Attack Ent T1547 003 Time Providers

MITRE ATT&CK T1547.003: Time Providers

When to use this skill

Use this skill when the task involves T1547.003, Time Providers, 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: T1547.003
• Technique name: Time Providers
• Type: sub-technique
• ATT&CK URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1547/003
• Tactics: persistence, privilege-escalation
• Platforms: Windows
• Required permissions: Not specified
• Effective permissions: Not specified
• Defenses bypassed: Not specified

ATT&CK description

Adversaries may abuse time providers to execute DLLs when the system boots. The Windows Time service (W32Time) enables time synchronization across and within domains.(Citation: Microsoft W32Time Feb 2018) W32Time time providers are responsible for retrieving time stamps from hardware/network resources and outputting these values to other network clients.(Citation: Microsoft TimeProvider)

Time providers are implemented as dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) that are registered in the subkeys of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\.(Citation: Microsoft TimeProvider) The time provider manager, directed by the service control manager, loads and starts time providers listed and enabled under this key at system startup and/or whenever parameters are changed.(Citation: Microsoft TimeProvider)

Adversaries may abuse this architecture to establish persistence, specifically by creating a new arbitrarily named subkey pointing to a malicious DLL in the DllName value. Administrator privileges are required for time provider registration, though execution will run in context of the Local Service account.(Citation: Github W32Time Oct 2017)

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

• Restrict File and Directory Permissions
• Restrict Registry Permissions

Known threat context

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

• No group or software uses relationships were included for this technique in the source STIX bundle.

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

• Scott Lundgren, @5twenty9, Carbon Black
• Harun Küßner