T1020 — Automated Exfiltration

# T1020 - Automated Exfiltration

## SOC Recommendation
Investigate Automated Exfiltration activity in the context of Exfiltration: confirm scope, affected host/identity, and whether it matches expected administrative behaviour before deciding this is benign.

## D3FEND Mappings
| D3FEND Technique | Relationship | Practical SOC Action |
|---|---|---|
| User Geolocation Logon Pattern Analysis | Detect | Monitor for User Geolocation Logon Pattern Analysis indicators relevant to this technique. |
| Network Traffic Filtering | Isolate | Apply Network Traffic Filtering to contain the blast radius once this technique is observed. |

## Investigation Steps
1. Review Defender for Endpoint / Defender XDR alerts and timeline for the affected host or identity.
2. Check Sentinel analytics rules and incidents correlated with this technique.
3. Review Entra ID sign-in and audit logs if the technique involves an identity or cloud resource.

## Evidence to Collect
- Host or resource affected
- Account or identity involved
- Timestamp of the activity
- Related process, file, or network artifact
- Any preceding or follow-on alerts

## Response Actions
| Action | Risk | Automation Safe | Approval Required |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contain the affected host or account | Medium | No | Yes |
| Collect and preserve evidence | Low | Yes | No |

## KQL
```kql
ClarotyEvent
| where EventOriginalType has 'Suspicious File Transfer' or EventType has 'Suspicious File Transfer'
| project TimeGenerated, DstIpAddr, EventOriginalType, EventType
| extend IPCustomEntity = DstIpAddr
| project TimeGenerated, DstIpAddr, EventOriginalType, EventType, IPCustomEntity
```
```kql
DeviceEvents   
| where InitiatingProcessFileName =~ "powershell.exe"
| where ActionType == "AmsiScriptContent"
| where AdditionalFields endswith '[mArS.deiMos]::inteRaCt()"}'
| project InitiatingProcessParentFileName, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, ActionType, AdditionalFields, DeviceName
| extend HostName = iff(DeviceName has '.', substring(DeviceName, 0, indexof(DeviceName, '.')), DeviceName)
| extend DnsDomain = iff(DeviceName has '.', substring(DeviceName, indexof(DeviceName, '.') + 1), "")
```
```kql
let timeframe = 1d;
let spanoftime = 10m;
let threshold = 0;
ExchangeAdminAuditLogs 
  | where TimeGenerated > ago(2 * timeframe)
  | where isempty(UserOriented)
  | project serverExecutedTime = TimeGenerated,
    ServerCmdlet = CmdletName,
    ServerCmdletParams = CmdletParameters,
    Computer,
    Caller,
    ServerCmdletTargetObject = TargetObject
  | join kind= inner (
      ExchangeAdminAuditLogs
      | where TimeGenerated > ago(timeframe)
      | where UserOriented =~ 'Yes'
      | project userExecutedTime = TimeGenerated,
        UserCmdlet = CmdletName,
        UserCmdletParams = CmdletParameters,
        Computer,
        Caller,
        UserCmdletTargetObject = TargetObject,
        userPrincipalName,
        objectGUID,
        sAMAccountName,
        IsVIP)
    on Computer, Caller
  | where userExecutedTime - serverExecutedTime < spanoftime
  | extend TimeDelta = userExecutedTime - serverExecutedTime
  | extend TimeDeltaInverse = serverExecutedTime - userExecutedTime
  | where tolong(TimeDelta) >= threshold or tolong(TimeDeltaInverse) >= threshold
```

## Escalation Criteria
- Automated Exfiltration activity observed on a privileged account or critical system.
- Activity follows or precedes other suspicious behaviour in the same investigation.
- Automated triage cannot confidently rule out malicious intent.

## False Positive Considerations
- Legitimate administrative or maintenance activity matching this pattern.
- Approved security testing or red team exercise.
- Known benign software producing similar telemetry.

Generated by SOC Response Atlas by Basyrix.

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• /api/techniques/T1020.json
• /api/recommendations/T1020.json
• /api/d3fend/T1020.json
• /api/mappings/T1020.json
• /api/confluence/T1020.md

Example curl:

curl https://atlas.basyrix.com/api/recommendations/T1020.json

Response:

