T1597

Search Closed Sources

PREnothing on this site yetT1597 on attack.mitre.org

Adversaries may search and gather information about victims from closed (e.g., paid, private, or otherwise not freely available) sources that can be used during targeting. Information about victims may be available for purchase from reputable private sources and databases, such as paid subscriptions to feeds of technical/threat intelligence data.
MITRE ATT&CK 19.2, retrieved 2026-09-12

how MITRE says to see it

Detection of Search Closed Sources

Much of this activity may have a very high occurrence and associated false positive rate, as well as potentially taking place outside the visibility of the target organization, making detection difficult for defenders.

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. Efforts should focus on minimizing the amount and sensitivity of data available to external parties.

sub-techniques

T1597.001 Threat Intel Vendors · not covered yet
T1597.002 Purchase Technical Data · 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.