- Tactics
- Discovery
- Platforms
- ESXi, IaaS, Linux, macOS, Windows
- Reference
- attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1654
Description
Adversaries may enumerate system and service logs to find useful data. These logs may highlight various types of valuable insights for an adversary, such as user authentication records (Account Discovery), security or vulnerable software (Software Discovery), or hosts within a compromised network (Remote System Discovery).
Host binaries may be leveraged to collect system logs. Examples include using wevtutil.exe or PowerShell on Windows to access and/or export security event information.(Citation: WithSecure Lazarus-NoPineapple Threat Intel Report 2023)(Citation: Cadet Blizzard emerges as novel threat actor) In cloud environments, adversaries may leverage utilities such as the Azure VM Agent’s CollectGuestLogs.exe to collect security logs from cloud hosted infrastructure.(Citation: SIM Swapping and Abuse of the Microsoft Azure Serial Console)
Adversaries may also target centralized logging infrastructure such as SIEMs. Logs may also be bulk exported and sent to adversary-controlled infrastructure for offline analysis.
In addition to gaining a better understanding of the environment, adversaries may also monitor logs in real time to track incident response procedures. This may allow them to adjust their techniques in order to maintain persistence or evade defenses.(Citation: Permiso GUI-Vil 2023)
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 Discovery tactic this technique falls under. Practitioner-led, focused on real detections, not 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