T1583.003sub-technique of T1583 Acquire Infrastructure

Virtual Private Server

PREnothing on this site yetT1583.003 on attack.mitre.org

Adversaries may rent Virtual Private Servers (VPSs) that can be used during targeting. There exist a variety of cloud service providers that will sell virtual machines/containers as a service. By utilizing a VPS, adversaries can make it difficult to physically tie back operations to them. The use of cloud infrastructure can also make it easier for adversaries to rapidly provision, modify, and shut down their infrastructure.
MITRE ATT&CK 19.2, retrieved 2026-09-12

how MITRE says to see it

Detection of Virtual Private Server

Once adversaries have provisioned a VPS (ex: for use as a command and control server), internet scans may reveal servers that adversaries have acquired. Consider looking for identifiable patterns such as services listening, certificates in use, SSL/TLS negotiation features, or other response artifacts associated with...

what reduces it

M1056 Pre-compromise. This technique cannot be easily mitigated with preventive controls since it is based on behaviors performed outside of the scope of enterprise defenses and controls.

the rest of T1583

T1583.001 Domains · not covered yet
T1583.002 DNS Server · not covered yet
T1583.004 Server · not covered yet
T1583.005 Botnet · not covered yet
T1583.006 Web Services · not covered yet
T1583.007 Serverless · not covered yet
T1583.008 Malvertising · not covered yet

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.