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Mapping To DarkHydrus

DarkHydrus is a threat group that has targeted government agencies and educational institutions in the Middle East since at least 2016. The group heavily leverages open-source tools and custom payloads for carrying out attacks.


Disclaimer: We present this mapping to stimulate thinking about active defense options to combat this adversary, not to present all possibilities. We invite you to use this as a guide and add your own use cases for applying Shield techniques to counter each adversary action.

Note: All ATT&CK Group sub-technique mappings have been remapped to their parent technique and were derived from Group Technique mappings in ATT&CK v8.

Details
ATT&CK ID: G0079
Associated Groups:  DarkHydrus
Note:  This page uses Adversary Group data from MITRE ATT&CK.
ATT&CK Technique Opportunity Space AD Technique Use Case
T1059 - Command and Scripting Interpreter There is an opportunity for the defender to observe the adversary and control what they can see, what effects they can have, and/or what data they can access. DTE0036 - Software Manipulation A defender can manipulate the output of system commands issued to alter information the adversary might use during their activity.
T1059 - Command and Scripting Interpreter There is an opportunity for the defender to observe the adversary and control what they can see, what effects they can have, and/or what data they can access. DTE0036 - Software Manipulation A defender can modify the functionality of commands used to delete files so that the files are copied to a safe location before they are deleted.
T1059 - Command and Scripting Interpreter There is an opportunity for the defender to observe the adversary and control what they can see, what effects they can have, and/or what data they can access. DTE0034 - System Activity Monitoring A defender can detect the presence of an adversary by monitoring for processes that are created by commands and/or scripts they execute on a system.
T1187 - Forced Authentication In order to prolong an adversary engagement operation or enable detections, there is an opportunity to introduce credentials to an adversary that you want them to collect and use. DTE0012 - Decoy Credentials A defender can use adversary attempts at forced authentication exploits to seed adversary servers with decoy credentials.
T1187 - Forced Authentication There is an opportunity to manipulate the network to allow/deny certain types of traffic, to degrade network traffic, or otherwise impact an adversary's activity. DTE0026 - Network Manipulation A defender could allow or deny outbound SMB requests from a network to affect the success of forced authentication. Alternative a defender could redirect outbound SMB requests to a decoy system to thwart attempted credential theft
T1204 - User Execution There is an opportunity to study the adversary and collect first-hand observations about them and their tools. DTE0018 - Detonate Malware A defender can execute adversary malware on a decoy system and examine its behaviors or potentially engage with the adversary to obtain further intelligence.
T1221 - Template Injection There is an opportunity to study the adversary and collect first-hand observations about them and their tools. DTE0017 - Decoy System A defender can have decoy systems that are easy to gain access to and have Office installed. The decoy system can be monitored to see if an adversary attempts to inject anything malicious into Office templates.
T1564 - Hide Artifacts There is an opportunity to block an adversary's intended action and force them to reveal additional TTPs. DTE0036 - Software Manipulation A defender can manipulate commands on system so that an adversary is unable to hide artifacts in ways they normally would.
T1564 - Hide Artifacts There is an opportunity to deploy a tripwire that triggers an alert when an adversary touches a network resource or uses a specific technique. DTE0034 - System Activity Monitoring A defender could monitor for known commands used to hide artifacts on a system and for activity associated with those hidden artifacts.
T1566 - Phishing A phishing email can be detected and blocked from arriving at the intended recipient. DTE0019 - Email Manipulation A defender can intercept emails that are detected as suspicious or malicious by email detection tools and prevent deliver to the intended target.
T1566 - Phishing A phishing email can be detected and moved from the intended recipient to a decoy account for reading and execution. DTE0023 - Migrate Attack Vector A defender can move suspicious emails to a decoy system prior to opening and examining the email.
T1566 - Phishing Users trained and encouraged to report phishing can detect attacks that other defenses do not. DTE0035 - User Training A program to train and exercise the anti-phishing skills of users can create "Human Sensors" that help detect phishing attacks.
T1566 - Phishing There is an opportunity to discover who or what is being targeting by an adversary. DTE0015 - Decoy Persona A defender can seed information about the decoy persona's personal accounts on systems to see if the adversary collects and uses that information in future activity.