Encrypted Channel: Asymmetric Cryptography

ID Name
ATAGS-T1186.001 Symmetric Cryptography
ATAGS-T1186.002 Asymmetric Cryptography

Threat Actors may employ a known asymmetric encryption algorithm to conceal command and control traffic rather than relying on any inherent protections provided by a communication protocol. Asymmetric cryptography, also known as public key cryptography, uses a keypair per party: one public that can be freely distributed, and one private. Due to how the keys are generated, the sender encrypts data with the receiver’s public key and the receiver decrypts the data with their private key. This ensures that only the intended recipient can read the encrypted data. Common public key encryption algorithms include RSA and ElGamal.

ID: ATAGS-T1186.002
Sub-technique of:  ATAGS-T1186
Targeted Components: Network Transport
Responsibility: Provider
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.