#DEFINE ACTIVITY PATTERN INDICATORS PAIN PROFILE PROFESSIONAL#

To detect and prevent attacker behavior a defender must have security capabilities that use heuristical algorithms which are tougher to build for detection and/or prevention but provide the most resilient security stack. MITRE ATT&CK) vs basic artifacts like file hashes or IP addresses, then they make it more costly and more painful for an attacker to pivot their path. If a defender can detect or prevent attacker behavior (e.g. One level of the pyramid that has more value than any other level is Attacker TTPs. Thus, the importance of maturing your security program to incorporate Threat intelligence to provide an ongoing feed of micro-threat intelligence which will include relevant attack indicators.

On the other hand, if your network security controls use IP address, CIDR block or even ASN range blacklists to detect malicious network communication an attacker could move their command and control infrastructure or operations center to another network server, rendering the IP address range you were blocking no longer valuable.Īlmost all the levels of indicators have an ephimal value that decays over time. Attackers can and do routinely use polymorphic or metamorphic engines to easily recompute these samples in real-time as they are downloaded to the compromised machines. Attack IndicatorsĪs you can see in the above diagram, each level of the pyramid represents different types of attack indicators you might use to detect an adversary’s activities and is broken up by how much pain it will cause them when you are able to deny those indicators to them.Īs an example, If an adversary is using malware to infect an endpoint within their attack chain and as a defender you are using file hash values to detect such behavior, it is trivial for them to recompile the malware sample such that the file hash value you are using to detect the original sample, is rendered useless.

#DEFINE ACTIVITY PATTERN INDICATORS PAIN PROFILE PROFESSIONAL#

Some of you might be familiar with “ The Pyramid of Pain”, first introduced in 2013 by security professional David J Bianco when he was focused on incident response and threat hunting for the purpose of improving the applicability of attack indicators. Attack Indicators As you can see in the… Read More Some of you might be familiar with “The Pyramid of Pain”, first introduced in 2013 by security professional David J Bianco when he was focused on incident response and threat hunting for the purpose of improving the applicability of attack indicators.

Security Controls Emulating Attacker Activities and The Pyramid of Pain Published June 26, 2019

Define activity pattern indicators pain profile