Adversaries may transfer tools or other files between systems in a compromised environment. Once brought into the victim environment (i.e. Ingress Tool Transfer) files may then be copied from one system to another to stage adversary tools or other files over the course of an operation. Adversaries may copy files between internal victim systems to support lateral movement using inherent file sharing protocols such as file sharing over SMB/Windows Admin Shares to connected network shares or with authenticated connections via Remote Desktop Protocol.[1]
Files can also be transferred using native or otherwise present tools on the victim system, such as scp, rsync, curl, sftp, and ftp.
| ID | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| G0050 | APT32 |
APT32 has deployed tools after moving laterally using administrative accounts.[2] |
| S0190 | BITSAdmin |
BITSAdmin can be used to create BITS Jobs to upload and/or download files from SMB file servers.[3] |
| G0114 | Chimera |
Chimera has copied tools between compromised hosts using SMB.[4] |
| S0106 | cmd |
cmd can be used to copy files to/from a remotely connected internal system.[5] |
| S0062 | DustySky |
DustySky searches for network drives and removable media and duplicates itself onto them.[6] |
| S0404 | esentutl |
esentutl can be used to copy files to/from a remote share.[7] |
| S0361 | Expand |
Expand can be used to download or upload a file over a network share.[8] |
| G0051 | FIN10 |
FIN10 has deployed Meterpreter stagers and SplinterRAT instances in the victim network after moving laterally.[9] |
| S0095 | ftp |
ftp may be abused by adversaries to transfer tools or files between systems within a compromised environment.[10][11] |
| G0093 | GALLIUM |
GALLIUM has used PsExec to move laterally between hosts in the target network.[12] |
| S0698 | HermeticWizard |
HermeticWizard can copy files to other machines on a compromised network.[13] |
| S0372 | LockerGoga |
LockerGoga has been observed moving around the victim network via SMB, indicating the actors behind this ransomware are manually copying files form computer to computer instead of self-propagating.[1] |
| S0532 | Lucifer |
Lucifer can use certutil for propagation on Windows hosts within intranets.[14] |
| S0457 | Netwalker |
Operators deploying Netwalker have used psexec to copy the Netwalker payload across accessible systems.[15] |
| S0365 | Olympic Destroyer |
Olympic Destroyer attempts to copy itself to remote machines on the network.[16] |
| G0116 | Operation Wocao |
Operation Wocao has used SMB to copy files to and from target systems.[17] |
| S0029 | PsExec |
PsExec can be used to download or upload a file over a network share.[18] |
| G0034 | Sandworm Team |
Sandworm Team has used |
| S0140 | Shamoon |
Shamoon attempts to copy itself to remote machines on the network.[20] |
| S0603 | Stuxnet |
Stuxnet uses an RPC server that contains a file dropping routine and support for payload version updates for P2P communications within a victim network.[21] |
| G0010 | Turla |
Turla RPC backdoors can be used to transfer files to/from victim machines on the local network.[22][23] |
| S0366 | WannaCry |
WannaCry attempts to copy itself to remote computers after gaining access via an SMB exploit.[24] |
| G0102 | Wizard Spider |
Wizard Spider has used stolen credentials to copy tools into the |
| ID | Mitigation | Description |
|---|---|---|
| M1037 | Filter Network Traffic |
Consider using the host firewall to restrict file sharing communications such as SMB. [26] |
| M1031 | Network Intrusion Prevention |
Network intrusion detection and prevention systems that use network signatures to identify traffic for specific adversary malware or unusual data transfer over known tools and protocols like FTP can be used to mitigate activity at the network level. Signatures are often for unique indicators within protocols and may be based on the specific obfuscation technique used by a particular adversary or tool, and will likely be different across various malware families and versions. [27] |
Monitor for file creation and files transferred within a network using protocols such as SMB or FTP. Unusual processes with internal network connections creating files on-system may be suspicious. Consider monitoring for abnormal usage of utilities and command-line arguments that may be used in support of remote transfer of files. Considering monitoring for alike file hashes or characteristics (ex: filename) that are created on multiple hosts.