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T1562.006 Indicator Blocking

An adversary may attempt to block indicators or events typically captured by sensors from being gathered and analyzed. This could include maliciously redirecting3 or even disabling host-based sensors, such as Event Tracing for Windows (ETW)4, by tampering settings that control the collection and flow of event telemetry.5 These settings may be stored on the system in configuration files and/or in the Registry as well as being accessible via administrative utilities such as PowerShell or Windows Management Instrumentation.

For example, adversaries may modify the File value in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\Security to hide their malicious actions in a new or different .evtx log file. This action does not require a system reboot and takes effect immediately.1

ETW interruption can be achieved multiple ways, however most directly by defining conditions using the PowerShell Set-EtwTraceProvider cmdlet or by interfacing directly with the Registry to make alterations.

In the case of network-based reporting of indicators, an adversary may block traffic associated with reporting to prevent central analysis. This may be accomplished by many means, such as stopping a local process responsible for forwarding telemetry and/or creating a host-based firewall rule to block traffic to specific hosts responsible for aggregating events, such as security information and event management (SIEM) products.

In Linux environments, adversaries may disable or reconfigure log processing tools such as syslog or nxlog to inhibit detection and monitoring capabilities to facilitate follow on behaviors 2.

Item Value
ID T1562.006
Sub-techniques T1562.001, T1562.002, T1562.003, T1562.004, T1562.006, T1562.007, T1562.008, T1562.009, T1562.010, T1562.011
Tactics TA0005
Platforms Linux, Windows, macOS
Version 1.2
Created 19 March 2020
Last Modified 12 April 2023

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
S1063 Brute Ratel C4 Brute Ratel C4 has the ability to hide memory artifacts and to patch Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) and the Anti Malware Scan Interface (AMSI).87
S0377 Ebury Ebury can hook logging functions so that nothing from the backdoor gets sent to the logging facility.14
S0697 HermeticWiper HermeticWiper has the ability to set the HKLM:\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Control\\CrashControl\CrashDumpEnabled Registry key to 0 in order to disable crash dumps.91011
S0579 Waterbear Waterbear can hook the ZwOpenProcess and GetExtendedTcpTable APIs called by the process of a security product to hide PIDs and TCP records from detection.13
S1065 Woody RAT Woody RAT has suppressed all error reporting by calling SetErrorMode with 0x8007 as a parameter.12

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M1022 Restrict File and Directory Permissions Ensure event tracers/forwarders 6, firewall policies, and other associated mechanisms are secured with appropriate permissions and access controls.
M1054 Software Configuration Consider automatically relaunching forwarding mechanisms at recurring intervals (ex: temporal, on-logon, etc.) as well as applying appropriate change management to firewall rules and other related system configurations.
M1018 User Account Management Ensure event tracers/forwarders 6, firewall policies, and other associated mechanisms are secured with appropriate permissions and access controls and cannot be manipulated by user accounts.

Detection

ID Data Source Data Component
DS0017 Command Command Execution
DS0013 Sensor Health Host Status
DS0024 Windows Registry Windows Registry Key Modification

References

  1. Heiligenstein, L. (n.d.). REP-25: Disable Windows Event Logging. Retrieved April 7, 2022. ↩

  2. Manoj Ahuje. (2022, April 21). LemonDuck Targets Docker for Cryptomining Operations. Retrieved June 30, 2022. ↩

  3. Microsoft. (2009, May 17). Backdoor:Win32/Lamin.A. Retrieved September 6, 2018. ↩

  4. Microsoft. (2018, May 30). About Event Tracing. Retrieved June 7, 2019. ↩

  5. Palantir. (2018, December 24). Tampering with Windows Event Tracing: Background, Offense, and Defense. Retrieved June 7, 2019. ↩

  6. Microsoft. (2018, May 30). Event Tracing. Retrieved September 6, 2018. ↩↩

  7. Chell, D. PART 3: How I Met Your Beacon – Brute Ratel. Retrieved February 6, 2023. ↩

  8. Harbison, M. and Renals, P. (2022, July 5). When Pentest Tools Go Brutal: Red-Teaming Tool Being Abused by Malicious Actors. Retrieved February 1, 2023. ↩

  9. Guerrero-Saade, J. (2022, February 23). HermeticWiper | New Destructive Malware Used In Cyber Attacks on Ukraine. Retrieved March 25, 2022. ↩

  10. Thomas, W. et al. (2022, February 25). CrowdStrike Falcon Protects from New Wiper Malware Used in Ukraine Cyberattacks. Retrieved March 25, 2022. ↩

  11. Dani, M. (2022, March 1). Ukrainian Targets Hit by HermeticWiper, New Datawiper Malware. Retrieved March 25, 2022. ↩

  12. MalwareBytes Threat Intelligence Team. (2022, August 3). Woody RAT: A new feature-rich malware spotted in the wild. Retrieved December 6, 2022. ↩

  13. Su, V. et al. (2019, December 11). Waterbear Returns, Uses API Hooking to Evade Security. Retrieved February 22, 2021. ↩

  14. M.Léveillé, M.. (2014, February 21). An In-depth Analysis of Linux/Ebury. Retrieved April 19, 2019. ↩