MITRE ATT&CK Splunk

Introduction

MITRE ATT&CK® is a globally-accessible knowledge base of adversary tactics and techniques based on real-world observations. The ATT&CK knowledge base is used as a foundation for the development of specific threat models and methodologies in the private sector, in government, and in the cybersecurity product and service community.

With the creation of ATT&CK, MITRE is fulfilling its mission to solve problems for a safer world — by bringing communities together to develop more effective cybersecurity. ATT&CK is open and available to any person or organization for use at no charge.

The MITRE ATT&CK Design and Philosophy document from March 2020 says the following:

At a high-level, ATT&CK is a behavioral model that consists of the following core components:

• Tactics, denoting short-term, tactical adversary goals during an attack;

• Techniques, describing the means by which adversaries achieve tactical goals;

• Sub-techniques, describing more specific means by which adversaries achieve tactical goals at a lower level than techniques; and

• Documented adversary usage of techniques, their procedures, and other metadata.

My concern is with MITRE's definition of "tactics" as "short-term, tactical adversary goals during an attack," which is oddly recursive.

The key word in the tactics definition is goals. According to MITRE, "tactics" are "goals."

Examples of ATT&CK Tactics

ATT&CK lists the following as "Enterprise Tactics":