Attack Ent T1680 Local Storage Discovery

MITRE ATT&CK T1680: Local Storage Discovery

When to use this skill

Use this skill when the task involves T1680, Local Storage Discovery, 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 technique.

Technique context

• ATT&CK domain: enterprise
• ATT&CK ID: T1680
• Technique name: Local Storage Discovery
• Type: technique
• ATT&CK URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1680
• Tactics: discovery
• Platforms: ESXi, IaaS, Linux, macOS, Windows
• Required permissions: Not specified
• Effective permissions: Not specified
• Defenses bypassed: Not specified

ATT&CK description

Adversaries may enumerate local drives, disks, and/or volumes and their attributes like total or free space and volume serial number. This can be done to prepare for ransomware-related encryption, to perform Lateral Movement, or as a precursor to Direct Volume Access.

On ESXi systems, adversaries may use Hypervisor CLI commands such as esxcli to list storage connected to the host as well as .vmdk files.(Citation: TrendMicro)(Citation: TrendMicro ESXI Ransomware)

On Windows systems, adversaries can use wmic logicaldisk get to find information about local network drives. They can also use Get-PSDrive in PowerShell to retrieve drives and may additionally use Windows API functions such as GetDriveType.(Citation: Trend Micro MUSTANG PANDA PUBLOAD HIUPAN SEPTEMBER 2024)(Citation: Volexity)

Linux has commands such as parted, lsblk, fdisk, lshw, and df that can list information about disk partitions such as size, type, file system types, and free space. The command diskutil on MacOS can be used to list disks while system_profiler SPStorageDataType can additionally show information such as a volume’s mount path, file system, and the type of drive in the system.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud providers also have commands for storage discovery such as describe volume in AWS, gcloud compute disks list in GCP, and az disk list in Azure.(Citation: AWS docs describe volumes)(Citation: GCP gcloud compute disks list)(Citation: azure az disk)

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

• No ATT&CK mitigation relationships were present in the source STIX bundle.

Known threat context

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

• Aria-body (malware)
• AshTag (malware)
• AsyncRAT (tool)
• Attor (malware)
• Avenger (malware)
• BLINDINGCAN (malware)
• Babuk (malware)
• Bandook (malware)
• Bankshot (malware)
• Black Basta (malware)
• BlackCat (malware)
• BlackMould (malware)
• C0017 (campaign)
• CORESHELL (malware)
• Cannon (malware)
• Chimera (intrusion-set)
• Chrommme (malware)
• Confucius (intrusion-set)
• CrackMapExec (tool)
• Crimson (malware)

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

• Liran Ravich, CardinalOps