ATAGS Tactic: Execution
| ID | Name | Description | |
| ATAGS-T1042 | Autorun Image | Threat actors may leverage AutoRun functionality or scripts to execute malicious code. Devices configured to enable AutoRun functionality or legacy operating systems may be susceptible to abuse of these features to run malicious code stored on various forms of removeable media (i.e., USB, Disk Images [.ISO]). Commonly, AutoRun or AutoPlay are disabled in many operating systems configurations to mitigate against this technique. If a device is configured to enable AutoRun or AutoPlay, Threat actors may execute code on the device by mounting the removable media to the device, either through physical or virtual means. This may be especially relevant for virtual machine environments where disk images may be dynamically mapped to a guest system on a hypervisor. | |
| ATAGS-T1043 | Cloud Administration Command | Threat actors may abuse cloud management services to execute commands within virtual machines. Resources such as AWS Systems Manager, Azure RunCommand, and Runbooks allow users to remotely run scripts in virtual machines by leveraging installed virtual machine agents. | |
| ATAGS-T1044 | Cloud API execution | Threat actors may abuse the legitimate Cloud Control APIs provided by the GSaaS platform to execute commands (e.g., slewing antennas, scheduling passes, modifying modulation schemes). This requires valid credentials but leverages the inherent functionality of the service. The attacker calls a legitimate function exactly as the developer intended, but for a malicious purpose. | |
| ATAGS-T1045 | Code Flaws Exploit | Threats actors may identify and exploit flaws or weaknesses within the software running on-board the target ground station. These attacks may be extremely targeted and tailored to specific coding errors introduced as a result of poor coding practices or they may target known issues in the commercial software components. | |
| ATAGS-T1046 | Command and Scripting Interpreter | Threat actors may abuse command and script interpreters to execute commands, scripts, or binaries. These interfaces and languages provide ways of interacting with computer systems and are a common feature across many different platforms. Most systems come with some built-in command-line interface and scripting capabilities, for example, macOS and Linux distributions include some flavor of Unix Shell while Windows installations include the Windows Command Shell and PowerShell. | |
| .001 | AppleScript | Threat actors may abuse AppleScript for execution. AppleScript is a macOS scripting language designed to control applications and parts of the OS via inter-application messages called AppleEvents. These AppleEvent messages can be sent independently or easily scripted with AppleScript. These events can locate open windows, send keystrokes, and interact with almost any open application locally or remotely. | |
| .002 | AutoHotKey & AutoIT | Threat actors may execute commands and perform malicious tasks using AutoIT and AutoHotKey automation scripts. AutoIT and AutoHotkey (AHK) are scripting languages that enable users to automate Windows tasks. These automation scripts can be used to perform a wide variety of actions, such as clicking on buttons, entering text, and opening and closing programs. | |
| .003 | Cloud API | Threat actors may abuse cloud APIs to execute malicious commands. APIs available in cloud environments provide various functionalities and are a feature-rich method for programmatic access to nearly all aspects of a tenant. These APIs may be utilized through various methods such as command line interpreters (CLIs), in-browser Cloud Shells, PowerShell modules like Azure for PowerShell, or software developer kits (SDKs) available for languages such as Python. | |
| .004 | Container CLI/API | Threat actors may abuse built-in CLI tools or API calls to execute malicious commands in containerized environments. | |
| .005 | Hypervisor CLI | Threat actors may abuse hypervisor command line interpreters (CLIs) to execute malicious commands. Hypervisor CLIs typically enable a wide variety of functionality for managing both the hypervisor itself and the guest virtual machines it hosts. | |
| .006 | JavaScript | Threat actors may abuse various implementations of JavaScript for execution. JavaScript (JS) is a platform-independent scripting language (compiled just-in-time at runtime) commonly associated with scripts in webpages, though JS can be executed in runtime environments outside the browser. | |
| .007 | Lua | Threat actors may abuse Lua commands and scripts for execution. Lua is a cross-platform scripting and programming language primarily designed for embedded use in applications. Lua can be executed on the command-line (through the stand-alone lua interpreter), via scripts (.lua), or from Lua-embedded programs (through the struct lua_State). | |
| .008 | Network Device CLI | Threat actors may abuse scripting or built-in command line interpreters (CLI) on network devices to execute malicious command and payloads. The CLI is the primary means through which users and administrators interact with the device in order to view system information, modify device operations, or perform diagnostic and administrative functions. CLIs typically contain various permission levels required for different commands. | |
