- Tactics
- Discovery
- Platforms
- IaaS, Linux, macOS, Windows
- Reference
- attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1614
Description
Adversaries may gather information in an attempt to calculate the geographical location of a victim host. Adversaries may use the information from System Location Discovery during automated discovery to shape follow-on behaviors, including whether or not the adversary fully infects the target and/or attempts specific actions.
Adversaries may attempt to infer the location of a system using various system checks, such as time zone, keyboard layout, and/or language settings.(Citation: FBI Ragnar Locker 2020)(Citation: Sophos Geolocation 2016)(Citation: Bleepingcomputer RAT malware 2020) Windows API functions such as GetLocaleInfoW can also be used to determine the locale of the host.(Citation: FBI Ragnar Locker 2020) In cloud environments, an instance’s availability zone may also be discovered by accessing the instance metadata service from the instance.(Citation: AWS Instance Identity Documents)(Citation: Microsoft Azure Instance Metadata 2021)
Adversaries may also attempt to infer the location of a victim host using IP addressing, such as via online geolocation IP-lookup services.(Citation: Securelist Trasparent Tribe 2020)(Citation: Sophos Geolocation 2016)
Sub-techniques
How GTK Cyber trains on this
GTK Cyber's hands-on training programs cover detection engineering across the MITRE ATT&CK framework, including the Discovery tactic this technique falls under. Our practitioner-led courses focus on building real detections, not just memorizing technique IDs.
Related techniques
- T1007 — System Service Discovery
- T1010 — Application Window Discovery
- T1012 — Query Registry
- T1016 — System Network Configuration Discovery
- T1018 — Remote System Discovery
- T1033 — System Owner/User Discovery
- T1040 — Network Sniffing
- T1046 — Network Service Discovery
- T1049 — System Network Connections Discovery
- T1057 — Process Discovery
- T1069 — Permission Groups Discovery
- T1082 — System Information Discovery