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T1021 Remote Services Mappings

Adversaries may use Valid Accounts to log into a service specifically designed to accept remote connections, such as telnet, SSH, and VNC. The adversary may then perform actions as the logged-on user.

In an enterprise environment, servers and workstations can be organized into domains. Domains provide centralized identity management, allowing users to login using one set of credentials across the entire network. If an adversary is able to obtain a set of valid domain credentials, they could login to many different machines using remote access protocols such as secure shell (SSH) or remote desktop protocol (RDP).(Citation: SSH Secure Shell)(Citation: TechNet Remote Desktop Services)

View in MITRE ATT&CK®

NIST 800-53 Mappings

Capability ID Capability Description Mapping Type ATT&CK ID ATT&CK Name Notes
AC-17 Remote Access Protects T1021 Remote Services
AC-2 Account Management Protects T1021 Remote Services
AC-20 Use of External Systems Protects T1021 Remote Services
AC-3 Access Enforcement Protects T1021 Remote Services
AC-5 Separation of Duties Protects T1021 Remote Services
AC-6 Least Privilege Protects T1021 Remote Services
AC-7 Unsuccessful Logon Attempts Protects T1021 Remote Services
CM-5 Access Restrictions for Change Protects T1021 Remote Services
CM-6 Configuration Settings Protects T1021 Remote Services
IA-2 Identification and Authentication (organizational Users) Protects T1021 Remote Services
IA-5 Authenticator Management Protects T1021 Remote Services
SI-4 System Monitoring Protects T1021 Remote Services

VERIS Mappings

Capability ID Capability Description Mapping Type ATT&CK ID ATT&CK Name Notes
action.hacking.variety.Use of stolen creds Use of stolen authentication credentials (including credential stuffing) related-to T1021 Remote Services
action.malware.vector.Network propagation Network propagation related-to T1021 Remote Services

AWS Mappings

Capability ID Capability Description Mapping Type ATT&CK ID ATT&CK Name Notes
amazon_inspector Amazon Inspector technique_scores T1021 Remote Services
Comments
The Amazon Inspector Best Practices assessment package can detect a security control setting related to remote service access on Linux endpoints. Specifically, "Disable root login over SSH". This information can be used identify insecure configurations and harden the endpoints. Amazon Inspector does not directly protect against adversaries accessing remote services. Given Amazon Inspector can only assess this security control on Linux platforms (although it also supports Windows), it only restricts access to remote services for one user account, and only supports one sub-technique, the coverage score is Minimal leading to an overall Minimal score.
References
  1. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/inspector/latest/userguide/inspector_introduction.html
amazon_virtual_private_cloud Amazon Virtual Private Cloud technique_scores T1021 Remote Services
Comments
VPC security groups and network access control lists (NACLs) can provide partial protection for all of its sub-techniques and procedure examples resulting in an overall score of Partial.
References
  1. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/security.html
aws_network_firewall AWS Network Firewall technique_scores T1021 Remote Services
Comments
AWS Network Firewall has the ability to pass, drop, or alert on traffic based on the network protocol as well as perform deep packet inspection on the payload. This functionality can be used to only allow remote services from trusted hosts (i.e., only allow remote access traffic from certain hosts). This mapping is given a score of Partial because even though it can restrict remote services traffic from untrusted hosts for most of the sub-techniques (5 of 6), it cannot protect against an adversary using a trusted host that is permitted to use remote services as part of an attack.
References
  1. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/network-firewall/latest/developerguide/what-is-aws-network-firewall.html

ATT&CK Subtechniques

Technique ID Technique Name Number of Mappings
T1021.003 Distributed Component Object Model 22
T1021.001 Remote Desktop Protocol 28
T1021.002 SMB/Windows Admin Shares 20
T1021.004 SSH 20
T1021.005 VNC 27
T1021.006 Windows Remote Management 20