T1048.003 Exfiltration Over Unencrypted Non-C2 Protocol

This control provides for monitoring, encrypting, and restricting communications between environments. Configuring access controls, network firewalls, and IP-based restrictions for accessing cloud resources helps mitigate the risk of alternative exfiltration through cloud services. Also, network intrusion detection and prevention systems that use network signatures to identify traffic for specific adversary command and control infrastructure and malware can be used to mitigate exfiltration activity at the network level.

This control provides for appropriately segmented and segregated cloud environments. Configuring access controls and network firewalls to enforce restrictions on accessing cloud resources, while allowing only essential ports and traffic, helps mitigate the risk of alternative exfiltration through cloud services.

This control provides for the implementation of defense-in-depth network security controls for securing the cloud environment. Configuring access controls and network firewalls to enforce restrictions on accessing cloud resources, while allowing only essential ports and traffic, helps mitigate the risk of alternative exfiltration through cloud services. Also, network intrusion detection and prevention systems that use network signatures to identify traffic for specific adversary command and control infrastructure and malware can be used to mitigate exfiltration activity at the network level.

This control describes how the CSP and CSC must independently implement technical safeguards such as network segmentation, encryption (at rest and in transit), secure key management, and access controls to prevent unauthorized replication or use of production data in non-production environments. For this technique, adversaries may steal data by exfiltrating it over an un-encrypted protocol than that of the existing command and control channel. The data may also be sent to an alternate network location, such as a non-production environment to facilitate exfiltration. In terms of mitigation, follow best practices for network firewall configurations to allow only necessary ports and traffic to enter and exit the network. Also, consider using IP allowlisting along with user account management to ensure that data access is restricted not only to valid users but only from expected IP ranges to mitigate the use of stolen or replication to access data.

Adversaries may steal data by exfiltrating it over an un-encrypted network protocol other than that of the existing command and control channel. The data may also be sent to an alternate network location from the main command and control server. Adversaries may opt to obfuscate this data, without the use of encryption, within network protocols that are natively unencrypted (such as HTTP, FTP, or DNS). This may include custom or publicly available encoding/compression algorithms (such as base64) as well as embedding data within protocol headers and fields. This control requires implementing data leakage prevention (DLP) capapbiltities on endpoint devices. This includes classifying and inventorying data, protecting sensitive information in transit and at rest, monitoring for unauthorized disclosures, and responding to policy violations.

Adversaries may steal data by exfiltrating it over an un-encrypted network protocol other than that of the existing command and control channel. The data may also be sent to an alternate network location from the main command and control server. Adversaries may opt to obfuscate this data, without the use of encryption, within network protocols that are natively unencrypted (such as HTTP, FTP, or DNS). This may include custom or publicly available encoding/compression algorithms (such as base64) as well as embedding data within protocol headers and fields. This control enforces the classification of data by type, criticality, and sensitivity level to enable appropriate protections (including DLP measures), mitigating attacker techniques such as data exfiltration, unauthorized disclosure, and the misuse of unprotected sensitive information. Some DLP capabilities can detect and block sensitive data being sent over unencrypted protocols.