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T1517 Access Notifications

Adversaries may collect data within notifications sent by the operating system or other applications. Notifications may contain sensitive data such as one-time authentication codes sent over SMS, email, or other mediums. In the case of Credential Access, adversaries may attempt to intercept one-time code sent to the device. Adversaries can also dismiss notifications to prevent the user from noticing that the notification has arrived and can trigger action buttons contained within notifications.1

Item Value
ID T1517
Sub-techniques
Tactics TA0035, TA0031
Platforms Android
Version 1.2
Created 15 September 2019
Last Modified 15 March 2023

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
S1061 AbstractEmu AbstractEmu can monitor notifications.7
S0432 Bread Bread can collect device notifications.6
S0425 Corona Updates Corona Updates can collect messages from GSM, WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, and Threema by reading the application’s notification content.5
S1067 FluBot FluBot can access app notifications.3
S0485 Mandrake Mandrake can capture all device notifications and hide notifications from the user.10
S1062 S.O.V.A. S.O.V.A. can silently intercept and manipulate notifications. S.O.V.A. can also inject cookies via push notifications.4
S1055 SharkBot SharkBot can intercept notifications to send to the C2 server and take advantage of the Direct Reply feature.8
S0489 WolfRAT WolfRAT can receive system notifications.9

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M1013 Application Developer Guidance Application developers could be encouraged to avoid placing sensitive data in notification text.
M1012 Enterprise Policy On Android devices with a work profile, the DevicePolicyManager.setPermittedCrossProfileNotificationListeners method can be used to manage the list of applications running within the personal profile that can access notifications generated within the work profile. This policy would not affect notifications generated by the rest of the device. The DevicePolicyManager.setApplicationHidden method can be used to disable notification access for unwanted applications, but this method would also block that entire application from running.2
M1011 User Guidance Users should be wary of granting applications dangerous or privacy-intrusive permissions, such as access to notifications.

Detection

ID Data Source Data Component
DS0041 Application Vetting Permissions Requests
DS0042 User Interface System Settings

References

  1. Lukáš Štefanko. (2019, June 17). Malware sidesteps Google permissions policy with new 2FA bypass technique. Retrieved September 15, 2019. ↩

  2. Android. (n.d.). DevicePolicyManager. Retrieved September 15, 2019. ↩

  3. Crista Giering, F. Naves, Andrew Conway, Adam McNeil . (2021, April 27). FluBot Android Malware Spreading Rapidly Through Europe, May Hit U.S. Soon. Retrieved February 28, 2023. ↩

  4. ThreatFabric. (2021, September 9). S.O.V.A. - A new Android Banking trojan with fowl intentions. Retrieved February 6, 2023. ↩

  5. T. Bao, J. Lu. (2020, April 14). Coronavirus Update App Leads to Project Spy Android and iOS Spyware. Retrieved April 24, 2020. ↩

  6. Hazum, A., Melnykov, B., Wernik, I.. (2020, July 9). New Joker variant hits Google Play with an old trick. Retrieved July 20, 2020. ↩

  7. P Shunk, K Balaam. (2021, October 28). Rooting Malware Makes a Comeback: Lookout Discovers Global Campaign. Retrieved February 6, 2023. ↩

  8. RIFT: Research and Intelligence Fusion Team. (2022, March 3). SharkBot: a “new” generation Android banking Trojan being distributed on Google Play Store. Retrieved January 18, 2023. ↩

  9. W. Mercer, P. Rascagneres, V. Ventura. (2020, May 19). The wolf is back… . Retrieved July 20, 2020. ↩

  10. R. Gevers, M. Tivadar, R. Bleotu, A. M. Barbatei, et al.. (2020, May 14). Uprooting Mandrake: The Story of an Advanced Android Spyware Framework That Went Undetected for 4 Years. Retrieved July 15, 2020. ↩