T1593.001_social-media

T1593.001 Social Media

Sub-technique of: T1593

High-Level Description

Adversaries may search social media for information about victims that can be used during targeting. Social media sites may contain various information about a victim organization, such as business announcements as well as information about the roles, locations, and interests of staff.

Adversaries may search in different social media sites depending on what information they seek to gather. Threat actors may passively harvest data from these sites, as well as use information gathered to create fake profiles/groups to elicit victim’s into revealing specific information (i.e. Spearphishing Service). Information from these sources may reveal opportunities for other forms of reconnaissance (ex: Phishing for Information or Search Open Technical Databases), establishing operational resources (ex: Establish Accounts or Compromise Accounts), and/or initial access (ex: Spearphishing via Service).

Kill Chain Phase

• Reconnaissance (TA0043)

Platforms: PRE

What to Check

• Identify if Social Media technique is applicable to target environment
• Check PRE systems for indicators of Social Media
• Verify mitigations are bypassed or absent (1 known mitigations)
• Assess detection coverage (1 detection strategies)

How to Test

Manual Testing

1. Identify Attack Surface: Determine if the target environment is susceptible to Social Media by examining the target platforms (PRE).

2. Assess Existing Defenses: Review whether mitigations for T1593.001 are in place. If defenses are absent or misconfigured, this technique may be exploitable.

3. Execute Test: Use tools and methods described in the MITRE ATT&CK page and external references below.

Note: No Atomic Red Team tests available for this technique. See Atomic Red Team GitHub for updates.

Remediation Guide

M1056 Pre-compromise

This technique cannot be easily mitigated with preventive controls since it is based on behaviors performed outside of the scope of enterprise defenses and controls. Efforts should focus on minimizing the amount and sensitivity of data available to external parties.

Detection

Detection of Social Media

Risk Assessment

CWE Categories

References

• Cyware Social Media
• Atomic Red Team - T1593.001
• MITRE ATT&CK - T1593.001