Acquire Infrastructure

Adversaries may buy, lease, rent, or obtain infrastructure that can be used during targeting. A wide variety of infrastructure exists for hosting and orchestrating adversary operations. Infrastructure solutions include physical or cloud servers, domains, and third-party web services.(Citation: TrendmicroHideoutsLease) Some infrastructure providers offer free trial periods, enabling infrastructure acquisition at limited to no cost.(Citation: Free Trial PurpleUrchin) Additionally, botnets are available for rent or purchase.

Use of these infrastructure solutions allows adversaries to stage, launch, and execute operations. Solutions may help adversary operations blend in with traffic that is seen as normal, such as contacting third-party web services or acquiring infrastructure to support [Proxy](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1090), including from residential proxy services.(Citation: amnesty_nso_pegasus)(Citation: FBI Proxies Credential Stuffing)(Citation: Mandiant APT29 Microsoft 365 2022) Depending on the implementation, adversaries may use infrastructure that makes it difficult to physically tie back to them as well as utilize infrastructure that can be rapidly provisioned, modified, and shut down.

Platforms: PRE
Tactics:
phase_name: resource-development

Detection:
Consider use of services that may aid in tracking of newly acquired infrastructure, such as WHOIS databases for domain registration information. 

Once adversaries have provisioned infrastructure (ex: a server for use in command and control), internet scans may help proactively discover adversary acquired infrastructure. Consider looking for identifiable patterns such as services listening, certificates in use, SSL/TLS negotiation features, or other response artifacts associated with adversary C2 software.(Citation: ThreatConnect Infrastructure Dec 2020)(Citation: Mandiant SCANdalous Jul 2020)(Citation: Koczwara Beacon Hunting Sep 2021)

Detection efforts may be focused on related stages of the adversary lifecycle, such as during Command and Control.

References:
source_name: mitre-attack
description: Amnesty International Security Lab. (2021, July 18). Forensic Methodology Report: How to catch NSO Group’s Pegasus. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
source_name: amnesty_nso_pegasus
description: Douglas Bienstock. (2022, August 18). You Can’t Audit Me: APT29 Continues Targeting Microsoft 365. Retrieved February 23, 2023.
source_name: Mandiant APT29 Microsoft 365 2022
description: FBI. (2022, August 18). Proxies and Configurations Used for Credential Stuffing Attacks on Online Customer Accounts . Retrieved July 6, 2023.
source_name: FBI Proxies Credential Stuffing
description: Gamazo, William. Quist, Nathaniel.. (2023, January 5). PurpleUrchin Bypasses CAPTCHA and Steals Cloud Platform Resources. Retrieved February 28, 2024.
source_name: Free Trial PurpleUrchin
description: Koczwara, M. (2021, September 7). Hunting Cobalt Strike C2 with Shodan. Retrieved October 12, 2021.
source_name: Koczwara Beacon Hunting Sep 2021
description: Max Goncharov. (2015, July 15). Criminal Hideouts for Lease: Bulletproof Hosting Services. Retrieved March 6, 2017.
source_name: TrendmicroHideoutsLease
description: Stephens, A. (2020, July 13). SCANdalous! (External Detection Using Network Scan Data and Automation). Retrieved October 12, 2021.
source_name: Mandiant SCANdalous Jul 2020
description: ThreatConnect. (2020, December 15). Infrastructure Research and Hunting: Boiling the Domain Ocean. Retrieved October 12, 2021.
source_name: ThreatConnect Infrastructure Dec 2020