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TECHNIQUES
PRE-ATT&CK
Priority Definition Planning
Priority Definition Direction
Target Selection
Technical Information Gathering
People Information Gathering
Organizational Information Gathering
Technical Weakness Identification
People Weakness Identification
Organizational Weakness Identification
Adversary OPSEC
Establish & Maintain Infrastructure
Persona Development
Build Capabilities
Test Capabilities
Stage Capabilities
Enterprise
Initial Access
Phishing
Supply Chain Compromise
Valid Accounts
Execution
Command and Scripting Interpreter
Inter-Process Communication
Scheduled Task/Job
System Services
User Execution
Persistence
Account Manipulation
Boot or Logon Autostart Execution
Boot or Logon Initialization Scripts
Create Account
Create or Modify System Process
Event Triggered Execution
Hijack Execution Flow
Office Application Startup
Pre-OS Boot
Scheduled Task/Job
Server Software Component
Traffic Signaling
Valid Accounts
Privilege Escalation
Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism
Access Token Manipulation
Boot or Logon Autostart Execution
Boot or Logon Initialization Scripts
Create or Modify System Process
Event Triggered Execution
Hijack Execution Flow
Process Injection
Scheduled Task/Job
Valid Accounts
Defense Evasion
Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism
Access Token Manipulation
Execution Guardrails
File and Directory Permissions Modification
Hide Artifacts
Hijack Execution Flow
Impair Defenses
Indicator Removal on Host
Masquerading
Modify Authentication Process
Modify Cloud Compute Infrastructure
Obfuscated Files or Information
Pre-OS Boot
Process Injection
Signed Binary Proxy Execution
Signed Script Proxy Execution
Subvert Trust Controls
Traffic Signaling
Trusted Developer Utilities Proxy Execution
Use Alternate Authentication Material
Valid Accounts
Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion
Credential Access
Brute Force
Credentials from Password Stores
Input Capture
Man-in-the-Middle
Modify Authentication Process
OS Credential Dumping
Steal or Forge Kerberos Tickets
Unsecured Credentials
Discovery
Account Discovery
Permission Groups Discovery
Software Discovery
Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion
Lateral Movement
Remote Service Session Hijacking
Remote Services
Use Alternate Authentication Material
Collection
Archive Collected Data
Data from Information Repositories
Data Staged
Email Collection
Input Capture
Man-in-the-Middle
Command and Control
Application Layer Protocol
Data Encoding
Data Obfuscation
Dynamic Resolution
Encrypted Channel
Proxy
Traffic Signaling
Web Service
Exfiltration
Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol
Exfiltration Over Other Network Medium
Exfiltration Over Physical Medium
Exfiltration Over Web Service
Impact
Data Manipulation
Defacement
Disk Wipe
Endpoint Denial of Service
Network Denial of Service
Mobile
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Privilege Escalation
Defense Evasion
Credential Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
Command and Control
Exfiltration
Impact
Network Effects
Remote Service Effects
  1. Home
  2. Techniques
  3. Mobile
  4. Access Contact List

Access Contact List

An adversary could call standard operating system APIs from a malicious application to gather contact list (i.e., address book) data, or with escalated privileges could directly access files containing contact list data.

ID: T1432
Sub-techniques:  No sub-techniques
Tactic Type: Post-Adversary Device Access
Tactic: Collection
Platforms: Android, iOS
MTC ID: APP-13
Version: 1.0
Created: 25 October 2017
Last Modified: 17 October 2018

Procedure Examples

Name Description
Adups

Adups transmitted contact lists.[2]
Android/Chuli.A

Android/Chuli.A stole contact list data stored both on the the phone and the SIM card.[7]
AndroRAT

AndroRAT collects contact list information.[10]
Anubis

Anubis can steal the device’s contact list.[18]

Cerberus

Cerberus can obtain the device’s contact list.[22]
Charger

Charger steals contacts from the victim user's device.[8]
Corona Updates

Corona Updates can collect device contacts.[20]
Exodus

Exodus Two can download the address book.[13]

FlexiSpy

FlexiSpy can collect device contacts.[1]
Ginp

Ginp can download the device’s contact list.[19]
GolfSpy

GolfSpy can obtain the device’s contact list.[17]
Gustuff

Gustuff can collect the contact list.[14]

