Adversaries may insert, delete, or manipulate data in order to manipulate external outcomes or hide activity. By manipulating data, adversaries may attempt to affect a business process, organizational understanding, or decision making.
The type of modification and the impact it will have depends on the target application and process as well as the goals and objectives of the adversary. For complex systems, an adversary would likely need special expertise and possibly access to specialized software related to the system that would typically be gained through a prolonged information gathering campaign in order to have the desired impact.
| ID | Mitigation | Description |
|---|---|---|
| M1041 | Encrypt Sensitive Information |
Consider encrypting important information to reduce an adversary’s ability to perform tailored data modifications. |
| M1030 | Network Segmentation |
Identify critical business and system processes that may be targeted by adversaries and work to isolate and secure those systems against unauthorized access and tampering. |
| M1029 | Remote Data Storage |
Consider implementing IT disaster recovery plans that contain procedures for taking regular data backups that can be used to restore organizational data.[1] Ensure backups are stored off system and is protected from common methods adversaries may use to gain access and manipulate backups. |
| M1022 | Restrict File and Directory Permissions |
Ensure least privilege principles are applied to important information resources to reduce exposure to data manipulation risk. |
| ID | Data Source | Data Component |
|---|---|---|
| DS0022 | File | File Creation |
| File Deletion | ||
| File Metadata | ||
| File Modification | ||
| DS0029 | Network Traffic | Network Traffic Content |
| Network Traffic Flow | ||
| DS0009 | Process | OS API Execution |
Where applicable, inspect important file hashes, locations, and modifications for suspicious/unexpected values. With some critical processes involving transmission of data, manual or out-of-band integrity checking may be useful for identifying manipulated data.