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Acquire Infrastructure: Domains
Other sub-techniques of Acquire Infrastructure (1)
| ID | Name |
|---|---|
| T1583.001 | Domains |
Adversaries may acquire domains that can be used during targeting. Domain names are the human readable names used to represent one or more IP addresses. They can be purchased or, in some cases, acquired for free.
Adversaries may use acquired domains for a variety of purposes, including for
Phishing [MITRE]
,
Drive-by Compromise [MITRE]
, and Command and Control. Adversaries may choose domains that are similar to legitimate domains, including through use of homoglyphs or use of a different top-level domain (TLD). Typosquatting may be used to aid in delivery of payloads via
Drive-by Compromise [MITRE]
. Adversaries may also use internationalized domain names (IDNs) and different character sets (e.g. Cyrillic, Greek, etc.) to execute "IDN homograph attacks," creating visually similar lookalike domains used to deliver malware to victim machines.
Different URIs/URLs may also be dynamically generated to uniquely serve malicious content to victims (including one-time, single use domain names).
Adversaries may also acquire and repurpose expired domains, which may be potentially already allowlisted/trusted by defenders based on an existing reputation/history.
Domain registrars each maintain a publicly viewable database that displays contact information for every registered domain. Private WHOIS services display alternative information, such as their own company data, rather than the owner of the domain. Adversaries may use such private WHOIS services to obscure information about who owns a purchased domain. Adversaries may further interrupt efforts to track their infrastructure by using varied registration information and purchasing domains with different domain registrars. In addition to legitimately purchasing a domain, an adversary may register a new domain in a compromised environment. For example, in AWS environments, adversaries may leverage the Route53 domain service to register a domain and create hosted zones pointing to resources of the threat actors choosing.
In addition to legitimately purchasing a domain, an adversary may register a new domain in a compromised environment. For example, in AWS environments, adversaries may leverage the Route53 domain service to register a domain and create hosted zones pointing to resources of the threat actors choosing.
AWS Specific Content
A prerequisite for this technique is that a threat actor has already gained control of an AWS identity with the permissions to perform the actions in the AWS CloudTrail Event Name(s) section.
A threat actor using credentials with appropriate permissions is able to register an Amazon Route 53 domain and create hosted zones pointing to resources of the threat actor's choosing. These resources can be used to host malicious content and files, and the victim will be billed for the domain and hosted zone. Additionally, hosted zones can be created under previously existing legitimate domains to mislead unsuspecting visitors to the threat actor created domain or hosted zone.
Detection
Domain registration information is, by design, captured in public registration logs. Consider use of services that may aid in tracking of newly acquired domains, such as WHOIS databases and/or passive DNS. In some cases it may be possible to pivot on known pieces of domain registration information to uncover other infrastructure purchased by the adversary. Consider monitoring for domains created with a similar structure to your own, including under a different TLD. Though various tools and services exist to track, query, and monitor domain name registration information, tracking across multiple DNS infrastructures can require multiple tools/services or more advanced analytics.(Citation: ThreatConnect Infrastructure Dec 2020) Detection efforts may be focused on related stages of the adversary lifecycle, such as during Initial Access and Command and Control.AWS Specific Content
When this technique is used by the threat actor, actions taken by the threat actor using the credentials obtained will be logged in CloudTrail. You can use the Event History page in the AWS CloudTrail console to view the last 90 days of management events in an AWS Region for the events listed in the AWS CloudTrail Event Name(s) section, such as
route53domains:RegisterDomain or route53:CreateHostedZone.A separate CloudTrail trail will give you an ongoing record of events in your AWS account past 90 days and can be configured to log events in multiple regions. You can also review events using the console as well as the AWS CLI.
It is also possible to create a CloudWatch metric filter to watch for when specific AWS API calls are used and perform notification actions if logged, and additionally configure CloudWatch to automatically perform an action in response to an alarm.
Regularly review the Route 53 dashboard to make sure that domains registered and hosted zones that have been created are authorized and have reference to the correct resources.
Mitigation
AWS Specific Content
You can make sure that principals are scoped with the least-privileged permissions necessary to perform duties, limiting the ability to perform unauthorized actions in an AWS account when not required. One possible method of applying the principle of least-privileged permissions is to use Service Control Policies to restrict the maximum available permissions for the IAM users and IAM roles within your AWS Organizations accounts (note - you should test SCPs in a development environment before deploying them in production).
You can also use IAM Access Analyzer to regularly review and verify access and manage permissions across your AWS environment, which will highlight AWS identities with excessive permissions and the actions performed by those identities.
References
- mitre-attack
- URI Unique
- PaypalScam
- CISA IDN ST05-016
- CISA MSS Sep 2020
- bypass_webproxy_filtering
- FireEye APT28
- Domain_Steal_CC
- tt_obliqueRAT
- tt_httrack_fake_domains
- Mandiant APT1
- Categorisation_not_boundary
- URI
- Redirectors_Domain_Fronting
- URI Use
- iOS URL Scheme
- lazgroup_idn_phishing
- httrack_unhcr
- ThreatConnect Infrastructure Dec 2020