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ATT&CK Technique

Gather Victim Host Information

T1592 · reconnaissance

Adversaries may gather information about the victim's hosts that can be used during targeting. Information about hosts may include a variety of details, including administrative data (ex: name, assigned IP, functionality, etc.) as well as specifics regarding its configuration (ex: operating system, language, etc.). Adversaries may gather this information in various ways, such as direct collection actions via Active Scanning or Phishing for Information.

Adversaries may also compromise sites then include malicious content designed to collect host information from visitors. Information about hosts may also be exposed to adversaries via online or other accessible data sets (ex: Social Media or Search Victim-Owned Websites). Gathering this information may reveal opportunities for other forms of reconnaissance (ex: Search Open Websites/Domains or Search Open Technical Databases), establishing operational resources (ex: Develop Capabilities or Obtain Capabilities), and/or initial access (ex: Supply Chain Compromise or External Remote Services).

Adversaries may also gather victim host information via User-Agent HTTP headers, which are sent to a server to identify the application, operating system, vendor, and/or version of the requesting user agent. This can be used to inform the adversary’s follow-on action. For example, adversaries may check user agents for the requesting operating system, then only serve malware for target operating systems while ignoring others.

PRE

Actors Using This

4
russiaDragonfly
us_israel_joint_offensive_cyber_speculationDuqu / Duqu 2.0
us_israel_joint_offensive_cyberStuxnet

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
privilege-escalation later

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.

Detection Coverage

0/6 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) none
Runtime / container (Falco) none
File / malware (YARA) none
Network (Suricata/Snort) none
Vuln scan (Nuclei) none
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CVETechnique ActorTool Family
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