| .009 | Powershell | Threat actors may abuse PowerShell commands and scripts for execution. PowerShell is a powerful interactive command-line interface and scripting environment included in the Windows operating system. Threat actors can use PowerShell to perform a number of actions, including discovery of information and execution of code. Examples include the Start-Process cmdlet which can be used to run an executable and the Invoke-Command cmdlet which runs a command locally or on a remote computer (though administrator permissions are required to use PowerShell to connect to remote systems). | |
| .010 | Python | Threat actors may abuse Python commands and scripts for execution. Python is a very popular scripting/programming language, with capabilities to perform many functions. Python can be executed interactively from the command-line (via the python.exe interpreter) or via scripts (.py) that can be written and distributed to different systems. Python code can also be compiled into binary executables. | |
| .011 | Unix Shell | Threat actors may abuse Unix shell commands and scripts for execution. Unix shells are the primary command prompt on Linux, macOS, and ESXi systems, though many variations of the Unix shell exist (e.g. sh, ash, bash, zsh, etc.) depending on the specific OS or distribution. Unix shells can control every aspect of a system, with certain commands requiring elevated privileges. | |
| .012 | Visual Basic | Threat actors may abuse Visual Basic (VB) for execution. VB is a programming language created by Microsoft with interoperability with many Windows technologies such as Component Object Model and the Native API through the Windows API. Although tagged as legacy with no planned future evolutions, VB is integrated and supported in the .NET Framework and cross-platform .NET Core. | |
| .013 | Windows Command Shell | Threat actors may abuse the Windows command shell for execution. The Windows command shell (cmd) is the primary command prompt on Windows systems. The Windows command prompt can be used to control almost any aspect of a system, with various permission levels required for different subsets of commands. The command prompt can be invoked remotely via Remote Services such as SSH. | |
| ATAGS-T1047 | Encryption Disable/Bypass | Threat actors may perform specific techniques in order to bypass or disable the encryption mechanism onboard the victim spacecraft. By bypassing or disabling this particular mechanism, further tactics can be performed, such as Exfiltration, that may have not been possible with the internal encryption process in place. | |
| ATAGS-T1048 | Exploit Hardware/Firmware Corruption | Threat actors can target the underlying hardware and/or firmware using various TTPs that will be dependent on the specific hardware/firmware. Typically, software tools (e.g., antivirus, antimalware, intrusion detection) can protect a system from threat actors attempting to take advantage of those vulnerabilities to inject malicious code. However, there exist security gaps that cannot be closed by the above-mentioned software tools since they are not stationed on software applications, drivers or the operating system but rather on the hardware itself. Hardware components, like memory modules and caches, can be exploited under specific circumstances thus enabling backdoor access to potential threat actors. In addition to hardware, the firmware itself which often is thought to be software in its own right also provides an attack surface for threat actors. Firmware is programming that's written to a hardware device's non-volatile memory where the content is saved when a hardware device is turned off or loses its external power source. Firmware is written directly onto a piece of hardware during manufacturing and it is used to run on the device and can be thought of as the software that enables hardware to run. | |
| .001 | Design Flaws | Threat actors may target design features/flaws with the hardware design to their advantage to cause the desired impact. Threat actors may utilize the inherent design of the hardware (e.g. hardware timers, hardware interrupts, memory cells), which is intended to provide reliability, to their advantage to degrade other aspects like availability. Additionally, field programmable gate array (FPGA)/application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) logic can be exploited just like software code can be exploited. There could be logic/design flaws embedded in the hardware (i.e., FPGA/ASIC) which may be exploitable by a threat actor. | |
| .002 | Malicious Use of Hardware Commands | Threat actors may utilize various hardware commands and perform malicious activities with them. Hardware commands typically differ from traditional command channels as they bypass many of the traditional protections and pathways and are more direct therefore they can be dangerous if not protected. Hardware commands are sometime a necessity to perform various actions such as configuring sensors, adjusting positions, and rotating internal motors. Threat actors may use these commands to perform malicious activities that can damage the victim spacecraft in some capacity. | |
