Adversaries may spoof security alerting from tools, presenting false evidence to impair defenders’ awareness of malicious activity.[1] Messages produced by defensive tools contain information about potential security events as well as the functioning status of security software and the system. Security reporting messages are important for monitoring the normal operation of a system and identifying important events that can signal a security incident.
Rather than or in addition to Indicator Blocking, an adversary can spoof positive affirmations that security tools are continuing to function even after legitimate security tools have been disabled (e.g., Disable or Modify Tools). An adversary can also present a "healthy" system status even after infection. This can be abused to enable further malicious activity by delaying defender responses.
For example, adversaries may show a fake Windows Security GUI and tray icon with a "healthy" system status after Windows Defender and other system tools have been disabled.[1]
| ID | Mitigation | Description |
|---|---|---|
| M1038 | Execution Prevention |
Use application controls to mitigate installation and use of payloads that may be utilized to spoof security alerting. |
| ID | Name | Analytic ID | Analytic Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| DET0311 | Detection for Spoofing Security Alerting across OS Platforms | AN0868 |
Detection of inconsistencies between reported sensor health and actual process/service state. For example, Windows Defender tray icon/UI showing healthy status while corresponding Defender services (WinDefend, MsMpEng) are stopped or disabled. Correlates process creation events with missing or terminated security processes and spoofed health events. |
| AN0869 |
Monitoring for discrepancies between system daemon/service state and reported health messages (e.g., syslog shows AV/IDS daemon stopped, but spoofed messages claim it is still running). Detects userland processes impersonating AV/IDS command-line outputs or modifying log forwarding configurations. |
||
| AN0870 |
Detection of fake or spoofed macOS Security & Privacy GUIs showing healthy status after XProtect, Gatekeeper, or AV processes are disabled. Correlates user-space UI process creation with terminated or missing security daemons. |