- Tactics
- Impact
- Platforms
- SaaS
- Reference
- attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1496.004
Description
Adversaries may leverage compromised software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications to complete resource-intensive tasks, which may impact hosted service availability.
For example, adversaries may leverage email and messaging services, such as AWS Simple Email Service (SES), AWS Simple Notification Service (SNS), SendGrid, and Twilio, in order to send large quantities of spam / Phishing emails and SMS messages.(Citation: Invictus IR DangerDev 2024)(Citation: Permiso SES Abuse 2023)(Citation: SentinelLabs SNS Sender 2024) Alternatively, they may engage in LLMJacking by leveraging reverse proxies to hijack the power of cloud-hosted AI models.(Citation: Sysdig LLMJacking 2024)(Citation: Lacework LLMJacking 2024)
In some cases, adversaries may leverage services that the victim is already using. In others, particularly when the service is part of a larger cloud platform, they may first enable the service.(Citation: Sysdig LLMJacking 2024) Leveraging SaaS applications may cause the victim to incur significant financial costs, use up service quotas, and otherwise impact availability.
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 Impact tactic this technique falls under. Practitioner-led, focused on real detections, not memorizing technique IDs.
Related techniques
- T1485 — Data Destruction
- T1486 — Data Encrypted for Impact
- T1489 — Service Stop
- T1490 — Inhibit System Recovery
- T1491 — Defacement
- T1495 — Firmware Corruption
- T1496 — Resource Hijacking
- T1498 — Network Denial of Service
- T1499 — Endpoint Denial of Service
- T1529 — System Shutdown/Reboot
- T1531 — Account Access Removal
- T1561 — Disk Wipe