Gather Victim Network Information: Network Trust Dependencies

Adversaries may gather information about the victim's network trust dependencies that can be used during targeting. Information about network trusts may include a variety of details, including second or third-party organizations/domains (ex: managed service providers, contractors, etc.) that have connected (and potentially elevated) network access.

Adversaries may gather this information in various ways, such as direct elicitation via Phishing for Information. Information about network trusts may also be exposed to adversaries via online or other accessible data sets (ex: Search Open Technical Databases).[1] Gathering this information may reveal opportunities for other forms of reconnaissance (ex: Active Scanning or Search Open Websites/Domains), establishing operational resources (ex: Acquire Infrastructure or Compromise Infrastructure), and/or initial access (ex: Trusted Relationship).

ID: T1590.003
Sub-technique of:  T1590
Tactic: Reconnaissance
Platforms: PRE
Version: 1.0
Created: 02 October 2020
Last Modified: 15 April 2021

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. Efforts should focus on minimizing the amount and sensitivity of data available to external parties.

Detection

Much of this activity may have a very high occurrence and associated false positive rate, as well as potentially taking place outside the visibility of the target organization, making detection difficult for defenders.

Detection efforts may be focused on related stages of the adversary lifecycle, such as during Initial Access.

References