What is MITRE ATT&CK and what role does it play in the field of cybersecurity

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With the growth of information security threats, it is increasingly important to understand the tactics, methods and procedures used by attackers to carry out cyber attacks. Therefore, MITRE ATT&CK is of particular importance. We tell you what the MITRE ATT&CK matrix is and what role it plays in building information security processes.

What is MITRE ATT&CK and why it is important for specialists​

MITRE ATT&CK (Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge) is a knowledge base about the tactics, methods, and procedures used by attackers in cyber attacks. It provides an extensive set of information about intrusion techniques, tactics, and tools used by malicious individuals in attacks on information systems.

MITRE ATT&CK's role in cybersecurity is to help organizations better understand the typical tactics and techniques used by attackers. This allows them to improve their strategies for protecting, detecting, and responding to cyber threats.

The main categories of tactics under MITRE ATT&CK include footer capture, code execution, detection bypass, distribution, communication, and many others. Each tactic contains specific methods and procedures that can be used by attackers to achieve their goals.

Using MITRE ATT&CK allows cybersecurity professionals to better understand the threats that their information systems face and develop more accurate and effective methods of protecting against attacks.

Dmitry Ovchinnikov
Chief Specialist of the Integrated Information Security Systems Department of Gazinformservis

Using the MITRE matrix to protect your information resources is a good idea. However, we must remember that the matrix is like a culinary recipe. But how to properly prepare a dish-it already depends on the chef. In our case, from information security specialists. At the very beginning, you need to catalog all your information resources, determine the degree of their importance and criticality. Next, you need to determine the entry points to your information infrastructure and then start looking at what and where can be used by a hacker during hacking. First, we protect the entry points and minimize the attack surface. Then, special attention should be paid to protecting nodes in the shortest path from entry points to critical services. Then the security focus should be shifted to the rest of the network nodes. The difficulty arises in the fact that if the network is branched, there are many nodes and services, then there are many protection options. Therefore, at the infrastructure level, we should strive for comprehensive protection of all nodes.

Mitre is one of the most frequently updated and complete databases. Using it to build your own analytics will help the company and information security specialists reduce the time spent searching for patterns (compromises) and working out TTP from MITRE, which in turn will increase the level of information security of the organization. Knowing what techniques and tactics an attacker can use, information security specialists can take appropriate steps in time to ensure reliable protection of information systems.

Nikita Chernyakov
Head of Cloud Technology and Services Development at Axoft

The skill of using the MITRE ATT&CK knowledge base is undoubtedly useful for information security specialists. It primarily allows you to systematize knowledge about the chain of tactics used by attackers during the attack, the techniques and sub-techniques used, and track the evolution of existing ones and the emergence of new ones. All this makes it possible to build an effective or, as it is now customary to say, an effective information security system.

Studying the MITRE ATT&CK database gives information security specialists the tools they need to develop an effective strategy for protecting and countering cyber threats. This helps protect information systems and data from unauthorized access, increasing the overall security of the organization.

Advantages of using MITRE ATT&CK​

The main advantage of using MITRE ATT&CK is a significant reduction in the response time to threats when building analytics. Thanks to the matrix, experts will build analytics faster due to the availability of similar information on the incident from Mitra. This means that in the end, they will be able to quickly determine the type of attack and take appropriate measures.

Alexander Zubrikov
General Director ITGLOBAL.COM Security

For proper and effective use of information security frameworks, such as MITRE ATT&CK or MITRE D3FEND, you need a clear understanding of what needs to be protected and what needs to be protected. The selection of appropriate tactics and techniques is based on an analysis of the organization's IT infrastructure and key assets that need protection. You need to evaluate potential threats and attack scenarios that are realistic for your organization. This may include an inventory and identification of the technologies used, the attack vectors they may be exposed to, and the level of value of data and services. It is also important to define security objectives, such as compliance with certain standards or regulations. Based on this data, you can filter and select the most relevant tactics and techniques from the MITRE ATT&CK model, which can be used to strengthen defense and detect threats.

