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T1195.002 Compromise Software Supply Chain

Adversaries may manipulate application software prior to receipt by a final consumer for the purpose of data or system compromise. Supply chain compromise of software can take place in a number of ways, including manipulation of the application source code, manipulation of the update/distribution mechanism for that software, or replacing compiled releases with a modified version.

Targeting may be specific to a desired victim set or may be distributed to a broad set of consumers but only move on to additional tactics on specific victims.12

Item Value
ID T1195.002
Sub-techniques T1195.001, T1195.002, T1195.003
Tactics TA0001
Platforms Linux, Windows, macOS
Version 1.1
Created 11 March 2020
Last Modified 24 October 2025

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
C0057 3CX Supply Chain Attack During the 3CX Supply Chain Attack, AppleJeus first compromised an “end-of-life” trading software application which was downloaded and executed inside the 3CX enterprise environment. The second compromise modified the Windows and macOS build environments used to distribute the 3CX software to their customer base.23
G0096 APT41 APT41 gained access to production environments where they could inject malicious code into legitimate, signed files and widely distribute them to end users.8
S0222 CCBkdr CCBkdr was added to a legitimate, signed version 5.33 of the CCleaner software and distributed on CCleaner’s distribution site.671
G0080 Cobalt Group Cobalt Group has compromised legitimate web browser updates to deliver a backdoor. 9
G1034 Daggerfly Daggerfly is associated with several supply chain compromises using malicious updates to compromise victims.2019
G0035 Dragonfly Dragonfly has placed trojanized installers for control system software on legitimate vendor app stores.1617
G0046 FIN7 FIN7 has gained initial access by compromising a victim’s software supply chain.22
G0115 GOLD SOUTHFIELD GOLD SOUTHFIELD has distributed ransomware by backdooring software installers via a strategic web compromise of the site hosting Italian WinRAR.101112
S0493 GoldenSpy GoldenSpy has been packaged with a legitimate tax preparation software.4
G1036 Moonstone Sleet Moonstone Sleet has distributed a trojanized version of PuTTY software for initial access to victims.21
G0034 Sandworm Team Sandworm Team has distributed NotPetya by compromising the legitimate Ukrainian accounting software M.E.Doc and replacing a legitimate software update with a malicious one.141315
C0024 SolarWinds Compromise During the SolarWinds Compromise, APT29 gained initial network access to some victims via a trojanized update of SolarWinds Orion software.27242625
S0562 SUNSPOT SUNSPOT malware was designed and used to insert SUNBURST into software builds of the SolarWinds Orion IT management product.5
G0027 Threat Group-3390 Threat Group-3390 has compromised the Able Desktop installer to gain access to victim’s environments.18

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M1051 Update Software A patch management process should be implemented to check unused applications, unmaintained and/or previously vulnerable software, unnecessary features, components, files, and documentation.
M1016 Vulnerability Scanning Continuous monitoring of vulnerability sources and the use of automatic and manual code review tools should also be implemented as well.3

References

  1. Avast Threat Intelligence Team. (2018, March 8). New investigations into the CCleaner incident point to a possible third stage that had keylogger capacities. Retrieved March 15, 2018. ↩↩

  2. Command Five Pty Ltd. (2011, September). SK Hack by an Advanced Persistent Threat. Retrieved November 17, 2024. ↩

  3. OWASP. (2018, February 23). OWASP Top Ten Project. Retrieved April 3, 2018. ↩

  4. Trustwave SpiderLabs. (2020, June 25). The Golden Tax Department and Emergence of GoldenSpy Malware. Retrieved July 23, 2020. ↩

  5. CrowdStrike Intelligence Team. (2021, January 11). SUNSPOT: An Implant in the Build Process. Retrieved January 11, 2021. ↩

  6. Brumaghin, E. et al. (2017, September 18). CCleanup: A Vast Number of Machines at Risk. Retrieved March 9, 2018. ↩

  7. Rosenberg, J. (2017, September 20). Evidence Aurora Operation Still Active: Supply Chain Attack Through CCleaner. Retrieved February 13, 2018. ↩

  8. Fraser, N., et al. (2019, August 7). Double DragonAPT41, a dual espionage and cyber crime operation APT41. Retrieved September 23, 2019. ↩

  9. Crowdstrike. (2020, March 2). 2020 Global Threat Report. Retrieved December 11, 2020. ↩

  10. Counter Threat Unit Research Team. (2019, September 24). REvil/Sodinokibi Ransomware. Retrieved August 4, 2020. ↩

  11. Secureworks . (2019, September 24). REvil: The GandCrab Connection. Retrieved August 4, 2020. ↩

  12. Secureworks. (n.d.). GOLD SOUTHFIELD. Retrieved October 6, 2020. ↩

  13. Cherepanov, A.. (2017, June 30). TeleBots are back: Supply chain attacks against Ukraine. Retrieved June 11, 2020. ↩

  14. Counter Threat Research Team. (2017, June 28). NotPetya Campaign: What We Know About the Latest Global Ransomware Attack. Retrieved June 11, 2020. ↩

  15. Scott W. Brady. (2020, October 15). United States vs. Yuriy Sergeyevich Andrienko et al.. Retrieved November 25, 2020. ↩

  16. Secureworks. (2019, July 24). Resurgent Iron Liberty Targeting Energy Sector. Retrieved August 12, 2020. ↩

  17. Slowik, J. (2021, October). THE BAFFLING BERSERK BEAR: A DECADE’S ACTIVITY TARGETING CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE. Retrieved December 6, 2021. ↩

  18. Lunghi, D. and Lu, K. (2021, April 9). Iron Tiger APT Updates Toolkit With Evolved SysUpdate Malware. Retrieved November 12, 2021. ↩

  19. Ahn Ho, Facundo Muñoz, & Marc-Etienne M.Léveillé. (2024, March 7). Evasive Panda leverages Monlam Festival to target Tibetans. Retrieved July 25, 2024. ↩

  20. Facundo Muñoz. (2023, April 26). Evasive Panda APT group delivers malware via updates for popular Chinese software. Retrieved July 25, 2024. ↩

  21. Microsoft Threat Intelligence. (2024, May 28). Moonstone Sleet emerges as new North Korean threat actor with new bag of tricks. Retrieved August 26, 2024. ↩

  22. Abdo, B., et al. (2022, April 4). FIN7 Power Hour: Adversary Archaeology and the Evolution of FIN7. Retrieved April 5, 2022. ↩

  23. Jeff Johnson, Fred Plan, Adrian Sanchez, Renato Fontana, Jake Nicastro, Dimiter Andonov, Marius Fodoreanu, Daniel Scott. (2023, April 20). 3CX Software Supply Chain Compromise Initiated by a Prior Software Supply Chain Compromise; Suspected North Korean Actor Responsible. Retrieved August 25, 2025. ↩

  24. FireEye. (2020, December 13). Highly Evasive Attacker Leverages SolarWinds Supply Chain to Compromise Multiple Global Victims With SUNBURST Backdoor. Retrieved January 4, 2021. ↩

  25. MSTIC, CDOC, 365 Defender Research Team. (2021, January 20). Deep dive into the Solorigate second-stage activation: From SUNBURST to TEARDROP and Raindrop . Retrieved January 22, 2021. ↩

  26. NCSC, CISA, FBI, NSA. (2021, May 7). Further TTPs associated with SVR cyber actors. Retrieved July 29, 2021. ↩

  27. Sudhakar Ramakrishna . (2021, January 11). New Findings From Our Investigation of SUNBURST. Retrieved January 13, 2021. ↩