{
  "technique_id": "T1020",
  "name": "Automated Exfiltration",
  "priority": "high",
  "status": "draft",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "last_reviewed": "2026-07-23",
  "generated_by": "SOC Response Atlas by Basyrix",
  "tactics": [
    "Exfiltration"
  ],
  "platforms": [
    "Linux",
    "macOS",
    "Network Devices",
    "Windows"
  ],
  "summary": "Adversaries may exfiltrate data, such as sensitive documents, through the use of automated processing after being gathered during Collection. When automated exfiltration is used, other exfiltration techniques likely apply as well to transfer the information out of the network, such as [Exfiltration Over C2 Channel](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1041) and [Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1048).",
  "soc_recommendation": "Investigate Automated Exfiltration activity in the context of Exfiltration: confirm scope, affected host/identity, and whether it matches expected administrative behaviour before deciding this is benign.",
  "d3fend_mappings": [
    {
      "id": "D3-UGLPA",
      "name": "User Geolocation Logon Pattern Analysis",
      "relationship": "detect",
      "practical_action": "Monitor for User Geolocation Logon Pattern Analysis indicators relevant to this technique.",
      "tooling": [
        "Defender for Endpoint"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "D3-NTF",
      "name": "Network Traffic Filtering",
      "relationship": "isolate",
      "practical_action": "Apply Network Traffic Filtering to contain the blast radius once this technique is observed.",
      "tooling": [
        "Sentinel",
        "Defender for Endpoint"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "investigation_steps": {
    "microsoft": [
      "Review Defender for Endpoint / Defender XDR alerts and timeline for the affected host or identity.",
      "Check Sentinel analytics rules and incidents correlated with this technique.",
      "Review Entra ID sign-in and audit logs if the technique involves an identity or cloud resource."
    ],
    "generic": [
      "Confirm whether the observed automated exfiltration activity matches expected administrative or application behaviour.",
      "Identify the host, account, or resource where the activity occurred and its business criticality.",
      "Check for related alerts before and after this activity to reconstruct the broader intrusion timeline.",
      "Real detection reference: \"Claroty - Suspicious file transfer\" -- Detects Claroty events where EventOriginalType or EventType contains Suspicious File Transfer and maps the destination IP as the primary entity for triage."
    ]
  },
  "evidence_to_collect": [
    "Host or resource affected",
    "Account or identity involved",
    "Timestamp of the activity",
    "Related process, file, or network artifact",
    "Any preceding or follow-on alerts"
  ],
  "response_actions": [
    {
      "name": "Contain the affected host or account",
      "category": "Containment",
      "risk": "Medium",
      "automation_safe": false,
      "approval_required": true,
      "tool": "Defender for Endpoint / Entra ID",
      "notes": "Requires approval -- confirm malicious intent before isolating a host or disabling an account."
    },
    {
      "name": "Collect and preserve evidence",
      "category": "Investigation",
      "risk": "Low",
      "automation_safe": true,
      "approval_required": false,
      "tool": "Defender for Endpoint",
      "notes": "Safe -- read-only evidence collection."
    }
  ],
  "queries": {
    "kql": [
      {
        "name": "5cf35bad-677f-4c23-8927-1611e7ff6f28 — Claroty - Suspicious file transfer",
        "description": "Detects Claroty events where EventOriginalType or EventType contains Suspicious File Transfer and maps the destination IP as the primary entity for triage. (Source: Microsoft's official Azure-Sentinel Detections (MIT licensed).)",
        "query": "ClarotyEvent\n| where EventOriginalType has 'Suspicious File Transfer' or EventType has 'Suspicious File Transfer'\n| project TimeGenerated, DstIpAddr, EventOriginalType, EventType\n| extend IPCustomEntity = DstIpAddr\n| project TimeGenerated, DstIpAddr, EventOriginalType, EventType, IPCustomEntity"
      },
      {
        "name": "c25a8cd4-5b4a-45a8-9ba0-3b753a652f6b — Deimos Component Execution",
        "description": "Jupyter, otherwise known as SolarMarker, is a malware family and cluster of components known for its info-stealing and backdoor capabilities that mainly proliferates through search engine optimization manipulation and malicious advertising in order to successfully encourage users to download malicious templates and documents. This malware has been popular since 2020 and currently is still active as of 2021. (Source: Microsoft's official Azure-Sentinel Detections (MIT licensed).)",
        "query": "DeviceEvents   \n| where InitiatingProcessFileName =~ \"powershell.exe\"\n| where ActionType == \"AmsiScriptContent\"\n| where AdditionalFields endswith '[mArS.deiMos]::inteRaCt()\"}'\n| project InitiatingProcessParentFileName, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, ActionType, AdditionalFields, DeviceName\n| extend HostName = iff(DeviceName has '.', substring(DeviceName, 0, indexof(DeviceName, '.')), DeviceName)\n| extend DnsDomain = iff(DeviceName has '.', substring(DeviceName, indexof(DeviceName, '.') + 1), \"\")"
