Attack Mob T1451 Sim Card Swap

MITRE ATT&CK T1451: SIM Card Swap

When to use this skill

Use this skill when the task involves T1451, SIM Card Swap, mobile 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: mobile
• ATT&CK ID: T1451
• Technique name: SIM Card Swap
• Type: technique
• ATT&CK URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1451
• Tactics: initial-access
• Platforms: Android, iOS
• Required permissions: Not specified
• Effective permissions: Not specified
• Defenses bypassed: Not specified

ATT&CK description

Adversaries may gain access to mobile devices through transfers or swaps from victims’ phone numbers to adversary-controlled SIM cards and mobile devices.(Citation: ATT SIM Swap Scams)(Citation: Verizon SIM Swapping)

The typical process is as follows:

1. Adversaries will first gather information about victims through Phishing, social engineering, data breaches, or other avenues.
2. Adversaries will then impersonate victims as they contact mobile carriers to request for the SIM swaps. For example, adversaries would provide victims’ name and address to mobile carriers; once authenticated, adversaries would request for victims’ phone numbers to be transferred to adversary-controlled SIM cards.
3. Once completed, victims will lose mobile data, such as text messages and phone calls, on their mobile devices. In turn, adversaries will receive mobile data that was intended for the victims.

Adversaries may use the intercepted SMS messages to log into online accounts that use SMS-based authentication. Specifically, adversaries may use SMS-based authentication to log into banking and/or cryptocurrency accounts, then transfer funds to adversary-controlled wallets.

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

• Enterprise Policy
• User Guidance

Known threat context

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

• LAPSUS$ (intrusion-set)
• Scattered Spider (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

• Karim Hasanen, @_karimhasanen
• Jennifer Kim Roman