Gather Victim Org Information: Business Relationships

Adversaries may gather information about the victim's business relationships that can be used during targeting. Information about an organization’s business relationships may include a variety of details, including second or third-party organizations/domains (ex: managed service providers, contractors, etc.) that have connected (and potentially elevated) network access. This information may also reveal supply chains and shipment paths for the victim’s hardware and software resources.

Adversaries may gather this information in various ways, such as direct elicitation via Phishing for Information. Information about business relationships may also be exposed to adversaries via online or other accessible data sets (ex: Social Media or Search Victim-Owned Websites).[1] Gathering this information may reveal opportunities for other forms of reconnaissance (ex: Phishing for Information or Search Open Websites/Domains), establishing operational resources (ex: Establish Accounts or Compromise Accounts), and/or initial access (ex: Supply Chain Compromise, Drive-by Compromise, or Trusted Relationship).

Law Assessment

Article Assessment
None assessed
There could be an assessment of a subtechnique.

Forensics

Forensic Domain Assessment
None assessed
There could be a forensic assessment of a subtechnique.
ID: T1591.002
Sub-technique of:  T1591
Tactic: Reconnaissance
Platforms: PRE
Version: 1.0
Created: 02 October 2020
Last Modified: 15 April 2021
Schweizerisches Strafgesetzbuch (StGB)
Relevant Articles:

Relevant Forensic Domains:


Provided by LAYER 8

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
G0034 Sandworm Team

In preparation for its attack against the 2018 Winter Olympics, Sandworm Team conducted online research of partner organizations listed on an official PyeongChang Olympics partnership site.[2]

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
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.

Detection

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.

Detection efforts may be focused on related stages of the adversary lifecycle, such as during Initial Access.

References