tfMITRE ATT&CK sub-technique

SMS Pumping T1496.003

sub-technique of T1496 Resource Hijacking

Tactic: Impact
Platform: SaaS
Version: 1.0
Created: 25 September 2024
Last modified: 15 April 2025

Adversaries may leverage messaging services for SMS pumping, which may impact system and/or hosted service availability.[1] SMS pumping is a type of telecommunications fraud whereby a threat actor first obtains a set of phone numbers from a telecommunications provider, then leverages a victim’s messaging infrastructure to send large amounts of SMS messages to numbers in that set. By generating SMS traffic to their phone number set, a threat actor may earn payments from the telecommunications provider.[2]

ReconResource DevInitial AccessExecutionPersistencePriv EscStealthDef ImpairmentCred AccessDiscoveryLateral MoveCollectionC2ExfiltrationImpact

Threat groupsNone recorded

Threat groupsNone recorded · 29% of ATT&CK techniques have none either.

CampaignsNone recorded

CampaignsNone recorded · 54% of ATT&CK techniques have none either.

Tools & malwareNone recorded

Tools & malwareNone recorded · 29% of ATT&CK techniques have none either.

Detection rulesNone recorded

Detection rulesNone recorded · 33% of ATT&CK techniques have none either.

Offense vs defense T1496.003

Is defensive coverage keeping up with adversary use? Eight counts, each ranked against all 697 ATT&CK techniques. Attack sits left, defense right, so a shape leaning left means adversaries are better documented here than defenders are equipped. Hover any spoke for its percentile and the share of techniques that have more. The timeline below shows when each side arrived.

SMS Pumping detection strategy DET0156

MITRE names one behaviour worth catching for this technique and breaks it into 1 analytic, one per platform. Each carries the log sources it needs and the fields you tune per environment.

Detection Strategy for Resource Hijacking: SMS Pumping via SaaS Application Logs

Enterprise

1 platform

AN0443 · SaaS

Automated and repetitive triggering of SMS messages through OTP/account verification fields on SaaS platforms, leveraging background messaging APIs such as Twilio, AWS SNS, or Amazon Cognito to generate traffic toward attacker-controlled numbers.

Log sources

The data this analytic draws on. You do not need every component — each one you already collect covers part of it. Each links to its ATT&CK record.

Data component	Name	Channel
User Account AuthenticationDC0002	saas:audit	Repeated requests to SMS-generating endpoints using anomalous or new user agents, IP ranges, or geographies.
Application Log ContentDC0038	saas:application	High-frequency invocation of SMS-related API endpoints from publicly accessible OTP or verification forms (e.g., Twilio: SendMessage, Cognito: AdminCreateUser) with irregular destination patterns.

Tunable fields

MITRE calls these the analytic’s mutable elements: the thresholds and filters you set for your own environment.

Field	What you tune
TimeWindow	Defines the rolling window over which SMS API invocation frequency is measured. Tunable based on average platform traffic.
SMSFrequencyThreshold	Number of SMS requests per endpoint or per user that should trigger investigation. Should align with business logic and user behavior.
DestinationCountryCodeFilter	Monitors if requests target known high-risk, revenue-sharing regions. Tunable to reflect SMS tariff rates or abuse history.
UserAgentAnomalyThreshold	Defines outlier score or list of unknown/automated user agents submitting forms.
IPGeoVarianceScore	Tracks abnormal geographic spread of traffic sourcing OTP triggers.

SMS Pumping detections T1496.003

No detection rules are mapped to this technique yet.

None recorded— 33% of ATT&CK techniques have none either

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