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T1048 Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol

Adversaries may steal data by exfiltrating it over a different protocol than that of the existing command and control channel. The data may also be sent to an alternate network location from the main command and control server.

Alternate protocols include FTP, SMTP, HTTP/S, DNS, SMB, or any other network protocol not being used as the main command and control channel. Different protocol channels could also include Web services such as cloud storage. Adversaries may also opt to encrypt and/or obfuscate these alternate channels.

Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol can be done using various common operating system utilities such as Net/SMB or FTP.1 On macOS and Linux curl may be used to invoke protocols such as HTTP/S or FTP/S to exfiltrate data from a system.2

Item Value
ID T1048
Sub-techniques T1048.001, T1048.002, T1048.003
Tactics TA0010
Platforms Linux, Windows, macOS
Version 1.3
Created 31 May 2017
Last Modified 15 October 2021

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
S0482 Bundlore Bundlore uses the curl -s -L -o command to exfiltrate archived data to a URL.2
S0631 Chaes Chaes has exfiltrated its collected data from the infected machine to the C2, sometimes using the MIME protocol.5
S0503 FrameworkPOS FrameworkPOS can use DNS tunneling for exfiltration of credit card data.6
S0203 Hydraq Hydraq connects to a predefined domain on port 443 to exfil gathered information.7
S0641 Kobalos Kobalos can exfiltrate credentials over the network via UDP.9
S0428 PoetRAT PoetRAT has used a .NET tool named dog.exe to exiltrate information over an e-mail account.8

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M1057 Data Loss Prevention Data loss prevention can detect and block sensitive data being uploaded via web browsers.
M1037 Filter Network Traffic Enforce proxies and use dedicated servers for services such as DNS and only allow those systems to communicate over respective ports/protocols, instead of all systems within a network.
M1031 Network Intrusion Prevention Network intrusion detection and prevention systems that use network signatures to identify traffic for specific adversary command and control infrastructure and malware can be used to mitigate activity at the network level.
M1030 Network Segmentation Follow best practices for network firewall configurations to allow only necessary ports and traffic to enter and exit the network.4

Detection

ID Data Source Data Component
DS0017 Command Command Execution
DS0022 File File Access
DS0029 Network Traffic Network Connection Creation

References

  1. Grunzweig, J. and Falcone, R.. (2016, October 4). OilRig Malware Campaign Updates Toolset and Expands Targets. Retrieved May 3, 2017. ↩

  2. Phil Stokes. (2021, February 16). 20 Common Tools & Techniques Used by macOS Threat Actors & Malware. Retrieved August 23, 2021. ↩↩

  3. Gardiner, J., Cova, M., Nagaraja, S. (2014, February). Command & Control Understanding, Denying and Detecting. Retrieved April 20, 2016. ↩

  4. Microsoft. (2004, February 6). Perimeter Firewall Design. Retrieved April 25, 2016. ↩

  5. Salem, E. (2020, November 17). CHAES: Novel Malware Targeting Latin American E-Commerce. Retrieved June 30, 2021. ↩

  6. Kremez, V. (2019, September 19). FIN6 “FrameworkPOS”: Point-of-Sale Malware Analysis & Internals. Retrieved September 8, 2020. ↩

  7. Lelli, A. (2010, January 11). Trojan.Hydraq. Retrieved February 20, 2018. ↩

  8. Mercer, W, et al. (2020, April 16). PoetRAT: Python RAT uses COVID-19 lures to target Azerbaijan public and private sectors. Retrieved April 27, 2020. ↩

  9. M.Leveille, M., Sanmillan, I. (2021, February 2). Kobalos – A complex Linux threat to high performance computing infrastructure. Retrieved August 24, 2021. ↩

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