T1608.004 Drive-by Target
Adversaries may prepare an operational environment to infect systems that visit a website over the normal course of browsing. Endpoint systems may be compromised through browsing to adversary controlled sites, as in Drive-by Compromise. In such cases, the user’s web browser is typically targeted for exploitation (often not requiring any extra user interaction once landing on the site), but adversaries may also set up websites for non-exploitation behavior such as Application Access Token. Prior to Drive-by Compromise, adversaries must stage resources needed to deliver that exploit to users who browse to an adversary controlled site. Drive-by content can be staged on adversary controlled infrastructure that has been acquired (Acquire Infrastructure) or previously compromised (Compromise Infrastructure).
Adversaries may upload or inject malicious web content, such as JavaScript, into websites.32 This may be done in a number of ways, including:
- Inserting malicious scripts into web pages or other user controllable web content such as forum posts
- Modifying script files served to websites from publicly writeable cloud storage buckets
- Crafting malicious web advertisements and purchasing ad space on a website through legitimate ad providers (i.e., Malvertising)
In addition to staging content to exploit a user’s web browser, adversaries may also stage scripting content to profile the user’s browser (as in Gather Victim Host Information) to ensure it is vulnerable prior to attempting exploitation.1
Websites compromised by an adversary and used to stage a drive-by may be ones visited by a specific community, such as government, a particular industry, or region, where the goal is to compromise a specific user or set of users based on a shared interest. This kind of targeted campaign is referred to a strategic web compromise or watering hole attack.
Adversaries may purchase domains similar to legitimate domains (ex: homoglyphs, typosquatting, different top-level domain, etc.) during acquisition of infrastructure (Domains) to help facilitate Drive-by Compromise.
Item | Value |
---|---|
ID | T1608.004 |
Sub-techniques | T1608.001, T1608.002, T1608.003, T1608.004, T1608.005, T1608.006 |
Tactics | TA0042 |
Platforms | PRE |
Version | 1.3 |
Created | 17 March 2021 |
Last Modified | 15 April 2023 |
Procedure Examples
ID | Name | Description |
---|---|---|
G0050 | APT32 | APT32 has stood up websites containing numerous articles and content scraped from the Internet to make them appear legitimate, but some of these pages include malicious JavaScript to profile the potential victim or infect them via a fake software update.6 |
C0010 | C0010 | For C0010, the threat actors compromised the login page of a legitimate Israeli shipping company and likely established a watering hole that collected visitor information.10 |
G0035 | Dragonfly | Dragonfly has compromised websites to redirect traffic and to host exploit kits.4 |
G1014 | LuminousMoth | LuminousMoth has redirected compromised machines to an actor-controlled webpage through HTML injection.5 |
G0027 | Threat Group-3390 | Threat Group-3390 has embedded malicious code into websites to screen a potential victim’s IP address and then exploit their browser if they are of interest.2 |
G0134 | Transparent Tribe | Transparent Tribe has set up websites with malicious hyperlinks and iframes to infect targeted victims with Crimson, njRAT, and other malicious tools.789 |
Mitigations
ID | Mitigation | Description |
---|---|---|
M1056 | Pre-compromise | This technique cannot be easily mitigated with preventive controls since it is based on behaviors performed outside of the scope of enterprise defenses and controls. |
Detection
ID | Data Source | Data Component |
---|---|---|
DS0035 | Internet Scan | Response Content |
References
-
Blasco, J. (2014, August 28). Scanbox: A Reconnaissance Framework Used with Watering Hole Attacks. Retrieved October 19, 2020. ↩
-
Gallagher, S.. (2015, August 5). Newly discovered Chinese hacking group hacked 100+ websites to use as “watering holes”. Retrieved January 25, 2016. ↩↩
-
Kindlund, D. (2012, December 30). CFR Watering Hole Attack Details. Retrieved December 18, 2020. ↩
-
Slowik, J. (2021, October). THE BAFFLING BERSERK BEAR: A DECADE’S ACTIVITY TARGETING CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE. Retrieved December 6, 2021. ↩
-
Botezatu, B and etl. (2021, July 21). LuminousMoth - PlugX, File Exfiltration and Persistence Revisited. Retrieved October 20, 2022. ↩
-
Adair, S. and Lancaster, T. (2020, November 6). OceanLotus: Extending Cyber Espionage Operations Through Fake Websites. Retrieved November 20, 2020. ↩
-
Huss, D. (2016, March 1). Operation Transparent Tribe. Retrieved June 8, 2016. ↩
-
Falcone, R. and Conant S. (2016, March 25). ProjectM: Link Found Between Pakistani Actor and Operation Transparent Tribe. Retrieved September 2, 2021. ↩
-
Malhotra, A. et al. (2021, May 13). Transparent Tribe APT expands its Windows malware arsenal. Retrieved September 2, 2021. ↩
-
Mandiant Israel Research Team. (2022, August 17). Suspected Iranian Actor Targeting Israeli Shipping, Healthcare, Government and Energy Sectors. Retrieved September 21, 2022. ↩