| ID | Name |
|---|---|
| T1598.001 | Spearphishing Service |
| T1598.002 | Spearphishing Attachment |
| T1598.003 | Spearphishing Link |
| T1598.004 | Spearphishing Voice |
Adversaries may send spearphishing messages with a malicious link to elicit sensitive information that can be used during targeting. Spearphishing for information is an attempt to trick targets into divulging information, frequently credentials or other actionable information. Spearphishing for information frequently involves social engineering techniques, such as posing as a source with a reason to collect information (ex: Establish Accounts or Compromise Accounts) and/or sending multiple, seemingly urgent messages.
All forms of spearphishing are electronically delivered social engineering targeted at a specific individual, company, or industry. In this scenario, the malicious emails contain links generally accompanied by social engineering text to coax the user to actively click or copy and paste a URL into a browser.[1][2] The given website may be a clone of a legitimate site (such as an online or corporate login portal) or may closely resemble a legitimate site in appearance and have a URL containing elements from the real site. URLs may also be obfuscated by taking advantage of quirks in the URL schema, such as the acceptance of integer- or hexadecimal-based hostname formats and the automatic discarding of text before an "@" symbol: for example, hxxp://google.com@1157586937.[3]
Adversaries may also embed "tracking pixels", "web bugs", or "web beacons" within phishing messages to verify the receipt of an email, while also potentially profiling and tracking victim information such as IP address.[4] [5] These mechanisms often appear as small images (typically one pixel in size) or otherwise obfuscated objects and are typically delivered as HTML code containing a link to a remote server. [5][6]
Adversaries may also be able to spoof a complete website using what is known as a "browser-in-the-browser" (BitB) attack. By generating a fake browser popup window with an HTML-based address bar that appears to contain a legitimate URL (such as an authentication portal), they may be able to prompt users to enter their credentials while bypassing typical URL verification methods.[7][8]
Adversaries can use phishing kits such as EvilProxy and Evilginx2 to perform adversary-in-the-middle phishing by proxying the connection between the victim and the legitimate website. On a successful login, the victim is redirected to the legitimate website, while the adversary captures their session cookie (i.e., Steal Web Session Cookie) in addition to their username and password. This may enable the adversary to then bypass MFA via Web Session Cookie.[9]
Adversaries may also send a malicious link in the form of Quick Response (QR) Codes (also known as "quishing"). These links may direct a victim to a credential phishing page.[10] By using a QR code, the URL may not be exposed in the email and may thus go undetected by most automated email security scans.[11] These QR codes may be scanned by or delivered directly to a user’s mobile device (i.e., Phishing), which may be less secure in several relevant ways.[11] For example, mobile users may not be able to notice minor differences between genuine and credential harvesting websites due to mobile’s smaller form factor.
From the fake website, information is gathered in web forms and sent to the adversary. Adversaries may also use information from previous reconnaissance efforts (ex: Search Open Websites/Domains or Search Victim-Owned Websites) to craft persuasive and believable lures.
| ID | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| S0677 | AADInternals |
AADInternals can send phishing emails containing malicious links designed to collect users’ credentials.[12] |
| G0007 | APT28 |
APT28 has conducted credential phishing campaigns with links that redirect to credential harvesting sites.[13][14][15][16][17] |
| G0050 | APT32 |
APT32 has used malicious links to direct users to web pages designed to harvest credentials.[18] |
| G1012 | CURIUM |
CURIUM used malicious links to adversary-controlled resources for credential harvesting.[19] |
| G0035 | Dragonfly |
Dragonfly has used spearphishing with PDF attachments containing malicious links that redirected to credential harvesting websites.[20] |
| G0094 | Kimsuky |
Kimsuky has used links in e-mail to steal account information including web beacons for target profiling.[21][22][23][24] |
| G0059 | Magic Hound |
Magic Hound has used SMS and email messages with links designed to steal credentials or track victims.[25][26][27][28][29][30] |
| G1036 | Moonstone Sleet |
Moonstone Sleet used spearphishing messages containing items such as tracking pixels to determine if users interacted with malicious messages.[31] |
| G0129 | Mustang Panda |
Mustang Panda has delivered web bugs to profile their intended targets.[32] |
| G0040 | Patchwork |
Patchwork has used embedded image tags (known as web bugs) with unique, per-recipient tracking links in their emails for the purpose of identifying which recipients opened messages.[33] |
| G0034 | Sandworm Team |
Sandworm Team has crafted spearphishing emails with hyperlinks designed to trick unwitting recipients into revealing their account credentials.[34] |
| G0121 | Sidewinder |
Sidewinder has sent e-mails with malicious links to credential harvesting websites.[35] |
| G0122 | Silent Librarian |
Silent Librarian has used links in e-mails to direct victims to credential harvesting websites designed to appear like the targeted organization's login page.[36][37][38][39][40][41] |
| S0649 | SMOKEDHAM |
SMOKEDHAM has been delivered via malicious links in phishing emails.[42] |
| G1033 | Star Blizzard |
Star Blizzard has sent emails to establish rapport with targets eventually sending messages with links to credential-stealing sites.[43][44][45][46] |
| G0128 | ZIRCONIUM |
ZIRCONIUM has used web beacons in e-mails to track hits to attacker-controlled URL's.[47] |
| ID | Mitigation | Description |
|---|---|---|
| M1054 | Software Configuration |
Use anti-spoofing and email authentication mechanisms to filter messages based on validity checks of the sender domain (using SPF) and integrity of messages (using DKIM). Enabling these mechanisms within an organization (through policies such as DMARC) may enable recipients (intra-org and cross domain) to perform similar message filtering and validation.[48][49] Furthermore, policies may enforce / install browser extensions that protect against IDN and homograph attacks. Browser password managers may also be configured to only populate credential fields when the URL matches that of the original, legitimate site. |
| M1017 | User Training |
Users can be trained to identify social engineering techniques and spearphishing attempts. Additionally, users may perform visual checks of the domains they visit; however, homographs in ASCII and in IDN domains and URL schema obfuscation may render manual checks difficult. Phishing training and other cybersecurity training may raise awareness to check URLs before visiting the sites. |
| ID | Data Source | Data Component | Detects |
|---|---|---|---|
| DS0015 | Application Log | Application Log Content |
Monitor for suspicious email activity, such as numerous accounts receiving messages from a single unusual/unknown sender. Filtering based on DKIM+SPF or header analysis can help detect when the email sender is spoofed.[48][49] Monitor for references to uncategorized or known-bad sites. URL inspection within email (including expanding shortened links and identifying obfuscated URLs) can also help detect links leading to known malicious sites.[3] Furthermore, monitor browser logs for homographs in ASCII and in internationalized domain names abusing different character sets (e.g. Cyrillic vs Latin versions of trusted sites). |
| DS0029 | Network Traffic | Network Traffic Content |
Monitor and analyze traffic patterns and packet inspection associated to protocol(s), leveraging SSL/TLS inspection for encrypted traffic, 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)). Furthermore, monitor network traffic for homographs via the use of internationalized domain names abusing different character sets (e.g. Cyrillic vs Latin versions of trusted sites). Also monitor and analyze traffic patterns and packet inspection for indicators of cloned websites. For example, if adversaries use HTTrack to clone websites, |
| Network Traffic Flow |
Monitor network data for uncommon data flows. Processes utilizing the network that do not normally have network communication or have never been seen before are suspicious. |