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T1210 Exploitation of Remote Services

Adversaries may exploit remote services to gain unauthorized access to internal systems once inside of a network. Exploitation of a software vulnerability occurs when an adversary takes advantage of a programming error in a program, service, or within the operating system software or kernel itself to execute adversary-controlled code. A common goal for post-compromise exploitation of remote services is for lateral movement to enable access to a remote system.

An adversary may need to determine if the remote system is in a vulnerable state, which may be done through Network Service Discovery or other Discovery methods looking for common, vulnerable software that may be deployed in the network, the lack of certain patches that may indicate vulnerabilities, or security software that may be used to detect or contain remote exploitation. Servers are likely a high value target for lateral movement exploitation, but endpoint systems may also be at risk if they provide an advantage or access to additional resources.

There are several well-known vulnerabilities that exist in common services such as SMB 1 and RDP 2 as well as applications that may be used within internal networks such as MySQL 3 and web server services.4

Depending on the permissions level of the vulnerable remote service an adversary may achieve Exploitation for Privilege Escalation as a result of lateral movement exploitation as well.

Item Value
ID T1210
Sub-techniques
Tactics TA0008
Platforms Linux, Windows, macOS
Permissions required User
Version 1.1
Created 18 April 2018
Last Modified 24 February 2022

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
G0007 APT28 APT28 exploited a Windows SMB Remote Code Execution Vulnerability to conduct lateral movement.384039
S0606 Bad Rabbit Bad Rabbit used the EternalRomance SMB exploit to spread through victim networks.12
S0608 Conficker Conficker exploited the MS08-067 Windows vulnerability for remote code execution through a crafted RPC request.19
G0035 Dragonfly Dragonfly has exploited a Windows Netlogon vulnerability (CVE-2020-1472) to obtain access to Windows Active Directory servers.35
G1006 Earth Lusca Earth Lusca has used Mimikatz to exploit a domain controller via the ZeroLogon exploit (CVE-2020-1472).29
S0367 Emotet Emotet has been seen exploiting SMB via a vulnerability exploit like EternalBlue (MS17-010) to achieve lateral movement and propagation. 14151617
S0363 Empire Empire has a limited number of built-in modules for exploiting remote SMB, JBoss, and Jenkins servers.9
G0046 FIN7 FIN7 has exploited ZeroLogon (CVE-2020-1472) against vulnerable domain controllers.41
S0143 Flame Flame can use MS10-061 to exploit a print spooler vulnerability in a remote system with a shared printer in order to move laterally.1011
G0117 Fox Kitten Fox Kitten has exploited known vulnerabilities in remote services including RDP.424344
S0260 InvisiMole InvisiMole can spread within a network via the BlueKeep (CVE-2019-0708) and EternalBlue (CVE-2017-0144) vulnerabilities in RDP and SMB respectively.13
S0532 Lucifer Lucifer can exploit multiple vulnerabilities including EternalBlue (CVE-2017-0144) and EternalRomance (CVE-2017-0144).25
G0045 menuPass menuPass has used tools to exploit the ZeroLogon vulnerability (CVE-2020-1472).31
G0069 MuddyWater MuddyWater has exploited the Microsoft Netlogon vulnerability (CVE-2020-1472).36
S0368 NotPetya NotPetya can use two exploits in SMBv1, EternalBlue and EternalRomance, to spread itself to other remote systems on the network.262728
S0378 PoshC2 PoshC2 contains a module for exploiting SMB via EternalBlue.8
S0650 QakBot QakBot can move laterally using worm-like functionality through exploitation of SMB.20
S0603 Stuxnet Stuxnet propagates using the MS10-061 Print Spooler and MS08-067 Windows Server Service vulnerabilities.18
G0027 Threat Group-3390 Threat Group-3390 has exploited MS17-010 to move laterally to other systems on the network.30
G0131 Tonto Team Tonto Team has used EternalBlue exploits for lateral movement.37
S0266 TrickBot TrickBot utilizes EternalBlue and EternalRomance exploits for lateral movement in the modules wormwinDll, wormDll, mwormDll, nwormDll, tabDll.21
S0366 WannaCry WannaCry uses an exploit in SMBv1 to spread itself to other remote systems on a network.222324
G0102 Wizard Spider Wizard Spider has exploited or attempted to exploit Zerologon (CVE-2020-1472) and EternalBlue (MS17-010) vulnerabilities.323334

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M1048 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. 7
M1042 Disable or Remove Feature or Program Minimize available services to only those that are necessary.
M1050 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.
M1030 Network Segmentation Segment networks and systems appropriately to reduce access to critical systems and services to controlled methods.
M1026 Privileged Account Management Minimize permissions and access for service accounts to limit impact of exploitation.
M1019 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.
M1051 Update Software Update software regularly by employing patch management for internal enterprise endpoints and servers.
M1016 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

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  2. National Vulnerability Database. (2017, June 22). CVE-2017-0176 Detail. Retrieved April 3, 2018. ↩

  3. National Vulnerability Database. (2017, February 2). CVE-2016-6662 Detail. Retrieved April 3, 2018. ↩

  4. National Vulnerability Database. (2017, September 24). CVE-2014-7169 Detail. Retrieved April 3, 2018. ↩

  5. Nunez, N. (2017, August 9). Moving Beyond EMET II – Windows Defender Exploit Guard. Retrieved March 12, 2018. ↩

  6. Wikipedia. (2018, January 11). Control-flow integrity. Retrieved March 12, 2018. ↩

  7. Goodin, D. (2017, March 17). Virtual machine escape fetches $105,000 at Pwn2Own hacking contest - updated. Retrieved March 12, 2018. ↩

