T1098.002 Additional Email Delegate Permissions Mappings

Adversaries may grant additional permission levels to maintain persistent access to an adversary-controlled email account.

For example, the <code>Add-MailboxPermission</code> PowerShell cmdlet, available in on-premises Exchange and in the cloud-based service Office 365, adds permissions to a mailbox.(Citation: Microsoft - Add-MailboxPermission)(Citation: FireEye APT35 2018)(Citation: Crowdstrike Hiding in Plain Sight 2018) In Google Workspace, delegation can be enabled via the Google Admin console and users can delegate accounts via their Gmail settings.(Citation: Gmail Delegation)(Citation: Google Ensuring Your Information is Safe)

Adversaries may also assign mailbox folder permissions through individual folder permissions or roles. In Office 365 environments, adversaries may assign the Default or Anonymous user permissions or roles to the Top of Information Store (root), Inbox, or other mailbox folders. By assigning one or both user permissions to a folder, the adversary can utilize any other account in the tenant to maintain persistence to the target user’s mail folders.(Citation: Remediation and Hardening Strategies for Microsoft 365 to Defend Against UNC2452)

This may be used in persistent threat incidents as well as BEC (Business Email Compromise) incidents where an adversary can add Additional Cloud Roles to the accounts they wish to compromise. This may further enable use of additional techniques for gaining access to systems. For example, compromised business accounts are often used to send messages to other accounts in the network of the target business while creating inbox rules (ex: Internal Spearphishing), so the messages evade spam/phishing detection mechanisms.(Citation: Bienstock, D. - Defending O365 - 2019)

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Mappings

Capability ID Capability Description Mapping Type ATT&CK ID ATT&CK Name
AC-02 Account Management Protects T1098.002 Additional Email Delegate Permissions
AC-03 Access Enforcement Protects T1098.002 Additional Email Delegate Permissions
AC-05 Separation of Duties Protects T1098.002 Additional Email Delegate Permissions
AC-06 Least Privilege Protects T1098.002 Additional Email Delegate Permissions
CM-05 Access Restrictions for Change Protects T1098.002 Additional Email Delegate Permissions
CM-06 Configuration Settings Protects T1098.002 Additional Email Delegate Permissions
IA-02 Identification and Authentication (organizational Users) Protects T1098.002 Additional Email Delegate Permissions
IA-05 Authenticator Management Protects T1098.002 Additional Email Delegate Permissions
SI-04 System Monitoring Protects T1098.002 Additional Email Delegate Permissions
SI-07 Software, Firmware, and Information Integrity Protects T1098.002 Additional Email Delegate Permissions
AC-20 Use of External Systems Protects T1098.002 Additional Email Delegate Permissions
ME-MFA-E3 Multi-factor Authentication Technique Scores T1098.002 Additional Email Delegate Permissions
DEF-IR-E5 Incident Response Technique Scores T1098.002 Additional Email Delegate Permissions