Adversaries may gather information about the victim's hosts that can be used during targeting. Information about hosts may include a variety of details, including administrative data (ex: name, assigned IP, functionality, etc.) as well as specifics regarding its configuration (ex: operating system, language, etc.).
Adversaries may gather this information in various ways, such as direct collection actions via Active Scanning or Phishing for Information. Adversaries may also compromise sites then include malicious content designed to collect host information from visitors.(Citation: ATT ScanBox) Information about hosts may also be exposed to adversaries via online or other accessible data sets (ex: Social Media or Search Victim-Owned Websites). Gathering this information may reveal opportunities for other forms of reconnaissance (ex: Search Open Websites/Domains or Search Open Technical Databases), establishing operational resources (ex: Develop Capabilities or Obtain Capabilities), and/or initial access (ex: Supply Chain Compromise or External Remote Services).
Adversaries may also gather victim host information via User-Agent HTTP headers, which are sent to a server to identify the application, operating system, vendor, and/or version of the requesting user agent. This can be used to inform the adversary’s follow-on action. For example, adversaries may check user agents for the requesting operating system, then only serve malware for target operating systems while ignoring others.(Citation: TrellixQakbot)
Detection of Gather Victim Host Information
Pre-compromise: Pre-compromise mitigations involve proactive measures and defenses implemented to prevent adversaries from successfully identifying and exploiting weaknesses during the Reconnaissance and Resource Development phases of an attack. These activities focus on reducing an organization's attack surface, identify adversarial preparation efforts, and increase the difficulty for attackers to conduct successful operations. This mitigation can be implemented through the following measures:
Limit Information Exposure:
Protect Domain and DNS Infrastructure:
External Monitoring:
Threat Intelligence:
Content and Email Protections:
Training and Awareness:
No cross-framework mappings available