T1480.001sub-technique of T1480 Execution Guardrails
Environmental Keying
Linux · Windows · macOSnothing on this site yetT1480.001 on attack.mitre.org
Adversaries may environmentally key payloads or other features of malware to evade defenses and constraint execution to a specific target environment. Environmental keying uses cryptography to constrain execution or actions based on adversary supplied environment specific conditions that are expected to be present on the target.
how MITRE says to see it
Environmental Keying Discovery-to-Decryption Behavioral Chain Detection Strategy
- Windows-specific environmental keying behavioral chain: (1) Rapid system information discovery through multiple techniques (WMI queries, registry enumeration, network share discovery, hostname/domain checks), (2) Target validation through specific environmental artifact collection (AD domain membership, network...
- Linux environmental keying behavioral chain: (1) System information gathering through native commands (uname, hostname, id, whoami, ifconfig/ip) and file system enumeration, (2) Network configuration discovery (route tables, DNS settings, network interfaces), (3) Filesystem and mount point analysis for target-specific...
- macOS environmental keying behavioral chain: (1) System information discovery through native utilities (system_profiler, sw_vers, hostname, dscl) and Security framework queries, (2) Hardware and software enumeration including serial numbers, installed applications, and system versions, (3) Network configuration...
what reduces it
- M1055 Do Not Mitigate. Environmental Keying likely should not be mitigated with preventative controls because it may protect unintended targets from being compromised via confusion of keys by the adversary. Mitigation of this technique is also unlikely to be feasible within most contexts because there are no standard attributes from which an adversary may derive keys.