But do not forget that in Maitra everything is as generalized as possible. Therefore, in their infrastructure, information security services need to work out TTP independently to search for additional indicators of compromise and improve analytics.

In a general sense, MITRE ATT&CK is an educational cheat sheet on TTP that you need to learn. And information security specialists need to understand how to work with it and select the appropriate tactics and techniques from MITRE ATT&CK for a specific IT structure and security goals.

Kai Mikhailov
Head of Information Security at iTPROTECT

The MITRE ATT&CK matrix contains 3 main sections: Enterprise, Mobile, and ICS (Industrial Systems). You need to select a suitable section, for example, Enterprise, and consistently examine the contents of the columns that define the techniques of intruders. From each column, you need to select only those techniques that may be relevant to the infrastructure, and the rest is skipped. For example, the Execution tactic includes the Container Administration Command technique, but if the infrastructure does not use containerization, this technique is not relevant. Other techniques are selected in the same way.

MITRE ATT&CK's Future Prospects​

MITRE ATT&CK's future prospects are very promising. More and more organizations and industries are recognizing the need to apply tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) in cyber defense. Some large companies are already actively using MITRE ATT&CK in their work.

Jean Maxime Jabia
Awillix Pentester

MITRE ATT&CK has recently been used more and more often, which is accompanied by developing neighboring areas of information technology. Namely, the continuous development of artificial intelligence and IoT, the widespread use of cloud technologies, the evolution of cyber attacks on physical systems and the development of security standards. All this will allow MITRE ATT&CK to reach a new level of development and popularity.

In the future, we can expect to expand the MITRE ATT&CK database through periodic replenishment. This will help you cover more attack methods and new tools for attackers.

Andrey Shabalin
Data Analysis Specialist NGR Softlab

The MITRE knowledge base is formed primarily by the expert community, which is why it has a very high level of" responsiveness " to various emerging trends. A striking example is the development of the MITRE ATLAS (Adversarial Threat Landscape for Artificial-Intelligence Systems) product, which is adjacent to ATT&CK, where the information security community constantly updates the database and forms an up-to-date threat landscape for AI systems. After all, cybercriminals ' interest in compromising large language models is growing along with the popularity and widespread use of LLM.

The development of MITRE will be associated with further development of malicious techniques aimed at machine learning and artificial intelligence, as well as the development of the "cloud direction" and an increase in the knowledge base on protecting the Internet of Things.

Overall, the use of MITRE ATT&CK will continue to grow, as this knowledge base provides valuable information for cyber analytics and helps organizations better protect themselves from modern cyber threats.

How to improve the efficiency of using MITRE ATT&CK in your company​

To increase the efficiency of using MITRE ATT&CK in a company, first of all, it is necessary to evaluate the current level of security maturity in order to understand what aspects need attention and improvement.

The next step is to create a unified system for detecting and responding to attacks. The matrix should be integrated into all the company's security processes, including monitoring, detection, incident analysis, threat management, and so on.

Oleg Skulkin
Head of BI.ZONE Threat Intelligence

To use MITRE ATT&CK effectively, first of all, you should try to cover the most relevant techniques and sub-techniques. It is very important to be protected first from real intruders, then from potentially used techniques. For example, those used by pentesters, and only then from everything else. This is exactly how you need to set priorities in order to build effective protection.

A separate role in the effectiveness of using Mitre Attack is played by training personnel, as well as automating the analysis and detection of attacks based on the knowledge base.

Resume​

MITRE ATT&CK is an important and growing cybersecurity knowledge base. Using the matrix allows organizations to improve their cyber defenses by understanding attack tactics, methods, and processes, as well as creating the necessary countermeasures. Through continuous updating and expansion, the knowledge base remains a relevant and reliable tool for analyzing, training, and developing defense strategies. And companies can improve their cybersecurity level by using MITRE ATT&CK and successfully resist modern threats in the field of information security.