| ATAGS-T1049 | Flooding | Threat actors use flooding attacks to disrupt communications by injecting unexpected noise or messages into a transmission channel. There are several types of attacks that are consistent with this method of exploitation, and they can produce various outcomes. Although, the most prominent of the impacts are denial of service or data corruption. Several elements of the ground station may be targeted by jamming and flooding attacks, and depending on the time of the attack, it can have devastating results to the availability of the system. | |
| .001 | Erroneous Input | Threat actors inject noise/data/signals into the target channel so that legitimate messages cannot be correctly processed due to impacts to integrity or availability. Additionally, while this technique does not utilize system-relevant signals/commands/information, the target spacecraft may still consume valuable computing resources to process and discard the signal. | |
| .002 | Valid Commands | Threat actors may utilize valid commanding as a mechanism for flooding as the processing of these valid commands could expend valuable resources like processing power and battery usage. Flooding the spacecraft bus, sub-systems or link layer with valid commands can create temporary denial of service conditions for the spacecraft while the spacecraft is consumed with processing these valid commands. | |
| ATAGS-T1050 | Hooking | Threat actors may hook into application programming interface (API) functions used by processes to redirect calls for execution and privilege escalation means. Windows processes often leverage these API functions to perform tasks that require reusable system resources. Windows API functions are typically stored in dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) as exported functions. The attacker intercepts function calls between software components to modify the behavior, inspect data, or redirect execution flow. | |
| ATAGS-T1051 | Input Injection | Threat actors may simulate keystrokes on a victim’s computer by various means to perform any type of action on behalf of the user, such as launching the command interpreter using keyboard shortcuts, typing an inline script to be executed, or interacting directly with a GUI-based application. These actions can be preprogrammed into adversary tooling or executed through physical devices such as Human Interface Devices (HIDs). | |
| ATAGS-T1052 | Jamming | Jamming is an electronic attack that uses radio frequency signals to interfere with communications. A jammer must operate in the same frequency band and within the field of view of the antenna it is targeting. Unlike physical attacks, jamming is completely reversible—once the jammer is disengaged, communications can be restored. Attribution of jamming can be tough because the source can be small and highly mobile, and users operating on the wrong frequency or pointed at the wrong satellite can jam friendly communications.* Similiar to intentional jamming, accidential jamming can cause temporary signal degradation. Accidental jamming refers to unintentional interference with communication signals, and it can potentially impact ground station in various ways, depending on the severity, frequency, and duration of the interference. | |
| .001 | Downlink Jamming | Downlink jammers target the users of a satellite by creating noise in the same frequency as the downlink signal from the satellite. A downlink jammer only needs to be as powerful as the signal being received on the ground and must be within the field of view of the receiving terminal’s antenna. This limits the number of users that can be affected by a single jammer. Since many ground terminals use directional antennas pointed at the sky, a downlink jammer typically needs to be located above the terminal it is attempting to jam. This limitation can be overcome by employing a downlink jammer on an air or space-based platform, which positions the jammer between the terminal and the satellite. This also allows the jammer to cover a wider area and potentially affect more users. Ground terminals with omnidirectional antennas, such as many GPS receivers, have a wider field of view and thus are more susceptible to downlink jamming from different angles on the ground. | |
| .002 | Uplink Jamming | An uplink jammer is used to interfere with signals going up to a satellite by creating enough noise that the satellite cannot distinguish between the real signal and the noise. Uplink jamming of the control link, for example, can prevent satellite operators from sending commands to a satellite. However, because the uplink jammer must be within the field of view of the antenna on the satellite receiving the command link, the jammer must be physically located within the vicinity of the command station on the ground. | |
| ATAGS-T1053 | Kinetic Physical Attack | Threat actors may deploy kinetic physical attacks to damage or destroy space- or land-based space assets. The nature of these attacks makes them easier to attribute and allow for better confirmation of success on the part of the attacker. | |
