Attack Ent T1110 004 Credential Stuffing

MITRE ATT&CK T1110.004: Credential Stuffing

When to use this skill

Use this skill when the task involves T1110.004, Credential Stuffing, enterprise ATT&CK, TTP mapping, detection engineering, hunting, incident-response enrichment, control validation, or authorized adversary-emulation planning. Treat it as a defensive analysis aid: keep outputs focused on understanding, detecting, mitigating, and safely validating this ATT&CK sub-technique.

Technique context

• ATT&CK domain: enterprise
• ATT&CK ID: T1110.004
• Technique name: Credential Stuffing
• Type: sub-technique
• ATT&CK URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1110/004
• Tactics: credential-access
• Platforms: Containers, ESXi, IaaS, Identity Provider, Linux, macOS, Network Devices, Office Suite, SaaS, Windows
• Required permissions: Not specified
• Effective permissions: Not specified
• Defenses bypassed: Not specified

ATT&CK description

Adversaries may use credentials obtained from breach dumps of unrelated accounts to gain access to target accounts through credential overlap. Occasionally, large numbers of username and password pairs are dumped online when a website or service is compromised and the user account credentials accessed. The information may be useful to an adversary attempting to compromise accounts by taking advantage of the tendency for users to use the same passwords across personal and business accounts.

Credential stuffing is a risky option because it could cause numerous authentication failures and account lockouts, depending on the organization's login failure policies.

Typically, management services over commonly used ports are used when stuffing credentials. Commonly targeted services include the following:

• SSH (22/TCP)
• Telnet (23/TCP)
• FTP (21/TCP)
• NetBIOS / SMB / Samba (139/TCP & 445/TCP)
• LDAP (389/TCP)
• Kerberos (88/TCP)
• RDP / Terminal Services (3389/TCP)
• HTTP/HTTP Management Services (80/TCP & 443/TCP)
• MSSQL (1433/TCP)
• Oracle (1521/TCP)
• MySQL (3306/TCP)
• VNC (5900/TCP)

In addition to management services, adversaries may "target single sign-on (SSO) and cloud-based applications utilizing federated authentication protocols," as well as externally facing email applications, such as Office 365.(Citation: US-CERT TA18-068A 2018)

Agent workflow

1. Clarify scope: identify the system, asset class, log sources, cloud or endpoint platform, and whether the user wants triage, detection, coverage assessment, or safe emulation planning.
2. Load bundled resources as needed: use references/technique-profile.json for structured metadata, references/detection-and-mitigation.md for triage and telemetry guidance, references/known-threat-context.md for ATT&CK relationship context, and templates/ for repeatable outputs.
3. Map observations to ATT&CK: compare the user's evidence to the ATT&CK description, tactics, platforms, and known procedure patterns before asserting a match.
4. Produce defensive outputs: prioritize hypotheses, telemetry requirements, detection logic ideas, validation steps, containment guidance, and mitigations.
5. Preserve uncertainty: distinguish confirmed evidence, plausible indicators, assumptions, and gaps. Recommend what to collect next.
6. Stay safe: do not provide malware, credential theft, persistence, evasion, destructive automation, or unauthorized exploitation instructions. For adversary emulation, keep steps bounded to approved lab or control-validation contexts and omit operational abuse details.

Bundled resources

• references/technique-profile.json: machine-readable ATT&CK metadata for this technique.
• references/detection-and-mitigation.md: detection notes, telemetry checklist, triage questions, mitigation candidates, and false-positive considerations.
• references/known-threat-context.md: ATT&CK relationship context with attribution cautions.
• templates/detection-brief.md: detection engineering brief template.
• templates/hunt-plan.md: threat hunt plan template.
• templates/incident-response-note.md: incident response note template.
• templates/coverage-assessment.md: ATT&CK coverage assessment template.
• scripts/render_brief.py: local helper that renders a Markdown defensive brief from technique-profile.json.
• assets/output-schema.json: JSON schema for structured technique analysis outputs.

To generate a quick brief, run python scripts/render_brief.py --output brief.md from inside this skill directory, or adapt the templates directly.

Detection guidance

No ATT&CK detection guidance was present in the source STIX object.

Useful telemetry and data sources

• Not specified in the STIX object.

Mitigations to consider

• Account Use Policies
• Multi-factor Authentication
• Password Policies
• User Account Management

Known threat context

Use these examples only as contextual leads, not as proof that an observed event is this technique:

• Chimera (intrusion-set)
• TrickBot (malware)
• VOID MANTICORE (intrusion-set)

Recommended output pattern

When responding with this skill, structure the answer as:

• Assessment: whether the evidence supports this ATT&CK mapping and why.
• Evidence: specific indicators, logs, behaviors, and assumptions.
• Detection: telemetry sources, analytic logic, and tuning considerations.
• Response: containment, eradication, recovery, and validation actions.
• Coverage gaps: missing logs, sensors, controls, or environmental details.
• References: include the ATT&CK URL and any user-provided evidence references.

ATT&CK contributors

• Diogo Fernandes
• Anastasios Pingios