T1098 Account Manipulation Mappings

Adversaries may manipulate accounts to maintain access to victim systems. Account manipulation may consist of any action that preserves adversary access to a compromised account, such as modifying credentials or permission groups. These actions could also include account activity designed to subvert security policies, such as performing iterative password updates to bypass password duration policies and preserve the life of compromised credentials. In order to create or manipulate accounts, the adversary must already have sufficient permissions on systems or the domain.

View in MITRE ATT&CK®

Mappings

Capability ID Capability Description Mapping Type ATT&CK ID ATT&CK Name Notes
cloud_asset_inventory Cloud Asset Inventory technique_scores T1098 Account Manipulation
Comments
This control may be able to detect when adversaries use cloud accounts to elevate privileges through manipulation of IAM or access policies. This monitoring can be fine tuned to specific assets, policies, and organizations.
References
resourcemanager ResourceManager technique_scores T1098 Account Manipulation
Comments
GCP offers Identity and Access Management (IAM), which lets admins give more granular access to specific Google Cloud resources and prevents unwanted access to other resources. This allows configuration of access controls and firewalls to limit access to critical systems and domain controllers.
References
identityplatform IdentityPlatform technique_scores T1098 Account Manipulation
Comments
Identity Platform can help protect your app's users and prevent account takeovers by offering multi-factor authentication (MFA) and integrating with Google's intelligence for account protection. This will help mitigate adversaries from gaining access to permission levels.
References
chronicle Chronicle technique_scores T1098 Account Manipulation
Comments
Chronicle is able to trigger an alert to ensure multi-factor authentication is enabled for all non-service and administrator accounts. This technique was scored as minimal based on low or uncertain detection coverage factor. https://github.com/chronicle/detection-rules/blob/main/gcp_cloudaudit/gcp_multifactor_authentication.yaral
References
advancedprotectionprogram AdvancedProtectionProgram technique_scores T1098 Account Manipulation
Comments
Advanced Protection Program enables the use of a security key for multi-factor authentication. This provides significant protection against unauthorized users from accessing and manipulating accounts to retain access.
References
virtual_private_cloud Virtual Private Cloud technique_scores T1098 Account Manipulation
Comments
VPC further segments the environment by providing configurable granular access controls which help limit user communications to critical systems.
References
policy_intelligence Policy Intelligence technique_scores T1098 Account Manipulation
Comments
Utilization and enforcement of MFA for user accounts to ensure that IAM policies are implemented properly shall mitigate adversaries so that they may not gain access to user accounts. Enforce the principle of least privilege by ensuring that principals have only the permissions that they actually need.
References
identity_and_access_management Identity and Access Management technique_scores T1098 Account Manipulation
Comments
Privileged roles and permissions can be granted to entire groups of users by default, and admins can control unwanted access by utilizing machine learning to recommend smart access control permissions within an organization. This control can help mitigate adversaries from gaining access to unwanted account.
References

ATT&CK Subtechniques

Technique ID Technique Name Number of Mappings
T1098.003 Add Office 365 Global Administrator Role 1
T1098.001 Additional Cloud Credentials 9
T1098.002 Exchange Email Delegate Permissions 1
T1098.004 SSH Authorized Keys 1