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Traffic Signaling
Sub-techniques (1)
ID | Name |
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T1205.001 | Port Knocking |
Adversaries may use traffic signaling to hide open ports or other malicious functionality used for persistence or command and control. Traffic signaling involves the use of a magic value or sequence that must be sent to a system to trigger a special response, such as opening a closed port or executing a malicious task. This may take the form of sending a series of packets with certain characteristics before a port will be opened that the adversary can use for command and control. Usually this series of packets consists of attempted connections to a predefined sequence of closed ports (i.e. Port Knocking), but can involve unusual flags, specific strings, or other unique characteristics. After the sequence is completed, opening a port may be accomplished by the host-based firewall, but could also be implemented by custom software.
Adversaries may also communicate with an already open port, but the service listening on that port will only respond to commands or trigger other malicious functionality if passed the appropriate magic value(s).
The observation of the signal packets to trigger the communication can be conducted through different methods. One means, originally implemented by Cd00r [1], is to use the libpcap libraries to sniff for the packets in question. Another method leverages raw sockets, which enables the malware to use ports that are already open for use by other programs.
Procedure Examples
Name | Description |
---|---|
Chaos |
Chaos provides a reverse shell is triggered upon receipt of a packet with a special string, sent to any port.[2] |
Umbreon |
Umbreon provides additional access using its backdoor Espeon, providing a reverse shell upon receipt of a special packet.[3] |
Winnti for Linux |
Winnti for Linux has used a passive listener, capable of identifying a specific magic value before executing tasking, as a secondary command and control (C2) mechanism.[4] |
Mitigations
Mitigation | Description |
---|---|
Filter Network Traffic |
Mitigation of some variants of this technique could be achieved through the use of stateful firewalls, depending upon how it is implemented. |
Detection
Record network packets sent to and from the system, looking for extraneous packets that do not belong to established flows.