Compromise or Establish Accounts

Threat actors may compromise or establish accounts with services that can be used during targeting. For operations incorporating social engineering, the utilization of an online persona may be important. Threat actors may compromise existing accounts. Utilizing an existing persona may engender a level of trust in a potential victim if they have a relationship, or knowledge of, the compromised persona. Adversaries may create and cultivate accounts with services that can be used during targeting. Adversaries can create accounts that can be used to build a persona to further operations; while persona development consists of the development of public information, presence, history and appropriate affiliations. This development could be applied to social media, website, or other publicly available information that could be referenced and scrutinized for legitimacy over the course of an operation using that persona or identity.