Trusted Relationship Exploitation

Access through trusted third-party relationship exploits an existing connection that has been approved for interconnection. Leveraging third party / approved interconnections to pivot into the target systems is a common technique for threat actors as these interconnections typically lack stringent access control due to the trusted status.

ID: ATAGS-T1039
Sub-techniques:  No sub-techniques
Tactic: Initial Access
Targeted Components: Mission, Personnel & Identity
Responsibility: Shared
Created: 18 April 2026
Last Modified: 18 April 2026

Mitigations

This type of attack technique cannot be easily mitigated with preventive controls since it is based on the abuse of system features.