Email Collection: Email Forwarding Rule

Threat Actors may setup email forwarding rules to collect sensitive information. Threat Actors may abuse email forwarding rules to monitor the activities of a victim, steal information, and further gain intelligence on the victim or the victim’s organization to use as part of further exploits or operations. Furthermore, email forwarding rules can allow Threat Actors to maintain persistent access to victim's emails even after compromised credentials are reset by administrators. Most email clients allow users to create inbox rules for various email functions, including forwarding to a different recipient. These rules may be created through a local email application, a web interface, or by command-line interface. Messages can be forwarded to internal or external recipients, and there are no restrictions limiting the extent of this rule. Administrators may also create forwarding rules for user accounts with the same considerations and outcomes.

ID: ATAGS-T1179.003
Sub-technique of:  ATAGS-T1179
Tactic: Collection
Targeted Components: Software
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.