Star BlizzardG1033 ↗
Has sent emails to establish rapport with targets eventually sending messages with attachments containing links to credential-stealing sites.1234
tfMITRE ATT&CK sub-technique
Spearphishing Attachment T1598.002
sub-technique of T1598 Phishing for Information
- Tactic
- Reconnaissance
- Platform
- PRE
- Version
- 1.2
- Created
- 02 October 2020
- Last modified
- 24 October 2025
- Contributors
- Philip Winther; Sebastian Salla, McAfee; Robert Simmons, @MalwareUtkonos
Adversaries may send spearphishing messages with a malicious attachment to elicit sensitive information that can be used during targeting. Spearphishing for information is an attempt to trick targets into divulging information, frequently credentials or other actionable information. Spearphishing for information frequently involves social engineering techniques, such as posing as a source with a reason to collect information (ex: Establish Accounts or Compromise Accounts) and/or sending multiple, seemingly urgent messages.
ReconResource DevInitial AccessExecutionPersistencePriv EscStealthDef ImpairmentCred AccessDiscoveryLateral MoveCollectionC2ExfiltrationImpact
4
Threat groups70th pct
Threat groups70th percentile · 70% of ATT&CK techniques have this many threat groups attributed or fewer.0
CampaignsNone recorded
CampaignsNone recorded · 54% of ATT&CK techniques have none either.0
Tools & malwareNone recorded
Tools & malwareNone recorded · 29% of ATT&CK techniques have none either.2
Detection rules50th pct
Detection rules50th percentile · 50% of ATT&CK techniques have more detection rules written.Spearphishing Attachment MITRE reference T1598.002
70th pctamong all ATT&CK techniques for number of groups
4 groups have been recorded using this technique. Newest first; each entry carries MITRE’s procedure text and a link to the group’s full record. Click a name to filter the rules below.
SideCopyG1008 ↗
Has crafted generic lures for spam campaigns to collect emails and credentials for targeting efforts.1
SidewinderG0121 ↗
Has sent e-mails with malicious attachments that lead victims to credential harvesting websites.123
DragonflyG0035 ↗
Has used spearphishing with Microsoft Office attachments to enable harvesting of user credentials.1
All 4 groups for this technique
Offense vs defense T1598.002
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) · 1
first rule: 2024 Q4Spearphishing Attachment detection strategy DET0865
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 of Spearphishing Attachment
1 platform
AN1997 · PRE
Monitor network data for uncommon data flows. Processes utilizing the network that do not normally have network communication or have never been seen before are suspicious. Monitor for suspicious email activity, such as numerous accounts receiving messages from a single unusual/unknown sender. Filtering based on DKIM+SPF or header analysis can help detect when the email sender is spoofed. Monitor and analyze traffic patterns and packet inspection associated to protocol(s) that do not follow the expected protocol standards and traffic flows (e.g extraneous packets that do not belong to established flows, gratuitous or anomalous traffic patterns, anomalous syntax, or structure). Consider correlation with process monitoring and command line to detect anomalous processes execution and command line arguments associated to traffic patterns (e.g. monitor anomalies in use of files that do not normally initiate connections for respective protocol(s)).
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Application Log ContentDC0038 | Application Log | None |
| Network Traffic FlowDC0078 | Network Traffic | None |
| Network Traffic ContentDC0085 | Network Traffic | None |
Use anti-spoofing and email authentication mechanisms to filter messages based on validity checks of the sender domain (using SPF) and integrity of messages (using DKIM). Enabling these mechanisms within an organization (through policies such as DMARC) may enable recipients (intra-org and cross domain) to perform similar message filtering and validation.
User TrainingM1017
Users can be trained to identify social engineering techniques and spearphishing attempts.