| ATAGS-T1054 | Malicious Code | Threat actors may rely on other tactics and techniques in order to execute malicious code on the victim ground station. This can be done via compromising the supply chain or development environment in some capacity or taking advantage of known commands. However, once malicious code has been uploaded to the victim ground station, the threat actor can then trigger the code to run via a specific command or wait for a legitimate user to trigger it accidently. The code itself can do a number of different things to the hosted payload, subsystems, or underlying OS. | |
| .001 | Bootkit | Threat actors may use bootkits to persist on systems and evade detection. Bootkits reside at a layer below the operating system and may make it difficult to perform full remediation unless an organization suspects one was used and can act accordingly. | |
| .002 | Ransomware | Threat actors may encrypt spacecraft data to interrupt availability and usability. Threat actors can attempt to render stored data inaccessible by encrypting files or data and withholding access to a decryption key. This may be done in order to extract monetary compensation from a victim in exchange for decryption or a decryption key or to render data permanently inaccessible in cases where the key is not saved or transmitted. | |
| .003 | Rootkit | Rootkits are programs that hide the existence of malware by intercepting/hooking and modifying operating system API calls that supply system information. Rootkits or rootkit enabling functionality may reside at the flight software or kernel level in the operating system or lower, to include a hypervisor, Master Boot Record, or System Firmware. | |
| .004 | Wiper Malware | Threat actors may deploy wiper malware, which is a type of malicious software designed to destroy data or render it unusable. Wiper malware can spread through various means, software vulnerabilities (CWE/CVE), or by exploiting weak or stolen credentials. | |
| ATAGS-T1055 | Modify Authentication Process | Threat actors may modify the internal authentication process of the victim ground station to facilitate initial access, recurring execution, or prevent authorized entities from accessing the ground station. This can be done through the modification of the software binaries or memory manipulation techniques. | |
| .001 | Domain Controller Authentication | Threat Actors may patch the authentication process on a domain controller to bypass the typical authentication mechanisms and enable access to accounts. | |
| .002 | Multi-Factor Authentication | Threat Actors may disable or modify multi-factor authentication (MFA) mechanisms to enable persistent access to compromised accounts. | |
| .003 | Network Device Authentication | Threat Actors may use Patch System Image to hard code a password in the operating system, thus bypassing of native authentication mechanisms for local accounts on network devices. | |
| .004 | Network Provider DLL | Threat Actors may register malicious network provider dynamic link libraries (DLLs) to capture cleartext user credentials during the authentication process. Network provider DLLs allow Windows to interface with specific network protocols and can also support add-on credential management functions. During the logon process, Winlogon (the interactive logon module) sends credentials to the local mpnotify.exe process via RPC. The mpnotify.exe process then shares the credentials in cleartext with registered credential managers when notifying that a logon event is happening. | |
| .005 | Password Filter DLL | Threat Actors may register malicious password filter dynamic link libraries (DLLs) into the authentication process to acquire user credentials as they are validated. | |
| .006 | Pluggable Authentication Modules | Threat Actors may modify pluggable authentication modules (PAM) to access user credentials or enable otherwise unwarranted access to accounts. PAM is a modular system of configuration files, libraries, and executable files which guide authentication for many services. The most common authentication module is pam_unix.so, which retrieves, sets, and verifies account authentication information in /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow. | |
| .007 | Reversible Encryption | An adversary may abuse Active Directory authentication encryption properties to gain access to credentials on Windows systems. The AllowReversiblePasswordEncryption property specifies whether reversible password encryption for an account is enabled or disabled. By default this property is disabled (instead storing user credentials as the output of one-way hashing functions) and should not be enabled unless legacy or other software require it. | |
| .008 | Conditional Access Policies | Threat Actors may disable or modify conditional access policies to enable persistent access to compromised accounts. Conditional access policies are additional verifications used by identity providers and identity and access management systems to determine whether a user should be granted access to a resource. | |
| .009 | Hybrid Identity | Threat Actors may patch, modify, or otherwise backdoor cloud authentication processes that are tied to on-premises user identities in order to bypass typical authentication mechanisms, access credentials, and enable persistent access to accounts. | |
