tfMITRE ATT&CK technique

Implant Internal Image T1525

Tactic: Persistence
Platforms: IaaS, Containers
Version: 2.2
Created: 04 September 2019
Last modified: 24 October 2025
Contributors: Yossi Weizman, Azure Defender Research Team; Vishwas Manral, McAfee; Praetorian

Adversaries may implant cloud or container images with malicious code to establish persistence after gaining access to an environment. Amazon Web Services (AWS) Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Images, and Azure Images as well as popular container runtimes such as Docker can be implanted or backdoored. Unlike Upload Malware, this technique focuses on adversaries implanting an image in a registry within a victim’s environment. Depending on how the infrastructure is provisioned, this could provide persistent access if the infrastructure provisioning tool is instructed to always use the latest image.[1]

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 rules42nd pct

Detection rules42nd percentile · 58% of ATT&CK techniques have more detection rules written.

Offense vs defense T1525

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.

How it got here

Range

Adversary activity (campaign spans) over cumulative rule output. Each source is plotted independently from zero, so neither line includes the other. Campaign dates are year-granularity.

Campaigns · 0Sigma rules (cumulative) · 1Splunk ESCU (cumulative) · 0

first rule: 2022 Q2

Implant Internal Image detection strategy DET0334

MITRE names one behaviour worth catching for this technique and breaks it into 2 analytics, one per platform. Each carries the log sources it needs and the fields you tune per environment.

Detection Strategy for T1525 – Implant Internal Image

Enterprise

2 platforms

AN0946 · Containers

Implantation of malicious code into container images followed by registry push and use in new deployments.

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
Image CreationDC0015	docker:daemon	docker build or docker commit commands followed by docker push to internal registry
Image ModificationDC0036	docker:registry	push event of new image version from unrecognized user or context

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	Time threshold between image creation and use in deployment – typically rapid in adversarial activity.
UserContext	The expected users or service accounts performing image pushes.
RegistryNameRegex	Expected naming patterns for trusted registries.

AN0947 · IaaS

Creation or modification of cloud virtual machine images (AMIs, custom images) with persistence mechanisms, followed by infrastructure provisioning that uses these implanted images.

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
Image CreationDC0015	AWS:CloudTrail	RegisterImage
Image ModificationDC0036	AWS:CloudTrail	ModifyImageAttribute
Instance StartDC0080	AWS:CloudTrail	RunInstances

Tunable fields

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

Field	What you tune
IAMRole	Roles that are allowed to register and modify images should be scoped narrowly.
ImageTagRegex	Expected tags or naming patterns for images (e.g., 'golden-image', 'base-image').
LaunchWindow	Time interval between image creation and instance launch.

Implant Internal Image detections T1525

1 rule is mapped to this technique. Parent techniques also include their sub-techniques’ rules. Click a slice or key entry to filter the table.

42nd pctamong all ATT&CK techniques for number of rules

Product

Severity

Library

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