T1001.002sub-technique of T1001 Data Obfuscation
Steganography
Linux · macOS · Windows · ESXinothing on this site yetT1001.002 on attack.mitre.org
Adversaries may use steganographic techniques to hide command and control traffic to make detection efforts more difficult. Steganographic techniques can be used to hide data in digital messages that are transferred between systems. This hidden information can be used for command and control of compromised systems. In some cases, the passing of files embedded using steganography, such as image or document files, can be used for command and control.
how MITRE says to see it
Detecting Steganographic Command and Control via File + Network Correlation
- Detect the creation or modification of common media file formats (e.g.,.jpg,.png,.wav) following suspicious process activity like compression or encryption, especially when paired with lateral movement or exfiltration behavior.
- Unusual use of steganographic or media processing binaries (e.g., `steghide`, `ffmpeg`, `imagemagick`) followed by outbound communication to external IPs with high data output and media MIME types.
- Abnormal usage of Preview, ImageMagick, or binary editors to alter images/documents, followed by exfiltration or outbound connections with mismatched file MIME types or payload structure.
- Suspicious modification of file artifacts (e.g., logs, ISO templates) on ESXi datastores, followed by beaconing or POST operations to external IPs potentially hiding payloads in file-like traffic.
what reduces it
- M1031 Network Intrusion Prevention. Network intrusion detection and prevention systems that use network signatures to identify traffic for specific adversary malware can be used to mitigate some obfuscation activity at the network level.