| 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 | Name | Analytic ID | Analytic Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| DET0590 | Behavioral Detection of External Website Defacement across Platforms | AN1622 |
Adversary modifies externally-facing web content by accessing and overwriting hosted HTML/JS/CSS files, typically following web shell deployment, credential abuse, or exploitation of web application vulnerabilities. |
| AN1623 |
Adversary compromises a Linux-based web server and modifies hosted web files by exploiting upload vulnerabilities, remote code execution, or replacing index.html via SSH/webshell. |
||
| AN1624 |
Adversary modifies web-facing content on macOS via web development environments like MAMP or misconfigured Apache instances, typically with access to the hosting user account or via persistence tools. |
||
| AN1625 |
Adversary modifies content in cloud-hosted websites (e.g., AWS S3-backed, Azure Blob-hosted sites) by gaining access to management consoles or APIs and uploading altered HTML/JS files. |