  8. Nettitude. (2018, July 23). Python Server for PoshC2. Retrieved April 23, 2019. ↩

  9. Schroeder, W., Warner, J., Nelson, M. (n.d.). Github PowerShellEmpire. Retrieved April 28, 2016. ↩

  10. Gostev, A. (2012, May 28). The Flame: Questions and Answers. Retrieved March 1, 2017. ↩

  11. Gostev, A. (2012, May 30). Flame: Bunny, Frog, Munch and BeetleJuice…. Retrieved March 1, 2017. ↩

  12. Mamedov, O. Sinitsyn, F. Ivanov, A.. (2017, October 24). Bad Rabbit ransomware. Retrieved January 28, 2021. ↩

  13. Hromcova, Z. and Cherpanov, A. (2020, June). INVISIMOLE: THE HIDDEN PART OF THE STORY. Retrieved July 16, 2020. ↩

  14. Symantec. (2018, July 18). The Evolution of Emotet: From Banking Trojan to Threat Distributor. Retrieved March 25, 2019. ↩

  15. US-CERT. (2018, July 20). Alert (TA18-201A) Emotet Malware. Retrieved March 25, 2019. ↩

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  17. Donohue, B.. (2019, February 13). https://redcanary.com/blog/stopping-emotet-before-it-moves-laterally/. Retrieved March 25, 2019. ↩

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

  19. Burton, K. (n.d.). The Conficker Worm. Retrieved February 18, 2021. ↩

  20. CS. (2020, October 7). Duck Hunting with Falcon Complete: A Fowl Banking Trojan Evolves, Part 2. Retrieved September 27, 2021. ↩

  21. Boutin, J. (2020, October 12). ESET takes part in global operation to disrupt Trickbot. Retrieved March 15, 2021. ↩

  22. Noerenberg, E., Costis, A., and Quist, N. (2017, May 16). A Technical Analysis of WannaCry Ransomware. Retrieved March 25, 2019. ↩

  23. Berry, A., Homan, J., and Eitzman, R. (2017, May 23). WannaCry Malware Profile. Retrieved March 15, 2019. ↩

  24. US-CERT. (2017, May 12). Alert (TA17-132A): Indicators Associated With WannaCry Ransomware. Retrieved March 25, 2019. ↩

  25. Hsu, K. et al. (2020, June 24). Lucifer: New Cryptojacking and DDoS Hybrid Malware Exploiting High and Critical Vulnerabilities to Infect Windows Devices. Retrieved November 16, 2020. ↩

  26. Chiu, A. (2016, June 27). New Ransomware Variant “Nyetya” Compromises Systems Worldwide. Retrieved March 26, 2019. ↩

  27. US-CERT. (2017, July 1). Alert (TA17-181A): Petya Ransomware. Retrieved March 15, 2019. ↩

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

  29. Chen, J., et al. (2022). Delving Deep: An Analysis of Earth Lusca’s Operations. Retrieved July 1, 2022. ↩

  30. Falcone, R. and Lancaster, T. (2019, May 28). Emissary Panda Attacks Middle East Government Sharepoint Servers. Retrieved July 9, 2019. ↩

  31. Symantec. (2020, November 17). Japan-Linked Organizations Targeted in Long-Running and Sophisticated Attack Campaign. Retrieved December 17, 2020. ↩

  32. Kimberly Goody, Jeremy Kennelly, Joshua Shilko, Steve Elovitz, Douglas Bienstock. (2020, October 28). Unhappy Hour Special: KEGTAP and SINGLEMALT With a Ransomware Chaser. Retrieved October 28, 2020. ↩

  33. The DFIR Report. (2020, October 8). Ryuk’s Return. Retrieved October 9, 2020. ↩

  34. The DFIR Report. (2020, October 18). Ryuk in 5 Hours. Retrieved October 19, 2020. ↩

  35. CISA. (2020, December 1). Russian State-Sponsored Advanced Persistent Threat Actor Compromises U.S. Government Targets. Retrieved December 9, 2021. ↩

  36. FBI, CISA, CNMF, NCSC-UK. (2022, February 24). Iranian Government-Sponsored Actors Conduct Cyber Operations Against Global Government and Commercial Networks. Retrieved September 27, 2022. ↩

  37. Daniel Lughi, Jaromir Horejsi. (2020, October 2). Tonto Team - Exploring the TTPs of an advanced threat actor operating a large infrastructure. Retrieved October 17, 2021. ↩

  38. FireEye. (2015). APT28: A WINDOW INTO RUSSIA’S CYBER ESPIONAGE OPERATIONS?. Retrieved August 19, 2015. ↩

  39. Microsoft. (2017, March 14). Microsoft Security Bulletin MS17-010 - Critical. Retrieved August 17, 2017. ↩

  40. Smith, L. and Read, B.. (2017, August 11). APT28 Targets Hospitality Sector, Presents Threat to Travelers. Retrieved August 17, 2017. ↩

  41. Loui, E. and Reynolds, J. (2021, August 30). CARBON SPIDER Embraces Big Game Hunting, Part 1. Retrieved September 20, 2021. ↩

  42. ClearSky. (2020, February 16). Fox Kitten – Widespread Iranian Espionage-Offensive Campaign. Retrieved December 21, 2020. ↩

  43. Orleans, A. (2020, August 31). Who Is PIONEER KITTEN?. Retrieved December 21, 2020. ↩

  44. ClearSky. (2020, December 17). Pay2Key Ransomware – A New Campaign by Fox Kitten. Retrieved December 21, 2020. ↩