Adversaries may match or approximate the names of legitimate accounts to make newly created ones appear benign. This will typically occur during Create Account, although accounts may also be renamed at a later date. This may also coincide with Account Access Removal if the actor first deletes an account before re-creating one with the same name.(Citation: Huntress MOVEit 2023)
Often, adversaries will attempt to masquerade as service accounts, such as those associated with legitimate software, data backups, or container cluster management.(Citation: Elastic CUBA Ransomware 2022)(Citation: Aquasec Kubernetes Attack 2023) They may also give accounts generic, trustworthy names, such as “admin”, “help”, or “root.”(Citation: Invictus IR Cloud Ransomware 2024) Sometimes adversaries may model account names off of those already existing in the system, as a follow-on behavior to Account Discovery.
Note that this is distinct from Impersonation, which describes impersonating specific trusted individuals or organizations, rather than user or service account names.
View in MITRE ATT&CK®| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PR.AA-01.01 | Identity and credential management | Mitigates | T1036.010 | Masquerade Account Name |
Comments
This diagnostic statement protects against Masquerade Account Name through the use of hardened access control policies, secure defaults, password complexity requirements, multifactor authentication requirements, and removal of terminated accounts.
References
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| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CM-06 | Configuration Settings | mitigates | T1036.010 | Masquerade Account Name | |
| IA-02 | Identification and Authentication (Organizational Users) | mitigates | T1036.010 | Masquerade Account Name | |
| SI-04 | System Monitoring | mitigates | T1036.010 | Masquerade Account Name | |
| AC-02 | Account Management | mitigates | T1036.010 | Masquerade Account Name | |
| AC-03 | Access Enforcement | mitigates | T1036.010 | Masquerade Account Name |
| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| action.social.variety.Evade Defenses | Modification of the action (rather than the system, as in 'Disable controls') to avoid detection. | related-to | T1036.010 | Masquerade Account Name |
| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EOP-AMW-E3 | Antimalware | Technique Scores | T1036.010 | Masquerade Account Name |
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
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| DEF-AAPH-E5 | Advanced Anti-Phishing | Technique Scores | T1036.010 | Masquerade Account Name |
Comments
Anti-Phishing measures in Microsoft 365 Defender include settings explicitly designed to protect against fake accounts masquerading as legitimate accounts, such as if the names or email addresses are too close to the real one.
References
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