T1071 Application Layer Protocol Mappings

GuardDuty flags events matching the following finding types that relate to adversaries attempting to communicate using application layer protocols to avoid detection. UnauthorizedAccess:EC2/MaliciousIPCaller.Custom Trojan:EC2/DropPoint!DNS Trojan:EC2/DropPoint Backdoor:EC2/C&CActivity.B!DNS Trojan:EC2/BlackholeTraffic Trojan:EC2/BlackholeTraffic!DNS

The following AWS IoT Device Defender cloud-side detection metrics can detect indicators that an adversary may be leveraging compromised AWS IoT devices and application layer protocols - especially the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol - to communicate for command and control purposes: "Source IP" ("aws:source-ip-address") values outside of expected IP address ranges may suggest that a device has been stolen. "Messages sent" ("aws:num-messages-sent"), "Messages received" ("aws:num-messages-received"), and "Message size" ("aws:message-byte-size") values outside of expected norms may indicate that devices are sending and/or receiving non-standard traffic, which may include command and control traffic. The following AWS IoT Device Defender device-side detection metrics can detect indicators that an adversary may be leveraging compromised AWS IoT devices and application layer protocols - especially the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol - to communicate for command and control purposes: "Destination IPs" ("aws:destination-ip-addresses") outside of expected IP address ranges may suggest that a device is communicating with unexpected parties. "Bytes in" ("aws:all-bytes-in"), "Bytes out" ("aws:all-bytes-out"), "Packets in" ("aws:all-packets-in"), and "Packets out" ("aws:all-packets-out") values outside of expected norms may indicate that the device is sending and/or receiving non-standard traffic, which may include command and control traffic. "Listening TCP ports" ("aws:listening-tcp-ports"), "Listening TCP port count" ("aws:num-listening-tcp-ports"), "Established TCP connections count" ("aws:num-established-tcp-connections"), "Listening UDP ports" ("aws:listening-udp-ports"), and "Listening UDP port count" ("aws:num-listening-udp-ports") values outside of expected norms may indicate that devices are communicating via unexpected ports/protocols that may suggest application layer command and control traffic. Coverage factor is minimal, since these metrics are limited to IoT device communication and none of this technique's sub-techniques are addressed, resulting in an overall score of Minimal.

AWS WAF protects against this by inspecting incoming requests and blocking malicious traffic. AWS WAF uses the following rule sets to provide this protection. AWSManagedRulesCommonRuleSet AWSManagedRulesAdminProtectionRuleSet AWSManagedRulesKnownBadInputsRuleSet AWSManagedRulesSQLiRuleSet AWSManagedRulesLinuxRuleSet AWSManagedRulesUnixRuleSet AWSManagedRulesWindowsRuleSet AWSManagedRulesPHPRuleSet AWSManagedRulesWordPressRuleSet AWSManagedRulesBotControlRuleSet This is scored as Minimal because the rule sets only protect against a subset of the sub-techniques (1 of 4).

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 block malicious or unwanted traffic leveraging application layer protocols. Given this supports all sub-techniques, the mapping is given a score of Significant.