Python for Cybersecurity

CHAPTER 6Evading Defenses

Gaining access to a target environment represents a significant investment of time and effort by an attacker. Maintaining this access requires the ability to evade detection and remediation by defenders.

The Defense Evasion tactic of the MITRE ATT&CK framework includes 39 techniques, making it the tactic with the greatest number of techniques. Figure 6.1 shows the breakdown of Defense Evasion techniques.

Figure 6.1: MITRE ATT&CK: Defense Evasion

In this chapter, we will focus on two techniques from the Defense Evasion tactic. The first half of the chapter discusses Impair Defenses by targeting antivirus programs, and the second explores the use of alternate data streams (ADS) to Hide Artifacts created by an attack.

The code sample archive for this chapter can be found at https://www.wiley.com/go/pythonforcybersecurity and contains the following sample code files:

• DetectAntivirusService.py
• TerminateAntivirus.py
• DecoyProcess.py
• AlternateDataStreams.py
• DetectADS.py

Impair Defenses

Like many stages of the cyberattack lifecycle, defense evasion can be performed either actively or passively. The Impair Defenses technique is an example of active Defense Evasion.

This technique can be carried out in a few different ways that target different defensive tools. Defenses can be impaired by disabling logging, interfering with cybersecurity tools, or otherwise ...