The MITRE ATT&CK Framework stands for Mitre Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge, and is free for any person or organization. As a result, it is becoming widely adopted and is now referenced in a range of platforms that describe the latest behaviours and tactics of cyber adversaries to help organizations strengthen their cybersecurity strategies and fight against cybersecurity threats.
The MITRE ATT&CK Framework was launched internally within MITRE in 2013 and released to the public in 2015. It started as a total of 9 tactics and 96 techniques and quickly gained traction for how threats and attacks were categorized and organized in security.
The framework is based on a range of real-world data gathered from multiple sources, including threat intelligence reports, open-source code repositories and malware samples.
As of version 15, released in April 2024, the framework has expanded to include 14 tactics, 202 techniques, 435 sub-techniques, 152 groups, and 794 pieces of software. Its evolution reflects the vast effort put into finding novel attack methods, detection strategies, and mitigation techniques. Over the years, ATT&CK has expanded to cover numerous operating systems, infrastructures, and environments, which makes it a highly practical tool for understanding and addressing threats within diverse environments. Its continued public accessibility makes it a valuable resource for security professionals to assess their security posture.
Mitre ATT&CK Components
Matrices
The ATT&CK Matrix is the core of MITRE ATT&CK and forms a detailed map of various adversarial tactics, techniques, and behaviors amid distinct lifecycle stages of an attack. The matrix is split into specific domains, which are as follows:
- Enterprise Matrix: This deals with techniques conducted in IT environments such as Windows, macOS, and Linux.
- Mobile Matrix: This concerns techniques unique to mobile device attacks.
- ICS Matrix: Indicates threats of techniques involving Critical Infrastructure through Industrial Control Systems.
Each matrix has columns representing Tactics (objectives of the attacker at various stages of attack) and rows representing Techniques (specific methods to achieve those objectives). Cybersecurity teams employ these matrices not only to track adversarial behavior and understand how attackers work across different platforms but also to craft practical and effective measures to defend against such threats.
Tactics
Tactics define the overarching goals attackers strive to accomplish at different phases of a campaign. Each tactic is a goal, and attackers usually apply a combination of tactics to accomplish their ubiquitous aims. Some of the major tactics in ATT&CK’s framework are discussed below, from a myriad of others:
- Initial Access: Initial access tactics describe how attackers gain access to a system, such as through phishing or exploiting a vulnerability.
- Persistence: Maintain access after successful compromise (account or boot config changes).
- Privilege Escalation: Obtain privileges to perform other malicious activities (become an admin or a root).
- Lateral Movement: Act of navigating a network in order to access other systems or data.
- Exfiltration: Extraction or transfer of sensitive data from the compromised environment.
Awareness of these tactics allows defenders to analyze the movements of attackers and strengthen defenses at critical moments during an attack.
Techniques
Techniques outline the exact means by which attackers conduct each technique, which, in a way, describes how every move in the attack is executed. Therefore, attackers may use techniques that entail how they achieve Initial Access as follows;
- Spear Phishing: Sending spear-phishing emails containing malicious links or attachments.
- Exploiting Vulnerabilities: Exploting unpatched software vulnerabilities to gain entry into a system.
- Techniques are used over a variety of tactics and have recently been classified into sub-techniques to delineate them further. For instance, under Credential Dumping, there are LSASS Memory and SAM Database among its sub-techniques.
On these grounds, by identifying these techniques, organizations can tailor their defences accordingly. For example, in the case of people phishing – the most common defence is to put filters on emails and provide phishing awareness training.
Defenses
The Defenses section advises on how to defend against adversarial tactics and techniques. Defense strategies fall into three main categories:
- Preventive Measures: Tools such as firewalls, anti-virus software, EDR, and multi-factor authentication (MFA) keep the common modes of attacks from penetrating deeper into networks.
- Detection Capabilities: SIEM systems, logging, and behavior-based monitoring are used to discover adversary activities by determining patterns or anomalies in system or network activities.
- Incident Response Plans: Response plans are built on top of those tactics and techniques described in the ATT&CK matrix, thus enabling organizations to respond more effectively in case threats are identified.
Then ATT&CK matrix ensures that organisations bring all relevant attack vectors within the scope of their defences. Defense capabilities also ensure agility and responsiveness when the threats evolve.
Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI)
Cyber threat intelligence, in essence, is the process of aggregating and analyzing information on potential and emerging cyber threats as far as the behavior, techniques, infrastructure, or motivations of adversaries are concerned. Questions answered include
- Who is behind the attack?
- What tactics and techniques apply?
- What is the intent?
The MITRE ATT&CK framework helps CTI link known adversarial techniques to specific groups and campaigns. For example, if an organization knows that APT29 frequently makes use of certain tactics, then it can look ahead in time for indicators of the activity of this group in its systems. CTI, especially, guides proactive defenses and prepares organizations for possible attacks.
Resources
It offers tools for organizations to use the framework effectively, including:
- Use Cases: Real-world examples showing how organizations use ATT&CK to strengthen their security posture.
- Training Programs: Courses to teach professionals how to apply ATT&CK in various contexts, from red teaming to blue teaming and threat hunting.
- Open-Source Tools: Simulations of attacks and tests for defenses using real-world adversarial techniques, Atomic Red Team and Caldera.
These resources enable organizations of any size to successfully integrate ATT&CK into their cybersecurity operations.
Blog
The MITRE ATT&CK Blog provides news, insights, and the latest updates on the framework. Some of these example types include:
- Announcements: New tactics and techniques within the framework.
- Insights: Articles on how to apply ATT&CK for the purposes of threat hunting, red teaming, or defense operations.
- Case Studies: Real-life examples of how organizations in the real world apply the ATT&CK framework successfully to detect and respond to cyber threats.
Organizations can keep themselves abreast of the latest development on the ATT&CK framework in addition to general cyber trends by keeping tabs on the blogs.
Conclusion
The MITRE ATT&CK Framework enables organizations to transform their defenses by mapping out attacker’s tactics and techniques; hence, enhancing detection and response to threats. It makes security teams more proactive towards avoiding attacks on their systems, hence making it a resource that actually defies the hacking of one’s system among other cyber threats since it’s ever-evolving.
