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T1132.002sub-technique of T1132 Data Encoding

Non-Standard Encoding

ESXi · Linux · macOS · Windowsnothing on this site yetT1132.002 on attack.mitre.org

Adversaries may encode data with a non-standard data encoding system to make the content of command and control traffic more difficult to detect. Command and control (C2) information can be encoded using a non-standard data encoding system that diverges from existing protocol specifications.

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

how MITRE says to see it

Behavior-chain detection for T1132.002 Data Encoding: Non-Standard Encoding across Windows, Linux, macOS, ESXi

  • A process/script constructs or references a custom/alphabet translation table (e.g., 64/85/32+ arbitrary chars, XOR/base-N loops) or emits long high-entropy strings that do NOT validate as standard Base64/Hex → shortly after, the same process (or its child) generates outbound traffic with asymmetric...
  • Shell scripts or binaries implement custom mapping tables (tr/sed/awk/golang/rust/python encode loops), or emit long high-entropy tokens that fail Base64/Hex validation → correlated with egress showing asymmetric flow, protocol-mismatch payloads, or DNS/HTTP bodies containing low-diversity-but-long custom alphabets.
  • EndpointSecurity/Unified Logs show processes generating custom alphabets or long high-entropy, non-standard tokens → network logs (PF/Zeek/EDR) show asymmetric beacons, protocol mismatches, or periodic fixed-size posts.
  • ESXi shell or scripts produce long, high-entropy tokens (non-standard alphabets) in shell.log/hostd, followed by outbound flows (NSX/Zeek) with asymmetric ratios or protocol mismatches to non-management endpoints.

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 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.

the rest of T1132

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.