?
– Can you exhibit the right behaviors with these tools?
 Can you extend them?
 Can you modify them?
– Do you need to develop something specific?
 Delivery mechanisms
 Command and Control
 Capabilities
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
What is behavior emulation for TTPs?
 Performing adversary techniques with variations
– Adversary created “C:aos.exe” for Priv Esc via path interception
 You intercept any service path that runs under higher privileges
– Adversary used “PSExec” for Lateral Movement
 You do it manually with “sc.exe” or via PowerShell
– Adversary runs “whoami” for Discovery
 You do it with environment variables
“%USERDOMAIN%%USERNAME%”
 Thinking about what you’re trying to accomplish
– Technique in ATT&CK
– And Why you’re trying to accomplish it
 Tactic in ATT&CK
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Defining Your Toolset
 Don’t limit yourself to a single environment or tool
– Python, PowerShell, Command-Line, Custom Binary, etc
 Do stay within the behavior boundaries
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Create an Adversary Emulation Field Manual
Discovery
T1069 - Permission
Groups Discovery
net
localgroup
net group
/domain
dsquery
group
T1087 - Account
Discovery
net user
/domain
wmic user dsquery user
 Provides multiple implementations across toolsets
 Provides offensive command-line examples
 Create this as you go, and use for reference later
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Developing an Emulation Plan
Threat
Intelligence
Acquisition
Extract
Actionable
Techniques
and Analyze
M.O.
Develop Tools
Set up
Infrastructure
Emulate
Adversary
4. Set up offensive infrastructure
– Set up Command and Control server(s) and redirector(s), buy
domains, test techniques, install offensive frameworks
– Create Payloads ”inspired by” the adversary’s tradecraft
 Modify IoCs and behaviors if possible
 Obfuscate with purpose, NOT all the things
– Over obfuscation is itself suspicious
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Developing an Emulation Plan
5. Emulate the Adversary
– Follow the M.O. of your target adversary
– “Domain Admin” most likely isn’t your goal
– Keep the ‘speed of the adversary’ in mind
 Low and slow vs smash and grab
Threat
Intelligence
Acquisition
Extract
Actionable
Techniques
and Analyze
M.O.
Develop Tools
Set up
Infrastructure
Emulate
Adversary
https://d21ic6tdqjqnyw.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/03221736/Automated-
Adversary-Emulation-System-CALDERA.jpg
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Providing a Starting Point for Red/Blue
 To kickstart the process for Red/Blue teams
everywhere, MITRE is providing two prototypes
 APT3 and APT29
– All based on open-source intelligence
– Breakdowns of APT tools and capabilities mapped to ATT&CK
– Descriptions of how these techniques are implemented
– Potential operator flows during emulations
– Cheat Sheets of commands across
 Live off the Land binaries/scripts
 Open source tools
 Commercial toolkits
 APT3 is on attack.mitre.org now
 APT29 is Coming Soon™
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
Contact Us
 Chris - @ckorban, ckorban@mitre.org
 Cody - @its_a_feature_, cbthomas@mitre.org
 ATT&CK
– https://attack.mitre.org
– @MITREattack
 ATT&CK Navigator
– https://github.com/mitre/attack-navigator
– https://mitre.github.io/attack-navigator/enterprise/
 Adversary Emulation Plans
– https://attack.mitre.org/wiki/Adversary_Emulation_Plans
 CALDERA: Automated Adversary Emulation
– https://github.com/mitre/caldera
Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 18-0944-10

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© 2018 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved.
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operate federally funded research and development centers,
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