T1135

Network Share Discovery

Linux · macOS · Windowsnothing on this site yetT1135 on attack.mitre.org

Adversaries may look for folders and drives shared on remote systems as a means of identifying sources of information to gather as a precursor for Collection and to identify potential systems of interest for Lateral Movement. Networks often contain shared network drives and folders that enable users to access file directories on various systems across a network. File sharing over a Windows network occurs over the SMB protocol.

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

how MITRE says to see it

Behavior-chain detection for T1135 Network Share Discovery across Windows, Linux, and macOS

  • Process or script enumerates network shares via CLI (net view/net share, PowerShell Get-SmbShare/WMI) or OS APIs (NetShareEnum/ srvsvc.NetShareEnumAll RPC) → bursts of outbound SMB/RPC connections (445/139, \\host\IPC$ / srvsvc) to many hosts inside a short window → optional follow-on file listing or copy operations.
  • CLI tools (smbclient -L, smbmap, rpcclient, nmblookup) or custom scripts enumerate SMB shares on many internal hosts → corresponding SMB connections (445/139) captured by Zeek/Netflow within a short window.
  • Use of native/mac tools (sharing -l, smbutil view, mount_smbfs) or scripts to enumerate SMB shares across many hosts, followed by outbound SMB connections observed in PF/Zeek logs.

what reduces it

  • M1028 Operating System Configuration. Enable Windows Group Policy “Do Not Allow Anonymous Enumeration of SAM Accounts and Shares” security setting to limit users who can enumerate network shares.

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.