T1036.004 · threatengine.sh

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ATT&CK Technique

Masquerade Task or Service

T1036.004 · stealth

Adversaries may attempt to manipulate the name of a task or service to make it appear legitimate or benign. Tasks/services executed by the Task Scheduler or systemd will typically be given a name and/or description. Windows services will have a service name as well as a display name.

Many benign tasks and services exist that have commonly associated names. Adversaries may give tasks or services names that are similar or identical to those of legitimate ones. Tasks or services contain other fields, such as a description, that adversaries may attempt to make appear legitimate.

LinuxmacOSWindows

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Actors Using This

russia_speaking_cybercrimeAkira
russia_speaking_cybercrimeALPHV / BlackCat
chinaAoqin Dragon
chinaAPT10
chinaAPT17
russiaAPT29
chinaAPT3
chinaAPT40
chinaAPT41
private_mercenaryBahamut
indiaBitter
russia_speaking_cybercrimeBlack Basta
chinaBlackTech
russiaCadet Blizzard

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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.

initial-access same

T1456 · Drive-By Compromise ×3.17

execution same

T1574.011 · Services Registry Permissions Weakness ×3.09

privilege-escalation same

T1546.003 · Windows Management Instrumentation Event Subscription ×3.17

credential-access same

T1212 · Exploitation for Credential Access ×2.99

discovery same

T1426 · System Information Discovery ×3.17 T1680 · Local Storage Discovery ×3.17 T1007 · System Service Discovery ×3.17 T1124 · System Time Discovery ×3.17

collection same

T1560.003 · Archive via Custom Method ×3.17

command-and-control same

T1437 · Application Layer Protocol ×3.17 T1437.001 · Web Protocols ×3.17 T1104 · Multi-Stage Channels ×3.17 T1132.001 · Standard Encoding ×2.90

other same

T1218.010 · Regsvr32 ×2.96 T1564.003 · Hidden Window ×2.90

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Atomic Tests

Executable Atomic Red Team test cases for exercising this technique in a lab. Copy a command, run it on the listed platform, confirm your detections fire.

command_promptelevatedwindowsCreating W32Time similar named service using schtasks

Creating W32Time similar named service (win32times) using schtasks just like threat actor dubbed "Operation Wocao"

schtasks /create /ru system /sc daily /tr "cmd /c powershell.exe -ep bypass -file c:\T1036.004_NonExistingScript.ps1" /tn win32times /f
schtasks /query /tn win32times

command_promptelevatedwindowsCreating W32Time similar named service using sc

Creating W32Time similar named service (win32times) using sc just like threat actor dubbed "Operation Wocao"

sc create win32times binPath= "cmd /c start c:\T1036.004_NonExistingScript.ps1"
sc qc win32times

shlinuxlinux rename /proc/pid/comm using prctl

Runs a C program that calls prctl(PR_SET_NAME) to modify /proc/pid/comm value to "totally_legit". This will show up as process name in simple 'ps' listings.

#{exe_path} & ps
TMP=`ps | grep totally_legit`
if [ -z "${TMP}" ] ; then echo "renamed process NOT FOUND in process list" && exit 1; fi
exit 0

shelevatedlinuxHiding a malicious process with bind mounts

Creates a malicious process and hides it by bind mounting to the /proc filesystem of a benign process

eval '(while true; do :; done) &'
echo $! > /tmp/evil_pid.txt
random_kernel_pid=$(ps -ef | grep "\[.*\]" | awk '{print $2}' | shuf -n 1)
sudo mount -B /proc/$random_kernel_pid /proc/$(cat /tmp/evil_pid.txt)

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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) 1

Analytics (MITRE CAR) none

Runtime / container (Falco) none

File / malware (YARA) none

Network (Suricata/Snort) none

Vuln scan (Nuclei) none

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Comply & Defend

D3FEND1 defensive techniques

Intelligence Graph · click any node to traverse

CVETechnique ActorTool Family

drag to reposition · click any node to traverse · button top-right enlarges

External lookups - second-class, for what we don’t hold ourselves

MITRE ATT&CK Atomic Red Team car (MITRE)

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