| ATAGS-T1056 | Modify Controller Tasking | Threat actors may modify the tasking of a controller to allow for the execution of their own programs. This can allow an adversary to manipulate the execution flow and behavior of a controller. | |
| ATAGS-T1057 | Non-Kinetic Physical Attack | A non-kinetic physical attack is when a ground station is physically damaged without any direct contact. Non-kinetic physical attacks can be characterized into a few types: electromagnetic pulses, high-powered lasers, and high-powered microwaves. These attacks have medium possible attribution levels and often provide little evidence of success to the attacker. | |
| .001 | Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) | An EMP, such as those caused by high-altitude detonation of certain bombs, is an indiscriminate form of attack in space. For example, a nuclear detonation in space releases an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that would have near immediate consequences for the satellites within range. The detonation also creates a high radiation environment that accelerates the degradation of satellite components in the affected orbits. | |
| .002 | High-Powered Laser | A high-powered laser can be used to permanently or temporarily damage critical satellite components (i.e. solar arrays or optical centers). If directed toward a satellite’s optical center, the attack is known as blinding or dazzling. Blinding, as the name suggests, causes permanent damage to the optics of a satellite. Dazzling causes temporary loss of sight for the satellite. While there is clear attribution of the location of the laser at the time of the attack, the lasers used in these attacks may be mobile, which can make attribution to a specific actor more difficult because the attacker does not have to be in their own nation, or even continent, to conduct such an attack. Only the satellite operator will know if the attack is successful, meaning the attacker has limited confirmation of success, as an attacked nation may not choose to announce that their satellite has been attacked or left vulnerable for strategic reasons. A high-powered laser attack can also leave the targeted satellite disabled and uncontrollable, which could lead to collateral damage if the satellite begins to drift. A higher-powered laser may permanently damage a satellite by overheating its parts. The parts most susceptible to this are satellite structures, thermal control panels, and solar panels. | |
| .003 | High-Powered Microwave | High-powered microwave (HPM) weapons can be used to disrupt or destroy a satellite’s electronics. A "front-door" HPM attack uses a satellite’s own antennas as an entry path, while a "back-door" attack attempts to enter through small seams or gaps around electrical connections and shielding. A front-door attack is more straightforward to carry out, provided the HPM is positioned within the field of view of the antenna that it is using as a pathway, but it can be thwarted if the satellite uses circuits designed to detect and block surges of energy entering through the antenna. In contrast, a back-door attack is more challenging, because it must exploit design or manufacturing flaws, but it can be conducted from many angles relative to the satellite. Both types of attacks can be either reversible or irreversible; however, the attacker may not be able to control the severity of the damage from the attack. Both front-door and back-door HPM attacks can be difficult to attribute to an attacker, and like a laser weapon, the attacker may not know if the attack has been successful. A HPM attack may leave the target satellite disabled and uncontrollable which can cause it to drift into other satellites, creating further collateral damage. | |
| ATAGS-T1058 | Replay | Replay attacks involve threat actors recording previously recorded data streams and then resending them at a later time. This attack can be used to fingerprint systems, gain elevated privileges, or even cause a denial of service. | |
| .001 | Command Packets | Threat actors may interact with the victim gound station by replaying captured commands. While not necessarily malicious in nature, replayed commands can be used to overload the target ground station and cause it's internal systems to crash, perform a DoS attack, or monitor various responses by the groun station. | |
| ATAGS-T1059 | Scheduled Task/Job | Threat actors may abuse task scheduling functionality to facilitate initial or recurring execution of malicious code. Utilities exist within all major operating systems to schedule programs or scripts to be executed at a specified date and time. A task can also be scheduled on a remote system, provided the proper authentication is met (ex: RPC and file and printer sharing in Windows environments). Scheduling a task on a remote system typically may require being a member of an admin or otherwise privileged group on the remote system. | |
| .001 | At | Threat actors may abuse the at utility to perform task scheduling for initial or recurring execution of malicious code. The at utility exists as an executable within Windows, Linux, and macOS for scheduling tasks at a specified time and date. Although deprecated in favor of Scheduled Task's schtasks in Windows environments, using at requires that the Task Scheduler service be running, and the user to be logged on as a member of the local Administrators group. In addition to explicitly running the at command, Threat actors may also schedule a task with at by directly leveraging the Windows Management Instrumentation Win32_ScheduledJob WMI class. | |
