Skip to content

T0830 Adversary-in-the-Middle

Adversaries with privileged network access may seek to modify network traffic in real time using adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) attacks. 2 This type of attack allows the adversary to intercept traffic to and/or from a particular device on the network. If a AiTM attack is established, then the adversary has the ability to block, log, modify, or inject traffic into the communication stream. There are several ways to accomplish this attack, but some of the most-common are Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) poisoning and the use of a proxy. 1

An AiTM attack may allow an adversary to perform the following attacks:
Block Reporting Message, Spoof Reporting Message, Modify Parameter, Unauthorized Command Message

Item Value
ID T0830
Sub-techniques
Tactics TA0100
Platforms Control Server, Field Controller/RTU/PLC/IED, Human-Machine Interface
Version 2.0
Created 21 May 2020
Last Modified 09 March 2023

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
S1010 VPNFilter The VPNFilter‘s ssler module configures the device’s iptables to redirect all traffic destined for port 80 to its local service listening on port 8888. Any outgoing web requests on port 80 are now intercepted by ssler and can be inspected by the ps module and manipulated before being sent to the legitimate HTTP service. 4 3

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M0947 Audit Limit access to network infrastructure and resources that can be used to reshape traffic or otherwise produce AiTM conditions.
M0802 Communication Authenticity Communication authenticity will ensure that any messages tampered with through AiTM can be detected, but cannot prevent eavesdropping on these. In addition, providing communication authenticity around various discovery protocols, such as DNS, can be used to prevent various AiTM procedures.
M0942 Disable or Remove Feature or Program Disable unnecessary legacy network protocols that may be used for AiTM if applicable.
M0931 Network Intrusion Prevention Network intrusion detection and prevention systems that can identify traffic patterns indicative of AiTM activity can be used to mitigate activity at the network level.
M0930 Network Segmentation Network segmentation can be used to isolate infrastructure components that do not require broad network access. This may mitigate, or at least alleviate, the scope of AiTM activity.
M0810 Out-of-Band Communications Channel Utilize out-of-band communication to validate the integrity of data from the primary channel.
M0813 Software Process and Device Authentication To protect against AiTM, authentication mechanisms should not send credentials across the network in plaintext and should also implement mechanisms to prevent replay attacks (such as nonces or timestamps). Challenge-response based authentication techniques that do not directly send credentials over the network provide better protection from AiTM.
M0814 Static Network Configuration Statically defined ARP entries can prevent manipulation and sniffing of switched network traffic, as some AiTM techniques depend on sending spoofed ARP messages to manipulate network host’s dynamic ARP tables.

Detection

ID Data Source Data Component
DS0015 Application Log Application Log Content
DS0029 Network Traffic Network Traffic Content
DS0009 Process Process Creation
DS0019 Service Service Creation
DS0024 Windows Registry Windows Registry Key Modification

References

  1. Bonnie Zhu, Anthony Joseph, Shankar Sastry 2011 A Taxonomy of Cyber Attacks on SCADA Systems Retrieved. 2018/01/12  ↩

  2. Gabriel Sanchez 2017, October Man-In-The-Middle Attack Against Modbus TCP Illustrated with Wireshark Retrieved. 2020/01/05  ↩

  3. Carl Hurd 2019, March 26 VPNFilter Deep Dive Retrieved. 2019/03/28  ↩

  4. William Largent 2018, June 06 VPNFilter Update - VPNFilter exploits endpoints, targets new devices Retrieved. 2019/03/28  ↩