T1584.002sub-technique of T1584 Compromise Infrastructure

DNS Server

PRE1 piece on this siteT1584.002 on attack.mitre.org

Adversaries may compromise third-party DNS servers that can be used during targeting. During post-compromise activity, adversaries may utilize DNS traffic for various tasks, including for Command and Control (ex: Application Layer Protocol). Instead of setting up their own DNS servers, adversaries may compromise third-party DNS servers in support of operations. By compromising DNS servers, adversaries can alter DNS records.

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

If this is happening now

1

Checklists and playbooks to open while the alert is still live.

First-hour playbookMembers

Your DNS records changed and nobody here did it

Mail stops arriving, a site resolves somewhere unexpected, a certificate appears that nobody requested, or the registrar emails about a change nobody made.

T1584.002T1584.001

how MITRE says to see it

Detection of DNS Server

  • Monitor for queried domain name system (DNS) registry data that may compromise third-party DNS servers that can be used during targeting. Much of this activity will take place outside the visibility of the target organization, making detection of this behavior difficult.

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 T1584

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.