Technique.View on attack.mitre.org
Adversaries may search websites owned by the victim for information that can be used during targeting. Victim-owned websites may contain a variety of details, including names of departments/divisions, physical locations, and data about key employees such as names, roles, and contact info (ex: Email Addresses). These sites may also have details highlighting business operations and relationships.
Adversaries may search victim-owned websites to gather actionable information. Information from these sources may reveal opportunities for other forms of reconnaissance (ex: Phishing for Information or Search Open Technical Databases), establishing operational resources (ex: Establish Accounts or Compromise Accounts), and/or initial access (ex: Trusted Relationship or Phishing).
In addition to manually browsing the website, adversaries may attempt to identify hidden directories or files that could contain additional sensitive information or vulnerable functionality. They may do this through automated activities such as Wordlist Scanning, as well as by leveraging files such as sitemap.xml and robots.txt.
Rules on DetectionCode tagged with T1594.
None recorded.
| Used by | Procedure example |
|---|---|
| GroupEXOTIC LILY | EXOTIC LILY has used contact forms on victim websites to generate phishing e-mails. |
| GroupKimsuky | Kimsuky has searched for information on the target company's website. |
| GroupSandworm Team | Sandworm Team has conducted research against potential victim websites as part of its operational planning. |
| GroupSilent Librarian | Silent Librarian has searched victim's websites to identify the interests and academic areas of targeted individuals and to scrape source code, branding, and organizational contact information for phishing pages. |
| GroupTA578 | TA578 has filled out contact forms on victims' websites to direct them to adversary-controlled URLs. |
| GroupVolt Typhoon | Volt Typhoon has conducted pre-compromise reconnaissance on victim-owned sites. |
| Used by | Procedure example |
|---|---|
| CampaignAPT41 DUST | APT41 DUST involved access of external victim websites for target development. |
| CampaignCutting Edge | During Cutting Edge, threat actors peformed reconnaissance of victims' internal websites via proxied connections. |
| CampaignLeviathan Australian Intrusions | Leviathan enumerated compromised web application resources to identify additional endpoints and resources linkd to the website for follow-on access during Leviathan Australian Intrusions. |
Data from MITRE ATT&CK® (Enterprise). ATT&CK® is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation.
