Home » Security Bloggers Network » MITRE ATT&CK vulnerability spotlight: Exploitation for credential access

MITRE ATT&CK vulnerability spotlight: Exploitation for credential access

Introduction

MITRE is a federally-funded research and development center (FFRDC) for the U.S. government. As an FFRDC, MITRE performs a variety of different functions for the government, including acting as a trusted third party for evaluations and audits and performing research on topics of value to the U.S. federal government.

One of the products of MITRE’s cybersecurity research and development efforts is the MITRE ATT&CK framework. The goal of the MITRE ATT&CK framework is to raise awareness of the tactics and procedures used by cyber threats during their attacks.

The MITRE ATT&CK framework breaks down the life cycle of a cyberattack into its component stages. For each stage of the attack life cycle, MITRE provides a list of the methods that can be used to accomplish that phase of the attack. For each of these methods, information is provided about how the particular method works, affected systems and how to detect and mitigate it.

What is exploitation for credential access?

One of the stages of the cyberattack life cycle based on the MITRE ATT&CK framework is credential access. In this stage, an attacker attempts to gain access to the credentials of legitimate users on a system. These credentials can then be leveraged to gain initial access to a system or expand an attacker’s foothold and access by opening up new and potentially more powerful accounts.

Exploitation for credential access is one of the methods for completing this stage of a cyberattack. This method is a fairly general one that covers a wide variety of different specific techniques. In general, any time that an attacker exploits a vulnerability on a system with the goal of stealing user credentials, it qualifies as exploitation for credential access.

Examples of exploitation for credential access

Since this tactic in the MITRE ATT&CK framework (Read more...)