| .002 | Container Orchestration Job | Threat actors may abuse task scheduling functionality provided by container orchestration tools such as Kubernetes to schedule deployment of containers configured to execute malicious code. Container orchestration jobs run these automated tasks at a specific date and time, similar to cron jobs on a Linux system. Deployments of this type can also be configured to maintain a quantity of containers over time, automating the process of maintaining persistence within a cluster. | |
| .003 | Cron | Threat actors may abuse the cron utility to perform task scheduling for initial or recurring execution of malicious code. The cron utility is a time-based job scheduler for Unix-like operating systems. The crontab file contains the schedule of cron entries to be run and the specified times for execution. Any crontab files are stored in operating system-specific file paths. | |
| .004 | Scheduled Task | Threat actors may abuse the Windows Task Scheduler to perform task scheduling for initial or recurring execution of malicious code. There are multiple ways to access the Task Scheduler in Windows. The schtasks utility can be run directly on the command line, or the Task Scheduler can be opened through the GUI within the Administrator Tools section of the Control Panel. In some cases, Threat actors have used a .NET wrapper for the Windows Task Scheduler, and alternatively, Threat actors have used the Windows netapi32 library and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to create a scheduled task. Threat actors may also utilize the Powershell Cmdlet Invoke-CimMethod, which leverages WMI class PS_ScheduledTask to create a scheduled task via an XML path. | |
| .005 | Systemd Timers | Threat actors may abuse systemd timers to perform task scheduling for initial or recurring execution of malicious code. Systemd timers are unit files with file extension .timer that control services. Timers can be set to run on a calendar event or after a time span relative to a starting point. They can be used as an alternative to Cron in Linux environments. Systemd timers may be activated remotely via the systemctl command line utility, which operates over SSH. | |
| ATAGS-T1060 | Serverless Execution | Threat actors may abuse serverless computing, integration, and automation services to execute arbitrary code in cloud environments. Many cloud providers offer a variety of serverless resources, including compute engines, application integration services, and web servers. | |
| ATAGS-T1061 | Side-Channel Attack | Threat actors may use a side-channel attack attempts to gather information or influence the program execution of a system by measuring or exploiting indirect effects of the ground station. Side-Channel attacks can be active or passive. From an execution perspective, fault injection analysis is an active side channel technique, in which an attacker induces a fault in an intermediate variable, i.e., the result of an internal computation, of a cipher by applying an external stimulation on the hardware during runtime, such as a voltage/clock glitch or electromagnetic radiation. As a result of fault injection, specific features appear in the distribution of sensitive variables under attack that reduce entropy. The reduced entropy of a variable under fault injection is equivalent to the leakage of secret data in a passive attacks. | |
| ATAGS-T1062 | Software Deployment Tools | Threat actors may gain access to and use centralized software suites installed within an enterprise to execute commands and move laterally through the network. Configuration management and software deployment applications may be used in an enterprise network or cloud environment for routine administration purposes. These systems may also be integrated into CI/CD pipelines. Examples of such solutions include: SCCM, HBSS, Altiris, AWS Systems Manager, Microsoft Intune, Azure Arc, and GCP Deployment Manager. | |
| ATAGS-T1063 | Spoofing | Threat actors may attempt to spoof the various sensor and controller data that is depended upon by various subsystems within the victim ground station. Subsystems rely on this data to perform automated tasks, process gather data, and return important information to the ground controllers. By spoofing this information, threat actors could trigger automated tasks to fire when they are not needed to, potentially causing the ground station to behave erratically. Further, the data could be processed erroneously, causing ground controllers to receive incorrect telemetry or scientific data, threatening the ground station's reliability and integrity. | |
| .001 | Sensor Data | Threat actors may target sensor data on the spacecraft to achieve their attack objectives. Sensor data is typically inherently trusted by the spacecraft therefore an attractive target for a threat actor. Spoofing the sensor data could affect the calculations and disrupt portions of a control loop as well as create uncertainty within the mission thereby creating temporary denial of service conditions for the mission. Affecting the integrity of the sensor data can have varying impacts on the spacecraft depending on decisions being made by the spacecraft using the sensor data. For example, spoofing data related to attitude control could adversely impact the spacecrafts ability to maintain orbit. | |
