Unveiling Attacker Strategies: A Shift in the MITRE ATT&CK Landscape

 

The MITRE ATT&CK framework provides invaluable insights into attacker behavior. In the past, our defenses primarily focused on mitigating tactics like defense evasion and privilege escalation. This focus resulted in a large number of security rules and techniques dedicated to preventing these well-established attacker maneuvers.

However, the latest data reveals a shift in attacker tactics. This year, detections have spiked for tactics associated with the initial stages of an attack, such as initial access and execution. This suggests that attackers are increasingly focusing on establishing a foothold within systems and deploying malicious payloads.

This trend highlights the need for a multi-layered security approach. While maintaining strong defenses against traditional tactics like privilege escalation remains crucial, organizations must also invest in:

• Endpoint security solutions that can detect and prevent initial access attempts, such as phishing emails and malware downloads.
• Network segmentation strategies to limit the attacker's lateral movement within the network once they gain access.
• Continuous monitoring and threat hunting to identify suspicious activity in the early stages of an attack.

We still believe that security scans and testing cause a majority of these triggers, which indicates 

that these organizations are focused on detecting tactics that present themselves earlier in an 

attack chain in the hopes that they can respond before it’s too late.