T1105

Ingress Tool Transfer

ESXi · Linux · macOS · Network Devices · Windows2 pieces on this siteT1105 on attack.mitre.org

Adversaries may transfer tools or other files from an external system into a compromised environment. Tools or files may be copied from an external adversary-controlled system to the victim network through the command and control channel or through alternate protocols such as ftp. Once present, adversaries may also transfer/spread tools between victim devices within a compromised environment (i.e. Lateral Tool Transfer).

MITRE ATT&CK 19.2, retrieved 2026-09-12

Detect it

2

Hunts and rules you can run, each stating what it needs and what else it returns.

how MITRE says to see it

Detect Ingress Tool Transfers via Behavioral Chain

  • Unusual or uncommon processes initiate network connections to external destinations followed by file creation (tools downloaded).
  • Shell-based tools (curl, wget, scp) initiate connections to external domains followed by creation of executable files on disk.
  • Process execution of curl or wget followed by a network connection and a file created in temporary or user-specific directories.
  • Command line interface or vCLI triggers remote transfer using wget or curl, writing files into datastore paths or local tmp directories.

what reduces it

  • 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 protocols like FTP can be used to mitigate activity at the network level.
  • M1037 Filter Network Traffic. Use network filtering to block outbound traffic from compromised systems to unapproved external destinations. Restricting access to known, trusted IP addresses and protocols can prevent attackers from downloading malicious tools or payloads onto compromised servers after gaining initial access.

The description, detection analytics and mitigations are reproduced from MITRE ATT&CK, version 19.2, under its terms of use. The checklists, hunts, labs and everything else linked here are this site’s.