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T0866 Exploitation of Remote Services

Adversaries may exploit a software vulnerability to take advantage of a programming error in a program, service, or within the operating system software or kernel itself to enable remote service abuse. A common goal for post-compromise exploitation of remote services is for initial access into and lateral movement throughout the ICS environment to enable access to targeted systems. 1

ICS asset owners and operators have been affected by ransomware (or disruptive malware masquerading as ransomware) migrating from enterprise IT to ICS environments: WannaCry, NotPetya, and BadRabbit. In each of these cases, self-propagating (wormable) malware initially infected IT networks, but through exploit (particularly the SMBv1-targeting MS17-010 vulnerability) spread to industrial networks, producing significant impacts. 2

Item Value
ID T0866
Sub-techniques
Tactics TA0108, TA0109
Platforms Data Historian, Engineering Workstation, Human-Machine Interface
Version 1.0
Created 21 May 2020
Last Modified 09 March 2023

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
S0606 Bad Rabbit Bad Rabbit initially infected IT networks, but by means of an exploit (particularly the SMBv1-targeting MS17-010 vulnerability) spread to industrial networks. 2
S0368 NotPetya NotPetya initially infected IT networks, but by means of an exploit (particularly the SMBv1-targeting MS17-010 vulnerability) spread to industrial networks. 2
S0603 Stuxnet Stuxnet executes malicious SQL commands in the WinCC database server to propagate to remote systems. The malicious SQL commands include xp_cmdshell, sp_dumpdbilog, and sp_addextendedproc. 7
S0366 WannaCry WannaCry initially infected IT networks, but by means of an exploit (particularly the SMBv1-targeting MS17-010 vulnerability) spread to industrial networks. 2

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M0948 Application Isolation and Sandboxing Make it difficult for adversaries to advance their operation through exploitation of undiscovered or unpatched vulnerabilities by using sandboxing. Other types of virtualization and application microsegmentation may also mitigate the impact of some types of exploitation. Risks of additional exploits and weaknesses in these systems may still exist. 3
M0942 Disable or Remove Feature or Program Ensure that unnecessary ports and services are closed to prevent risk of discovery and potential exploitation.
M0950 Exploit Protection Security applications that look for behavior used during exploitation such as Windows Defender Exploit Guard (WDEG) and the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) can be used to mitigate some exploitation behavior. 5 Control flow integrity checking is another way to potentially identify and stop a software exploit from occurring. 6 Many of these protections depend on the architecture and target application binary for compatibility and may not work for all software or services targeted.
M0930 Network Segmentation Segment networks and systems appropriately to reduce access to critical system and services communications.
M0926 Privileged Account Management Minimize permissions and access for service accounts to limit impact of exploitation. 4
M0919 Threat Intelligence Program Develop a robust cyber threat intelligence capability to determine what types and levels of threat may use software exploits and 0-days against a particular organization.
M0951 Update Software Update software regularly by employing patch management for internal enterprise endpoints and servers.
M0916 Vulnerability Scanning Regularly scan the internal network for available services to identify new and potentially vulnerable services.

Detection

ID Data Source Data Component
DS0015 Application Log Application Log Content
DS0029 Network Traffic Network Traffic Content

References

  1. Enterprise ATT&CK Exploitation of Remote Services Retrieved. 2019/10/27  ↩

  2. Joe Slowik 2019, April 10 Implications of IT Ransomware for ICS Environments Retrieved. 2019/10/27  ↩↩↩↩

  3. Dan Goodin 2017, March Virtual machine escape fetches $105,000 at Pwn2Own hacking contest Retrieved. 2020/09/25  ↩

  4. Keith Stouffer 2015, May Guide to Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Security Retrieved. 2018/03/28  ↩

  5. Microsoft Security Response Center 2017, August Moving Beyond EMET II Windows Defender Exploit Guard Retrieved. 2020/09/25  ↩

  6. Wikipedia Microsoft Security Response Center 2017, August Moving Beyond EMET II Windows Defender Exploit Guard Retrieved. 2020/09/25 Control-flow integrity Retrieved. 2020/09/25  ↩

  7. Nicolas Falliere, Liam O Murchu, Eric Chien 2011, February W32.Stuxnet Dossier (Version 1.4) Retrieved. 2017/09/22  ↩