T1205.001 Port Knocking
Adversaries may use port knocking to hide open ports used for persistence or command and control. To enable a port, an adversary sends a series of attempted connections to a predefined sequence of closed ports. After the sequence is completed, opening a port is often accomplished by the host based firewall, but could also be implemented by custom software.
This technique has been observed both for the dynamic opening of a listening port as well as the initiating of a connection to a listening server on a different system.
The observation of the signal packets to trigger the communication can be conducted through different methods. One means, originally implemented by Cd00r 1, is to use the libpcap libraries to sniff for the packets in question. Another method leverages raw sockets, which enables the malware to use ports that are already open for use by other programs.
Item | Value |
---|---|
ID | T1205.001 |
Sub-techniques | T1205.001, T1205.002 |
Tactics | TA0005, TA0003, TA0011 |
Platforms | Linux, Network, Windows, macOS |
Permissions required | User |
Version | 1.1 |
Created | 01 July 2020 |
Last Modified | 11 March 2022 |
Procedure Examples
ID | Name | Description |
---|---|---|
S1060 | Mafalda | Mafalda can use port-knocking to authenticate itself to another implant called Cryshell to establish an indirect connection to the C2 server.23 |
S1059 | metaMain | metaMain has authenticated itself to a different implant, Cryshell, through a port knocking and handshake procedure.2 |
G0056 | PROMETHIUM | PROMETHIUM has used a script that configures the knockd service and firewall to only accept C2 connections from systems that use a specified sequence of knock ports.4 |
Mitigations
ID | Mitigation | Description |
---|---|---|
M1037 | Filter Network Traffic | Mitigation of some variants of this technique could be achieved through the use of stateful firewalls, depending upon how it is implemented. |
Detection
ID | Data Source | Data Component |
---|---|---|
DS0029 | Network Traffic | Network Connection Creation |
References
-
Hartrell, Greg. (2002, August). Get a handle on cd00r: The invisible backdoor. Retrieved October 13, 2018. ↩
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Ehrlich, A., et al. (2022, September). THE MYSTERY OF METADOR | AN UNATTRIBUTED THREAT HIDING IN TELCOS, ISPS, AND UNIVERSITIES. Retrieved January 23, 2023. ↩↩
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SentinelLabs. (2022, September 22). Metador Technical Appendix. Retrieved April 4, 2023. ↩
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Tudorica, R. et al. (2020, June 30). StrongPity APT - Revealing Trojanized Tools, Working Hours and Infrastructure. Retrieved July 20, 2020. ↩