T1608.001: Upload Malware

MITRE ATT&CK® Enterprise technique

Description

Adversaries may upload malware to third-party or adversary controlled infrastructure to make it accessible during targeting. Malicious software can include payloads, droppers, post-compromise tools, backdoors, and a variety of other malicious content. Adversaries may upload malware to support their operations, such as making a payload available to a victim network to enable Ingress Tool Transfer by placing it on an Internet accessible web server.

Malware may be placed on infrastructure that was previously purchased/rented by the adversary (Acquire Infrastructure) or was otherwise compromised by them (Compromise Infrastructure). Malware can also be staged on web services, such as GitHub or Pastebin; hosted on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), where decentralized content storage makes the removal of malicious files difficult; or saved on the blockchain as smart contracts, which are resilient against takedowns that would affect traditional infrastructure.(Citation: Volexity Ocean Lotus November 2020)(Citation: Talos IPFS 2022)(Citation: Guardio Etherhiding 2023)(Citation: Bleeping Computer Binance Smart Chain 2023)

Adversaries may upload backdoored files, such as software packages, application binaries, virtual machine images, or container images, to third-party software stores, package libraries, extension marketplaces, or repositories (ex: GitHub, CNET, AWS Community AMIs, Docker Hub, PyPi, NPM).(Citation: Datadog Security Labs Malicious PyPi Packages 2024) By chance encounter, victims may directly download/install these backdoored files via User Execution. Masquerading, including typosquatting legitimate software, may increase the chance of users mistakenly executing these files.

Detection

(no detection guidance published)

Data sources

• (none listed)

References

• ATT&CK page: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1608/001
• ATT&CK Enterprise matrix: https://attack.mitre.org/matrices/enterprise/