INSOMNIA

INSOMNIA can collect the device’s contact list.[21]
Monokle

Monokle can retrieve the device's contact list.[15]
Pallas

Pallas accesses the device contact list.[11]
Pegasus for Android

Pegasus for Android accesses contact list information.[5]
Pegasus for iOS

Pegasus for iOS gathers contacts from the system by dumping the victim's address book.[3]
Riltok

Riltok can access and upload the device's contact list to the command and control server.[12]
Rotexy

Rotexy can access and upload the contacts list to the command and control server.[16]
SpyDealer

SpyDealer harvests contact lists from victims.[6]
SpyNote RAT

SpyNote RAT can view contacts.[9]
Stealth Mango

Stealth Mango uploads contact lists for various third-party applications such as Yahoo, AIM, GoogleTalk, Skype, QQ, and others.[4]

Mitigations

Mitigation Description
Application Vetting

On Android, accessing the device contact list requires that the app hold the READ_CONTACTS permission. Apps that request this permission could be closely scrutinized to ensure that the request is appropriate. On iOS, the app vetting process can determine whether apps access the device contact list, with extra scrutiny applied to any that do so.

Detection

On both Android (6.0 and up) and iOS, the user can view which applications have permission to access contact list information through the device settings screen, and the user can choose to revoke the permissions.

References

  1. Actis B. (2017, April 22). FlexSpy Application Analysis. Retrieved September 4, 2019.
  2. Matt Apuzzo and Michael S. Schmidt. (2016, November 15). Secret Back Door in Some U.S. Phones Sent Data to China, Analysts Say. Retrieved February 6, 2017.
  3. Lookout. (2016). Technical Analysis of Pegasus Spyware. Retrieved December 12, 2016.
  4. Lookout. (n.d.). Stealth Mango & Tangelo. Retrieved September 27, 2018.
  5. Mike Murray. (2017, April 3). Pegasus for Android: the other side of the story emerges. Retrieved April 16, 2017.
  6. Wenjun Hu, Cong Zheng and Zhi Xu. (2017, July 6). SpyDealer: Android Trojan Spying on More Than 40 Apps. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
  7. Costin Raiu, Denis Maslennikov, Kurt Baumgartner. (2013, March 26). Android Trojan Found in Targeted Attack. Retrieved December 23, 2016.
  8. Oren Koriat and Andrey Polkovnichenko. (2017, January 24). Charger Malware Calls and Raises the Risk on Google Play. Retrieved January 24, 2017.
  9. Shivang Desai. (2017, January 23). SpyNote RAT posing as Netflix app. Retrieved January 26, 2017.
  10. Lookout. (2016, May 25). 5 active mobile threats spoofing enterprise apps. Retrieved December 19, 2016.
  11. Blaich, A., et al. (2018, January 18). Dark Caracal: Cyber-espionage at a Global Scale. Retrieved April 11, 2018.
  1. Tatyana Shishkova. (2019, June 25). Riltok mobile Trojan: A banker with global reach. Retrieved August 7, 2019.
  2. Security Without Borders. (2019, March 29). Exodus: New Android Spyware Made in Italy. Retrieved September 3, 2019.
  3. Vitor Ventura. (2019, April 9). Gustuff banking botnet targets Australia . Retrieved September 3, 2019.
  4. Bauer A., Kumar A., Hebeisen C., et al. (2019, July). Monokle: The Mobile Surveillance Tooling of the Special Technology Center. Retrieved September 4, 2019.
  5. T. Shishkova, L. Pikman. (2018, November 22). The Rotexy mobile Trojan – banker and ransomware. Retrieved September 23, 2019.
  6. E. Xu, G. Guo. (2019, June 28). Mobile Cyberespionage Campaign ‘Bouncing Golf’ Affects Middle East. Retrieved January 27, 2020.
  7. M. Feller. (2020, February 5). Infostealer, Keylogger, and Ransomware in One: Anubis Targets More than 250 Android Applications. Retrieved April 8, 2020.
  8. ThreatFabric. (2019, November). Ginp - A malware patchwork borrowing from Anubis. Retrieved April 8, 2020.
  9. T. Bao, J. Lu. (2020, April 14). Coronavirus Update App Leads to Project Spy Android and iOS Spyware. Retrieved April 24, 2020.
  10. I. Beer. (2019, August 29). Implant Teardown. Retrieved June 2, 2020.
  11. Threat Fabric. (2019, August). Cerberus - A new banking Trojan from the underworld. Retrieved June 26, 2020.