An adversary may attempt to modify a cloud account's compute service infrastructure to evade defenses. A modification to the compute service infrastructure can include the creation, deletion, or modification of one or more components such as compute instances, virtual machines, and snapshots.
Permissions gained from the modification of infrastructure components may bypass restrictions that prevent access to existing infrastructure. Modifying infrastructure components may also allow an adversary to evade detection and remove evidence of their presence.(Citation: Mandiant M-Trends 2020)
View in MITRE ATT&CK®| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PR.AA-05.01 | Access privilege limitation | Mitigates | T1578 | Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure |
Comments
This diagnostic statement describes the implementation of least privilege principle, which can be applied to limiting permissions through role-based access controls, file and directory permissions, and the execution of systems and services. An adversary must already have high-level, admin or root level access on a local system to make full use of these ATT&CK techniques. Restrict users and accounts to the least privileges they require can help mitigate these techniques.
References
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| PR.AA-01.02 | Physical and logical access | Mitigates | T1578 | Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure |
Comments
This diagnostic statement describes how the organization ensures users are identified and authenticated before accessing systems, applications, and hardware, with logical access controls permitting access only to authorized individuals with legitimate business needs. Logical access controls in relation to systems can refer to the use of MFA, user account management, and other role-based access control mechanisms to enforce policies for authentication and authorization of user accounts.
References
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| PR.PS-01.09 | Virtualized end point protection | Mitigates | T1578 | Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure |
Comments
The diagnostic statement highlights several mitigating controls that organizations can implement to protect endpoint systems using virtualization technologies. An adversary may attempt to modify a cloud account's compute service infrastructure to evade defenses. A modification to the compute service infrastructure can include the creation, deletion, or modification of one or more components such as compute instances, virtual machines, and snapshots. To aid in mitigating this technique, consider limiting user permissions to ensure only the expected users have the capability to modify cloud compute infrastructure components.
References
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| PR.AA-01.01 | Identity and credential management | Mitigates | T1578 | Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure |
Comments
This diagnostic statement protects against Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| action.hacking.variety.Abuse of functionality | Abuse of functionality. | related-to | T1578 | Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure | |
| action.hacking.vector.Hypervisor | Hypervisor break-out attack | related-to | T1578 | Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure | |
| action.hacking.vector.Inter-tenant | Penetration of another VM or web site on shared device or infrastructure | related-to | T1578 | Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure |
| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| microsoft_sentinel | Microsoft Sentinel | technique_scores | T1578 | Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure |
Comments
The Microsoft Sentinel Hunting "Azure Resources assigned Public IP addresses" query detect suspicious IP address changes.
References
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| azure_role_based_access_control | Azure Role-Based Access Control | technique_scores | T1578 | Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure |
Comments
This control provides partial protection for all of its sub-techniques and therefore its coverage score factor is Partial, resulting in a Partial score.
References
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| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| google_secops | Google Security Operations | technique_scores | T1578 | Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure |
Comments
Google Security Ops is able to trigger an alert based on changes to the infrastructure (e.g., VPC network changes).
This technique was scored as minimal based on low or uncertain detection coverage factor.
https://github.com/chronicle/detection-rules/blob/783e0e5947774785db1c55041b70176deeca6f46/gcp_cloudaudit/gcp_vpc_network_changes.yaral
References
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| policy_intelligence | Policy Intelligence | technique_scores | T1578 | Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure |
Comments
Policy Intelligence role recommendations generated by IAM Recommender help admins remove unwanted access to GCP resources by using machine learning to make smart access control recommendations. With Recommender, security teams can automatically detect overly permissive access and rightsize them based on similar users in the organization and their access patterns. This control may mitigate adversaries that try to gain access to permissions from modifying infrastructure components.
References
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| security_command_center | Security Command Center | technique_scores | T1578 | Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure |
Comments
SCC detect changes to the cloud infrastructure and resources which could indicate malicious behavior (e.g., delete instances, create snapshot, revert cloud instance). This security solution protects against modifications potentially used to remove evidence and evade defenses. Because of the near-real time temporal factor and high detection coverage this control was graded as significant.
References
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| Technique ID | Technique Name | Number of Mappings |
|---|---|---|
| T1578.004 | Revert Cloud Instance | 3 |
| T1578.003 | Delete Cloud Instance | 15 |
| T1578.005 | Modify Cloud Compute Configurations | 15 |
| T1578.002 | Create Cloud Instance | 15 |
| T1578.001 | Create Snapshot | 15 |