Theft of Operational Information

Theft of Operational Information
Technique
ID	T0882
Tactic	Impact

Description

Adversaries may steal operational information on a production environment as a direct mission outcome for personal gain or to inform future operations. This information may include design documents, schedules, rotational data, or similar artifacts that provide insight on operations.

In the Bowman Dam incident, adversaries probed systems for operational data.12

Procedure Examples

• ACAD/Medre.A can collect AutoCad files with drawings. These drawings may contain operational information.
• Duqu’s purpose is to "gather intelligence data and assets from entities such as industrial infrastructure and system manufacturers, amongst others not in the industrial sector, in order to more easily conduct a future attack against another third party."3
• Flame can collect AutoCAD design data and visio diagrams as well as other documents that may contain operational information.4

Mitigations

• Operational Information Confidentiality - Example mitigations could include minimizing its distribution/storage or obfuscating the information (e.g., facility coverterms, codenames). In many cases this information may be necessary to support critical engineering, maintenance, or operational functions, therefore, it may not be feasible to implement.

• Data Loss Prevention - Apply DLP to protect the confidentiality of information related to operational processes, facility locations, device configurations, programs, or databases that may have information that can be used to infer organizational trade-secrets, recipes, and other intellectual property (IP).

• Encrypt Sensitive Information - Encrypt any operational data with strong confidentiality requirements, including organizational trade-secrets, recipes, and other intellectual property (IP).

• Restrict File and Directory Permissions - Protect files stored locally with proper permissions to limit opportunities for adversaries to interact and collect information from databases.56

References

1. ^  Mark Thompson. (2016, March 24). Iranian Cyber Attack on New York Dam Shows Future of War. Retrieved November 7, 2019.
2. ^  Danny Yadron. (2015, December 20). Iranian Hackers Infiltrated New York Dam in 2013. Retrieved November 7, 2019.
3. ^  Symantec. (n.d.). W32.Duqu The precursor to the next Stuxnet. Retrieved November 3, 2019.

4. ^  Kevin Savage and Branko Spasojevic. (n.d.). W32.Flamer. Retrieved November 3, 2019.
5. ^  Keith Stouffer. (2015, May). Guide to Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Security. Retrieved March 28, 2018.
6. ^  National Institute of Standards and Technology. (2013, April). Security and Privacy Controls for Federal Information Systems and Organizations. Retrieved September 17, 2020.