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ATT&CK Technique

Email Addresses

T1589.002 · reconnaissance

Adversaries may gather email addresses that can be used during targeting. Even if internal instances exist, organizations may have public-facing email infrastructure and addresses for employees. Adversaries may easily gather email addresses, since they may be readily available and exposed via online or other accessible data sets (ex: Social Media or Search Victim-Owned Websites).

Email addresses could also be enumerated via more active means (i.e. Active Scanning), such as probing and analyzing responses from authentication services that may reveal valid usernames in a system. For example, adversaries may be able to enumerate email addresses in Office 365 environments by querying a variety of publicly available API endpoints, such as autodiscover and GetCredentialType.

Gathering this information may reveal opportunities for other forms of reconnaissance (ex: Search Open Websites/Domains or Phishing for Information), establishing operational resources (ex: Email Accounts), and/or initial access (ex: Phishing or Brute Force via External Remote Services).

PRE
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Actors Using This

14
north_koreaAndariel
chinaAPT31
iranAPT33
iranOilRig
iranAPT35
north_koreaAPT38
iranAPT39
chinaAPT40
north_koreaContagious Interview
russiaDragonfly
chinaFlax Typhoon
chinaGALLIUM
russiaGamaredon Group
north_koreaKimsuky
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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.
reconnaissance same
T1589 · Gather Victim Identity Information ×9.52T1591.004 · Identify Roles ×7.96T1589.001 · Credentials ×7.39T1591 · Gather Victim Org Information ×7.30T1593.001 · Social Media ×6.90T1593 · Search Open Websites/Domains ×6.65
resource-development later
T1584.006 · Web Services ×7.76
execution later
T1559.002 · Dynamic Data Exchange ×7.39
privilege-escalation later
T1546.001 · Change Default File Association ×9.49T1546.011 · Application Shimming ×9.31T1546.015 · Component Object Model Hijacking ×7.24
credential-access later
T1555.004 · Windows Credential Manager ×7.76
discovery later
T1087.003 · Email Account ×8.62
collection later
T1602 · Data from Configuration Repository ×6.90
command-and-control later
T1008 · Fallback Channels ×6.90
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Mitigations

1
MITRE ATT&CK mitigations - vendor-agnostic guidance for reducing exposure to this technique.
M1056Pre-compromise

Pre-compromise mitigations involve proactive measures and defenses implemented to prevent adversaries from successfully identifying and exploiting weaknesses during the Reconnaissance and Resource Development phases of an attack. These activities focus on reducing an organization's attack surface, identify adversarial preparation efforts, and increase the difficulty for attackers to conduct successful operations.

Limit Information Exposure
  • Regularly audit and sanitize publicly available data, including job posts, websites, and social media.
  • Use tools like OSINT monitoring platforms (e.g., SpiderFoot, Recon-ng) to identify leaked information.
Protect Domain and DNS Infrastructure
  • Enable DNSSEC and use WHOIS privacy protection.
  • Monitor for domain hijacking or lookalike domains using services like RiskIQ or DomainTools.
External Monitoring
  • Use tools like Shodan, Censys to monitor your external attack surface.
  • Deploy external vulnerability scanners to proactively address weaknesses.
Threat Intelligence
  • Leverage platforms like MISP, Recorded Future, or Anomali to track adversarial infrastructure, tools, and activity.
Content and Email Protections
  • Use email security solutions like Proofpoint, Microsoft Defender for Office 365, or Mimecast.
  • Enforce SPF/DKIM/DMARC policies to protect against email spoofing.
Training and Awareness
  • Educate employees on identifying phishing attempts, securing their social media, and avoiding information leaks.
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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
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&CKAtomic Red Teamcar (MITRE)
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