| .002 | Time Spoof | Threat actors may attempt to target the internal timers onboard the victim spacecraft and spoof their data. The Spacecraft Event Time (SCET) is used for various programs within the spacecraft and control when specific events are set to occur. Ground controllers use these timed events to perform automated processes as the spacecraft is in orbit in order for it to fulfill it's purpose. Threat actors that target this particular system and attempt to spoof it's data could cause these processes to trigger early or late. | |
| ATAGS-T1064 | System Services | Threat actors may abuse system services or daemons to execute commands or programs. Threat actors can execute malicious content by interacting with or creating services either locally or remotely. Many services are set to run at boot, which can aid in achieving persistence (Create or Modify System Process), but Threat actors can also abuse services for one-time or temporary execution. | |
| .001 | Launchctl | Threat actors may abuse launchctl to execute commands or programs. Launchctl interfaces with launchd, the service management framework for macOS. Launchctl supports taking subcommands on the command-line, interactively, or even redirected from standard input. | |
| .002 | Service Execution | Threat actors may abuse the Windows service control manager to execute malicious commands or payloads. The Windows service control manager (services.exe) is an interface to manage and manipulate services. The service control manager is accessible to users via GUI components as well as system utilities such as sc.exe and Net. | |
| .003 | Systemctl | Threat actors may abuse systemctl to execute commands or programs. Systemctl is the primary interface for systemd, the Linux init system and service manager. Typically invoked from a shell, Systemctl can also be integrated into scripts or applications. | |
| ATAGS-T1065 | User Execution | Threat actors may rely upon specific actions by a user in order to gain execution. Users may be subjected to social engineering to get them to execute malicious code by, for example, opening a malicious document file or link. These user actions will typically be observed as follow-on behavior from forms of Phishing. | |
| .001 | Malicious Copy and Paste | Threat actors may rely upon a user copying and pasting code in order to gain execution. Users may be subjected to social engineering to get them to copy and paste code directly into a Command and Scripting Interpreter. One such strategy is "ClickFix," in which Threat actors present users with seemingly helpful solutions—such as prompts to fix errors or complete CAPTCHAs—that instead instruct the user to copy and paste malicious code. | |
| .002 | Malicious File | Threat actors may rely upon a user opening a malicious file in order to gain execution. Users may be subjected to social engineering to get them to open a file that will lead to code execution. This user action will typically be observed as follow-on behavior from Spearphishing Attachment. Threat actors may use several types of files that require a user to execute them, including .doc, .pdf, .xls, .rtf, .scr, .exe, .lnk, .pif, .cpl, .reg, and .iso. | |
| .003 | Malicious Image | Threat actors may rely on a user running a malicious image to facilitate execution. Amazon Web Services (AWS) Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Images, and Azure Images as well as popular container runtimes such as Docker can be backdoored. Backdoored images may be uploaded to a public repository via Upload Malware, and users may then download and deploy an instance or container from the image without realizing the image is malicious, thus bypassing techniques that specifically achieve Initial Access. This can lead to the execution of malicious code, such as code that executes cryptocurrency mining, in the instance or container. | |
| .004 | Malicious Library | Threat actors may rely on a user installing a malicious library to facilitate execution. Threat actors may Upload Malware to package managers such as NPM and PyPi, as well as to public code repositories such as GitHub. User may install libraries without realizing they are malicious, thus bypassing techniques that specifically achieve Initial Access. This can lead to the execution of malicious code, such as code that establishes persistence, steals data, or mines cryptocurrency. | |
| .005 | Malicious Link | Threat actors may rely upon a user clicking a malicious link in order to gain execution. Users may be subjected to social engineering to get them to click on a link that will lead to code execution. This user action will typically be observed as follow-on behavior from Spearphishing Link. Clicking on a link may also lead to other execution techniques such as exploitation of a browser or application vulnerability via Exploitation for Client Execution. Links may also lead users to download files that require execution via Malicious File. | |