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T1608.005 Link Target

Adversaries may put in place resources that are referenced by a link that can be used during targeting. An adversary may rely upon a user clicking a malicious link in order to divulge information (including credentials) or to gain execution, as in Malicious Link. Links can be used for spearphishing, such as sending an email accompanied by social engineering text to coax the user to actively click or copy and paste a URL into a browser. Prior to a phish for information (as in Spearphishing Link) or a phish to gain initial access to a system (as in Spearphishing Link), an adversary must set up the resources for a link target for the spearphishing link.

Typically, the resources for a link target will be an HTML page that may include some client-side script such as JavaScript to decide what content to serve to the user. Adversaries may clone legitimate sites to serve as the link target, this can include cloning of login pages of legitimate web services or organization login pages in an effort to harvest credentials during Spearphishing Link.46 Adversaries may also Upload Malware and have the link target point to malware for download/execution by the user.

Adversaries may purchase domains similar to legitimate domains (ex: homoglyphs, typosquatting, different top-level domain, etc.) during acquisition of infrastructure (Domains) to help facilitate Malicious Link. Link shortening services can also be employed. Adversaries may also use free or paid accounts on Platform-as-a-Service providers to host link targets while taking advantage of the widely trusted domains of those providers to avoid being blocked.125 Finally, adversaries may take advantage of the decentralized nature of the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) to host link targets that are difficult to remove.3

Item Value
ID T1608.005
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 11 April 2023

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
G1014 LuminousMoth LuminousMoth has created a link to a Dropbox file that has been used in their spear-phishing operations.8
G0122 Silent Librarian Silent Librarian has cloned victim organization login pages and staged them for later use in credential harvesting campaigns. Silent Librarian has also made use of a variety of URL shorteners for these staged websites.746

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

  1. Ashwin Vamshi. (2019, January 24). Targeted Attacks Abusing Google Cloud Platform Open Redirection. Retrieved August 18, 2022. ↩

  2. Ashwin Vamshi. (2020, August 12). A Big Catch: Cloud Phishing from Google App Engine and Azure App Service. Retrieved August 18, 2022. ↩

  3. Edmund Brumaghin. (2022, November 9). Threat Spotlight: Cyber Criminal Adoption of IPFS for Phishing, Malware Campaigns. Retrieved March 8, 2023. ↩

  4. Malwarebytes Threat Intelligence Team. (2020, October 14). Silent Librarian APT right on schedule for 20/21 academic year. Retrieved February 3, 2021. ↩↩

  5. Paul Litvak. (2020, October 8). Kud I Enter Your Server? New Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Azure. Retrieved August 18, 2022. ↩

  6. Proofpoint Threat Insight Team. (2019, September 5). Threat Actor Profile: TA407, the Silent Librarian. Retrieved February 3, 2021. ↩↩

  7. Counter Threat Unit Research Team. (2019, September 11). COBALT DICKENS Goes Back to School…Again. Retrieved February 3, 2021. ↩

  8. Lechtik, M, and etl. (2021, July 14). LuminousMoth APT: Sweeping attacks for the chosen few. Retrieved October 20, 2022. ↩