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ATT&CK Technique

Install Root Certificate

T1130 · stealth
▤ Generate a SIEM detection for T1130 ◈ Deployable detections for T1130 ⚠ CVEs mapped to T1130 ♛ Hunt package for T1130

Root certificates are used in public key cryptography to identify a root certificate authority (CA). When a root certificate is installed, the system or application will trust certificates in the root's chain of trust that have been signed by the root certificate. Certificates are commonly used for establishing secure TLS/SSL communications within a web browser.

When a user attempts to browse a website that presents a certificate that is not trusted an error message will be displayed to warn the user of the security risk. Depending on the security settings, the browser may not allow the user to establish a connection to the website. Installation of a root certificate on a compromised system would give an adversary a way to degrade the security of that system.

Adversaries have used this technique to avoid security warnings prompting users when compromised systems connect over HTTPS to adversary controlled web servers that spoof legitimate websites in order to collect login credentials. Atypical root certificates have also been pre-installed on systems by the manufacturer or in the software supply chain and were used in conjunction with malware/adware to provide a man-in-the-middle capability for intercepting information transmitted over secure TLS/SSL communications. Root certificates (and their associated chains) can also be cloned and reinstalled.

Cloned certificate chains will carry many of the same metadata characteristics of the source and can be used to sign malicious code that may then bypass signature validation tools (ex: Sysinternals, antivirus, etc.) used to block execution and/or uncover artifacts of Persistence. In macOS, the Ay MaMi malware uses /usr/bin/security add-trusted-cert -d -r trustRoot -k /Library/Keychains/System.keychain /path/to/malicious/cert to install a malicious certificate as a trusted root certificate into the system keychain.

LinuxWindowsmacOS
▸ How to use this page - the detection-engineering loop
Attackers have goals (tactics - “get credentials”, “move laterally”) and techniques are the concrete methods they use to reach them. This page is one method - T1130 - broken into everything you need to catch it.
The loop this page is built for (this is the job):
  1. Understand the behaviour - read the description and the Atomic Tests to see exactly what the attacker does on a host or network.
  2. Find the telemetry - what data source would reveal it (process creation, registry, network flow, auth logs). Detection Coverage shows which surfaces already have a rule and which are blind.
  3. Get or write the detection - adapt ready logic (CAR Analytics, SIEM Detections, Falco, or Sigma via Generate a SIEM detection), or author your own.
  4. Test it - run an Atomic Test in a lab and confirm your rule actually fires. A detection you have not tested is a hope, not coverage.
  5. Deploy and tune - push it, then watch for false positives and adjust.
What each panel is for:
Atomic Testssafely reproduce the technique in a lab to validate that a detection fires. Detection Coveragewhich detection surfaces have a rule for this technique; none is a blind spot to close, or simply not applicable (YARA matches files, not network behaviour). CAR / SIEM / Falcoready-made detection logic (Splunk SPL, Elastic EQL, Sentinel KQL, Falco) you adapt to your own SIEM. Mitigationsreduce exposure so the technique is harder to use at all - prevent, not just detect. Actors / Attributionwho actually uses this, so you prioritise by your own threat model. Attack Path / LOTLwhat attackers do before and after this step, and the legitimate tools they abuse to do it.
Where this fits: you usually arrive here from a CVE (“which techniques does it enable”) and leave with a tested detection deployed. The buttons above jump straight to building one, the deployable rules, the CVEs that use T1130, and a hunt package.
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Detection Coverage

0/9 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) none
Runtime / container (Falco) none
File / malware (YARA) none
Network (Suricata/Snort) none
Vuln scan (Nuclei) none
SIEM (Splunk ESCU) none
SIEM (Elastic) none
SIEM (Azure Sentinel) none
External lookups - second-class, for what we don’t hold ourselves
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