- Tactics
- Command and Control
- Platforms
- ESXi, Linux, macOS, Network Devices, Windows
- Reference
- attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1071.001
Description
Adversaries may communicate using application layer protocols associated with web traffic to avoid detection/network filtering by blending in with existing traffic. Commands to the remote system, and often the results of those commands, will be embedded within the protocol traffic between the client and server.
Protocols such as HTTP/S(Citation: CrowdStrike Putter Panda) and WebSocket(Citation: Brazking-Websockets) that carry web traffic may be very common in environments. HTTP/S packets have many fields and headers in which data can be concealed. An adversary may abuse these protocols to communicate with systems under their control within a victim network while also mimicking normal, expected traffic.
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 Command and Control tactic this technique falls under. Practitioner-led, focused on real detections, not memorizing technique IDs.
Related techniques
- T1001 — Data Obfuscation
- T1008 — Fallback Channels
- T1071 — Application Layer Protocol
- T1090 — Proxy
- T1092 — Communication Through Removable Media
- T1095 — Non-Application Layer Protocol
- T1102 — Web Service
- T1104 — Multi-Stage Channels
- T1105 — Ingress Tool Transfer
- T1132 — Data Encoding
- T1205 — Traffic Signaling
- T1219 — Remote Access Tools