- Tactics
- Execution
- Platforms
- ESXi
- Reference
- attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1059.012
Description
Adversaries may abuse hypervisor command line interpreters (CLIs) to execute malicious commands. Hypervisor CLIs typically enable a wide variety of functionality for managing both the hypervisor itself and the guest virtual machines it hosts.
For example, on ESXi systems, tools such as esxcli and vim-cmd allow administrators to configure firewall rules and log forwarding on the hypervisor, list virtual machines, start and stop virtual machines, and more.(Citation: Broadcom ESXCLI Reference)(Citation: Crowdstrike Hypervisor Jackpotting Pt 2 2021)(Citation: LOLESXi) Adversaries may be able to leverage these tools in order to support further actions, such as File and Directory Discovery or Data Encrypted for Impact.
How GTK Cyber trains on this
GTK Cyber's Threat Hunting with Data Science course teaches you to build machine-learning detections for techniques like this across the MITRE ATT&CK framework, including the Execution tactic this technique falls under. Practitioner-led, focused on real detections, not memorizing technique IDs.
Related techniques
- T1047 — Windows Management Instrumentation
- T1053 — Scheduled Task/Job
- T1059 — Command and Scripting Interpreter
- T1072 — Software Deployment Tools
- T1106 — Native API
- T1127 — Trusted Developer Utilities Proxy Execution
- T1129 — Shared Modules
- T1197 — BITS Jobs
- T1203 — Exploitation for Client Execution
- T1204 — User Execution
- T1559 — Inter-Process Communication
- T1569 — System Services