T1036 Masquerading Mappings

Adversaries may attempt to manipulate features of their artifacts to make them appear legitimate or benign to users and/or security tools. Masquerading occurs when the name or location of an object, legitimate or malicious, is manipulated or abused for the sake of evading defenses and observation. This may include manipulating file metadata, tricking users into misidentifying the file type, and giving legitimate task or service names.

Renaming abusable system utilities to evade security monitoring is also a form of Masquerading.(Citation: LOLBAS Main Site) Masquerading may also include the use of Proxy or VPNs to disguise IP addresses, which can allow adversaries to blend in with normal network traffic and bypass conditional access policies or anti-abuse protections.

View in MITRE ATT&CK®

Mappings

Capability ID Capability Description Mapping Type ATT&CK ID ATT&CK Name Notes
IA-09 Service Identification and Authentication Protects T1036 Masquerading
AC-02 Account Management Protects T1036 Masquerading
AC-03 Access Enforcement Protects T1036 Masquerading
AC-06 Least Privilege Protects T1036 Masquerading
CA-07 Continuous Monitoring Protects T1036 Masquerading
CM-02 Baseline Configuration Protects T1036 Masquerading
CM-06 Configuration Settings Protects T1036 Masquerading
CM-07 Least Functionality Protects T1036 Masquerading
IA-09 Service Identification and Authentication Protects T1036 Masquerading
SI-10 Information Input Validation Protects T1036 Masquerading
SI-03 Malicious Code Protection Protects T1036 Masquerading
SI-04 System Monitoring Protects T1036 Masquerading
SI-07 Software, Firmware, and Information Integrity Protects T1036 Masquerading
EOP-Antimalware-E3 Antimalware Technique Scores T1036 Masquerading
Comments
In Microsoft 365 organizations with mailboxes in Exchange Online or standalone Exchange Online Protection (EOP) organizations without Exchange Online mailboxes, email messages are automatically protected against malware by EOP. Some of the major categories of malware are: Viruses that infect other programs and data, and spread through your computer or network looking for programs to infect. Spyware that gathers your personal information, such as sign-in information and personal data, and sends it back to its author. Ransomware that encrypts your data and demands payment to decrypt it. Anti-malware software doesn't help you decrypt encrypted files, but it can detect the malware payload that's associated with the ransomware. EOP offers multi-layered malware protection that's designed to catch all known malware in Windows, Linux, and Mac that travels into or out of your organization. The following options help provide anti-malware protection: Layered defenses against malware: Multiple anti-malware scan engines help protect against both known and unknown threats. These engines include powerful heuristic detection to provide protection even during the early stages of a malware outbreak. This multi-engine approach has been shown to provide significantly more protection than using just one anti-malware engine. Real-time threat response: During some outbreaks, the anti-malware team might have enough information about a virus or other form of malware to write sophisticated policy rules that detect the threat, even before a definition is available from any of the scan engines used by the service. These rules are published to the global network every 2 hours to provide your organization with an extra layer of protection against attacks. Fast anti-malware definition deployment: The anti-malware team maintains close relationships with partners who develop anti-malware engines. As a result, the service can receive and integrate malware definitions and patches before they're publicly released. Our connection with these partners often allows us to develop our own remedies as well. The service checks for updated definitions for all anti-malware engines every hour. License Requirements: M365 E3 or Microsoft Defender for Office plan 1.
References
M365-DEF-ZAP-E3 Zero Hour Auto Purge Technique Scores T1036 Masquerading
Comments
Zero-hour auto purge (ZAP) is a protection feature in Exchange Online Protection (EOP) that retroactively detects and neutralizes malicious phishing, spam, or malware messages that have already been delivered to Exchange Online mailboxes. With the E5 licensing or Office Plan 2, ZAP is also able to retroactively detect existing malicious chat messages in Microsoft Teams that are identified as malware or high confidence phishing. License Requirements: ZAP for Defender O365 is included with M365's E3 and requires E5 when leveraging ZAP for Teams security.
References
DEF-Quarantine-E3 Quarantine Policies Technique Scores T1036 Masquerading
Comments
In Exchange Online Protection (EOP) and Microsoft Defender for Office 365, quarantine policies allow admins to define the user experience for quarantined messages. Traditionally, users have been allowed or denied levels of interactivity with quarantine messages based on why the message was quarantined. For example, users can view and release messages that were quarantined as spam or bulk, but they can't view or release messages that were quarantined as high confidence phishing or malware. The following M365 features are supported by quarantine policies, “Response” to Anti-malware and Anti-Phishing tagged items. Files that are quarantined as malware by Safe Attachments for SharePoint, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams. License requirements: M365 E3 (or Defender for Office plan 1)
References

ATT&CK Subtechniques

Technique ID Technique Name Number of Mappings
T1036.007 Double File Extension 6
T1036.005 Match Legitimate Name or Location 12
T1036.008 Masquerade File Type 5
T1036.001 Invalid Code Signature 5
T1036.003 Rename System Utilities 8