What is the authoritative source for T1218.003?

CMSTP (T1218.003) is catalogued in MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise and curated for EU compliance use cases by SQUR.

Which ATT&CK tactics does T1218.003 belong to?

T1218.003 (CMSTP) maps to the following MITRE ATT&CK tactic(s): defense-evasion.

T1218.003SubTechniquedefense-evasionagent-callable

T1218.003CMSTP

Sub-technique of T1218

Platforms: Windows

ATT&CK version: 14.1

What it is

Adversaries may abuse CMSTP to proxy execution of malicious code. The Microsoft Connection Manager Profile Installer (CMSTP.exe) is a command-line program used to install Connection Manager service profiles. (Citation: Microsoft Connection Manager Oct 2009) CMSTP.exe accepts an installation information file (INF) as a parameter and installs a service profile leveraged for remote access connections. Adversaries may supply CMSTP.exe with INF files infected with malicious commands. (Citation: Twitter CMSTP Usage Jan 2018) Similar to [Regsvr32](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1218/010) / ”Squiblydoo”, CMSTP.exe may be abused to load and execute DLLs (Citation: MSitPros CMSTP Aug 2017) and/or COM scriptlets (SCT) from remote servers. (Citation: Twitter CMSTP Jan 2018) (Citation: GitHub Ultimate AppLocker Bypass List) (Citation: Endurant CMSTP July 2018) This execution may also bypass AppLocker and other application control defenses since CMSTP.exe is a legitimate binary that may be signed by Microsoft. CMSTP.exe can also be abused to [Bypass User Account Control](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1548/002) and execute arbitrary commands from a malicious INF through an auto-elevated COM interface. (Citation: MSitPros CMSTP Aug 2017) (Citation: GitHub Ultimate AppLocker Bypass List) (Citation: Endurant CMSTP July 2018)

ATT&CK tactics· 1

Defense Evasion

References

Sourced from MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v14.1. Curated and contextualized for EU compliance use cases by Adam Lundqvist, Founder at SQUR.