Adversaries may gather email addresses that can be used during targeting. Even if internal instances exist, organizations may have public-facing email infrastructure and addresses for employees.
Adversaries may easily gather email addresses, since they may be readily available and exposed via online or other accessible data sets (ex: Social Media or Search Victim-Owned Websites).(Citation: HackersArise Email)(Citation: CNET Leaks) Email addresses could also be enumerated via more active means (i.e. Active Scanning), such as probing and analyzing responses from authentication services that may reveal valid usernames in a system.(Citation: GrimBlog UsernameEnum) For example, adversaries may be able to enumerate email addresses in Office 365 environments by querying a variety of publicly available API endpoints, such as autodiscover and GetCredentialType.(Citation: GitHub Office 365 User Enumeration)(Citation: Azure Active Directory Reconnaisance)
Gathering this information may reveal opportunities for other forms of reconnaissance (ex: Search Open Websites/Domains or Phishing for Information), establishing operational resources (ex: Email Accounts), and/or initial access (ex: Phishing or Brute Force via External Remote Services).
View in MITRE ATT&CK®| Capability ID | Capability Description | Mapping Type | ATT&CK ID | ATT&CK Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| aws_network_firewall | AWS Network Firewall | technique_scores | T1589.002 | Email Addresses |
| aws_security_hub | AWS Security Hub | technique_scores | T1589.002 | Email Addresses |