T1564 Hide Artifacts Mappings

Adversaries may attempt to hide artifacts associated with their behaviors to evade detection. Operating systems may have features to hide various artifacts, such as important system files and administrative task execution, to avoid disrupting user work environments and prevent users from changing files or features on the system. Adversaries may abuse these features to hide artifacts such as files, directories, user accounts, or other system activity to evade detection.(Citation: Sofacy Komplex Trojan)(Citation: Cybereason OSX Pirrit)(Citation: MalwareBytes ADS July 2015)

Adversaries may also attempt to hide artifacts associated with malicious behavior by creating computing regions that are isolated from common security instrumentation, such as through the use of virtualization technology.(Citation: Sophos Ragnar May 2020)

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M365 Mappings

Capability ID Capability Description Mapping Type ATT&CK ID ATT&CK Name Notes
PUR-AS-E5 Audit Solutions Technique Scores T1564 Hide Artifacts
Comments
Microsoft Purview auditing solutions provide an integrated solution to help organizations effectively respond to security events, forensic investigations, internal investigations, and compliance obligations. Thousands of user and admin operations performed in dozens of Microsoft 365 services and solutions are captured, recorded, and retained in your organization's unified audit log. Audit records for these events are searchable by security ops, IT admins, insider risk teams, and compliance and legal investigators in your organization. This capability provides visibility into the activities performed across your Microsoft 365 organization. Microsoft's Audit Solutions detects Hide Artifacts attacks due to the File and Page Audit Log activities which monitors for newly constructed files, for contextual data about files, and for changes made to files. License Requirements: Microsoft 365 E3 and E5
References
EOP-MFR-E3 Mail Flow Rules Technique Scores T1564 Hide Artifacts
Comments
In Exchange Online Protection (EOP) organizations without Exchange Online mailboxes can use Exchange Mail Flow Rules (also known as transport rules) to look for specific conditions on messages that pass through your organization and take action on them. Mail Flow Rules take action on messages while they are in transit, not after the message is delivered to the mailbox. Mail flow rules contain a richer set of conditions, exceptions, and actions, which provides you with the flexibility to implement many types of messaging policies. Mail Flow Rules detects Hide Artifacts attacks due to the conditions property which examines message header fields that may attempt to hide artifacts associated with their behaviors to evade detection. License Requirements: Microsoft Exchange Online Protection, Defender for Office 365 plan 1 and plan 2, Microsoft XDR
References
DEF-SecScore-E3 Secure Score Technique Scores T1564 Hide Artifacts
Comments
Microsoft Secure Score is a measurement of an organization's security posture, with a higher number indicating more recommended actions taken. It can be found at Microsoft Secure Score in the Microsoft Defender portal. Following the Secure Score recommendations can protect your organization from threats. From a centralized dashboard in the Microsoft Defender portal, organizations can monitor and work on the security of their Microsoft 365 identities, apps, and devices. Your score is updated in real time to reflect the information presented in the visualizations and recommended action pages. Secure Score also syncs daily to receive system data about your achieved points for each action. To help you find the information you need more quickly, Microsoft recommended actions are organized into groups: Identity (Microsoft Entra accounts & roles) Device (Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, known as Microsoft Secure Score for Devices) Apps (email and cloud apps, including Office 365 and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps) Data (through Microsoft Information Protection)
References
DEF-IR-E5 Incident Response Technique Scores T1564 Hide Artifacts
Comments
An incident in Microsoft Defender XDR is a collection of correlated alerts and associated data that make up the story of an attack. Microsoft 365 services and apps create alerts when they detect a suspicious or malicious event or activity. Individual alerts provide valuable clues about a completed or ongoing attack. Attacks typically employ various techniques against different types of entities, such as devices, users, and mailboxes. The result of this is multiple alerts for multiple entities in your tenant. Piecing the individual alerts together to gain insight into an attack can be challenging and time-consuming, Microsoft Defender XDR automatically aggregates the alerts and their associated information into an incident. A typical Incident Response workflow in Microsoft Defender XDR begins with a triage action, next is the investigate action, and finally is the response action. Microsoft 365 Defender Incident Response responds to Hide Artifact attacks due to Incident Response monitoring for newly constructed user accounts, contextual data about accounts, contextual data about files, and newly constructed files. License Requirements: Microsoft Defender XDR
References

ATT&CK Subtechniques

Technique ID Technique Name Number of Mappings
T1564.008 Email Hiding Rules 12
T1564.002 Hidden Users 3
T1564.009 Resource Forking 13
T1564.006 Run Virtual Instance 7
T1564.007 VBA Stomping 4
T1564.003 Hidden Window 3
T1564.004 NTFS File Attributes 6
T1564.010 Process Argument Spoofing 3