Query: indicators of External Remote Services
Matching passage: T1133 External Remote Services. Tactics: persistence, initial access. Description: Adversaries may leverage external-facing remote services to initially access and/or persist within a network. Remote services such as VPNs, Citrix, and other access mechanisms allow users to connect to internal enterprise network resources from external locations. There are often remote service gateways that manage connections and credential authentication for these services. Services such as [Windows Remote Management](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1021/006) and [VNC](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1021/005) can also be used externally.(Citation: MacOS VNC software for Remote Desktop) Access to [Valid Accounts](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1078) to use the service is often a requirement, which could be obtained through credential pharming or by obtaining the credentials from users after compromising the enterprise network.(Citation: Volexity Virtual Private Keylogging) Access to remote services may be used as a redundant or persistent access mechanism during an operation. Access may also be gained through an exposed service that doesn’t require authentication. In containerized environments, this may include an exposed Docker API, Kubernetes API server, kubelet, or web application such as the Kubernetes dashboard.(Citation: Trend Micro Exposed Docker Server)(Citation: Unit 42 Hildegard Malware) Adversaries may also establish persistence on network by configuring a Tor hidden service on a compromised system. Adversaries may utilize the tool `ShadowLink` to facilitate the installation and configuration of the Tor hidden service. Tor hidden service is then accessible via the Tor network because `ShadowLink` sets up a .onion address on the compromised system. `ShadowLink` may be used to forward any inbound connections to RDP, allowing the adversaries to have remote access.(Citation: The BadPilot campaign) Adversaries may get `ShadowLink` to persist on a system by masquerading it as an MS Defender application.(Citation: Russian threat actors dig in,
Near-miss passage: T1195.001 Compromise Software Dependencies and Development Tools. Tactics: initial access. Description: Adversaries may manipulate software dependencies and development tools prior to receipt by a final consumer for the purpose of data or system compromise. Applications often depend on external software to function properly. Popular open source projects that are used as dependencies in many applications, such as pip and NPM packages, may be targeted as a means to add malicious code to users of the dependency.(Citation: Trendmicro NPM Compromise)(Citation: Bitdefender NPM Repositories Compromised 2021)(Citation: MANDVI Malicious npm and PyPI Packages Disguised) This may also include abandoned packages, which in some cases could be re-registered by threat actors after being removed by adversaries.(Citation: The Hacker News PyPi Revival Hijack 2024) Adversaries may also employ "typosquatting" or name-confusion by choosing names similar to existing popular libraries or packages in order to deceive a user.(Citation: Ahmed Backdoors in Python and NPM Packages)(Citation: Meyer PyPI Supply Chain Attack Uncovered)(Citation: Checkmarx-oss-seo) Additionally, CI/CD pipeline components, such as GitHub Actions, may be targeted in order to gain access to the building, testing, and deployment cycles of an application.(Citation: Unit 42 Palo Alto GitHub Actions Supply Chain Attack 2025) By adding malicious code into a GitHub action, a threat actor may be able to collect runtime credentials (e.g., via [Proc Filesystem](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1003/007)) or insert further malicious components into the build pipelines for a second-order supply chain compromise.(Citation: OWASP CICD-SEC-4) As GitHub Actions are often dependent on other GitHub Actions, threat actors may be able to infect a large number of repositories via the compromise of a single Action.(Citation: Palo Alto Networks GitHub Actions Worm 2023) Targeting may be specific to a desired victim set or may be distributed to a broad set of consumers but only move on to additional tactics on specific victims.