- Tactics
- Command and Control
- Platforms
- ESXi, Linux, macOS, Windows
- Reference
- attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1568.003
Description
Adversaries may perform calculations on addresses returned in DNS results to determine which port and IP address to use for command and control, rather than relying on a predetermined port number or the actual returned IP address. A IP and/or port number calculation can be used to bypass egress filtering on a C2 channel.(Citation: Meyers Numbered Panda)
One implementation of DNS Calculation is to take the first three octets of an IP address in a DNS response and use those values to calculate the port for command and control traffic.(Citation: Meyers Numbered Panda)(Citation: Moran 2014)(Citation: Rapid7G20Espionage)
How GTK Cyber trains on this
GTK Cyber's hands-on training programs cover detection engineering across the MITRE ATT&CK framework, including the Command and Control tactic this technique falls under. Our practitioner-led courses focus on building real detections, not just 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