| ID | Name |
|---|---|
| T1491.001 | Internal Defacement |
| T1491.002 | External Defacement |
An adversary may deface systems external to an organization in an attempt to deliver messaging, intimidate, or otherwise mislead an organization or users. External Defacement may ultimately cause users to distrust the systems and to question/discredit the system’s integrity. Externally-facing websites are a common victim of defacement; often targeted by adversary and hacktivist groups in order to push a political message or spread propaganda.[1][2][3] External Defacement may be used as a catalyst to trigger events, or as a response to actions taken by an organization or government. Similarly, website defacement may also be used as setup, or a precursor, for future attacks such as Drive-by Compromise.[4]
| ID | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| G1003 | Ember Bear |
Ember Bear is linked to the defacement of several Ukrainian organization websites.[5] |
| G0034 | Sandworm Team |
Sandworm Team defaced approximately 15,000 websites belonging to Georgian government, non-government, and private sector organizations in 2019.[6][7] |
| ID | Mitigation | Description |
|---|---|---|
| M1053 | Data Backup |
Consider implementing IT disaster recovery plans that contain procedures for taking regular data backups that can be used to restore organizational data.[8] Ensure backups are stored off system and is protected from common methods adversaries may use to gain access and destroy the backups to prevent recovery. |
| ID | Data Source | Data Component | Detects |
|---|---|---|---|
| DS0015 | Application Log | Application Log Content |
Monitor for third-party application logging, messaging, and/or other artifacts that may deface systems external to an organization in an attempt to deliver messaging, intimidate, or otherwise mislead an organization or users. |
| DS0022 | File | File Creation |
Monitor for newly constructed files that may deface systems external to an organization in an attempt to deliver messaging, intimidate, or otherwise mislead an organization or users. |
| File Modification |
Monitor external websites for unplanned content changes. |
||
| DS0029 | Network Traffic | Network Traffic Content |
Monitor and analyze traffic patterns and packet inspection associated to protocol(s) that do not follow the expected protocol standards and traffic flows (e.g extraneous packets that do not belong to established flows, gratuitous or anomalous traffic patterns, anomalous syntax, or structure). Consider correlation with process monitoring and command line to detect anomalous processes execution and command line arguments associated to traffic patterns (e.g. monitor anomalies in use of files that do not normally initiate connections for respective protocol(s)). |