      },
      {
        "name": "7bce901b-9bc8-4948-8dfc-8f68878092d5 — Server Oriented Cmdlet And User Oriented Cmdlet used",
        "description": "Detect if a server oriented cmdlet and a user oriented cmdlet that are monitored are launched by the same user in the same server within a 10 minutes timeframe' (Source: Microsoft's official Azure-Sentinel Detections (MIT licensed).)",
        "query": "let timeframe = 1d;\nlet spanoftime = 10m;\nlet threshold = 0;\nExchangeAdminAuditLogs \n  | where TimeGenerated > ago(2 * timeframe)\n  | where isempty(UserOriented)\n  | project serverExecutedTime = TimeGenerated,\n    ServerCmdlet = CmdletName,\n    ServerCmdletParams = CmdletParameters,\n    Computer,\n    Caller,\n    ServerCmdletTargetObject = TargetObject\n  | join kind= inner (\n      ExchangeAdminAuditLogs\n      | where TimeGenerated > ago(timeframe)\n      | where UserOriented =~ 'Yes'\n      | project userExecutedTime = TimeGenerated,\n        UserCmdlet = CmdletName,\n        UserCmdletParams = CmdletParameters,\n        Computer,\n        Caller,\n        UserCmdletTargetObject = TargetObject,\n        userPrincipalName,\n        objectGUID,\n        sAMAccountName,\n        IsVIP)\n    on Computer, Caller\n  | where userExecutedTime - serverExecutedTime < spanoftime\n  | extend TimeDelta = userExecutedTime - serverExecutedTime\n  | extend TimeDeltaInverse = serverExecutedTime - userExecutedTime\n  | where tolong(TimeDelta) >= threshold or tolong(TimeDeltaInverse) >= threshold"
      }
    ],
    "spl": [],
    "esql": [
      {
        "name": "19f3674c-f4a1-43bb-a89c-e4c6212275e0 — GitHub Exfiltration via High Number of Repository Clones by User",
        "description": "(ESQL) Detects a high number of repository cloning actions by a single user within a short time frame. Adversaries may clone multiple repositories to exfiltrate sensitive data. (Source: Elastic's official detection-rules repository (Elastic License v2).)",
        "query": "from logs-github.audit-* metadata _id, _index, _version\n| where\n  data_stream.dataset == \"github.audit\" and event.type == \"change\" and event.action == \"git.clone\"\n| stats\n  Esql.event_count = COUNT(*),\n  Esql.github_org_values = values(github.org),\n  Esql.github_repo_values = values(github.repo),\n  Esql.github_repository_public_values = values(github.repository_public),\n  Esql.github_token_id_values = values(github.token_id),\n  Esql.github_user_agent_values = values(github.user_agent),\n  Esql.user_name_values = values(user.name),\n  Esql.agent_id_values = values(agent.id),\n  Esql.data_stream_dataset_values = values(data_stream.dataset),\n  Esql.data_stream_namespace_values = values(data_stream.namespace)\n\n  by user.name\n\n| keep Esql.*\n\n| where\n  Esql.event_count >= 25"
      },
      {
        "name": "098bd5cc-fd55-438f-b354-7d6cd9856a08 — High Number of Closed Pull Requests by User",
        "description": "(ESQL) Detects a high number of closed pull requests by a single user within a short time frame. Adversaries may close multiple pull requests to disrupt development workflows or hide malicious changes. (Source: Elastic's official detection-rules repository (Elastic License v2).)",
        "query": "from logs-github.audit-* metadata _id, _index, _version\n| where\n  data_stream.dataset == \"github.audit\" and\n  github.category == \"pull_request\" and\n  event.type == \"change\" and\n  event.action == \"pull_request.close\"\n| stats\n  Esql.document_count = COUNT(*),\n  Esql.github_org_values = values(github.org),\n  Esql.github_repo_values = values(github.repo),\n  Esql.github_user_agent_values = values(github.user_agent),\n  Esql.github_pull_request_url_values = values(github.pull_request_url),\n  Esql.user_name_values = values(user.name),\n  Esql.agent_id_values = values(agent.id),\n  Esql.data_stream_dataset_values = values(data_stream.dataset),\n  Esql.data_stream_namespace_values = values(data_stream.namespace)\n\n  by user.name\n\n| keep Esql.*\n\n| where\n  Esql.document_count >= 10"
      }
    ]
  },
  "automation": {
    "safe": [
      "Add recommendation as Sentinel incident comment.",
      "Run enrichment queries.",
      "Create ServiceNow SecOps task."
    ],
    "approval_required": [
      "Contain or disable the affected host/account.",
      "Any change to production configuration."
    ]
  },
  "escalation_criteria": [
    "Automated Exfiltration activity observed on a privileged account or critical system.",
    "Activity follows or precedes other suspicious behaviour in the same investigation.",
    "Automated triage cannot confidently rule out malicious intent."
  ],
  "false_positive_considerations": [
    "Legitimate administrative or maintenance activity matching this pattern.",
    "Approved security testing or red team exercise.",
    "Known benign software producing similar telemetry."
  ],
  "confluence": {
    "title": "T1020 - Automated Exfiltration Response Guidance",
    "labels": [
      "mitre",
      "attack",
      "d3fend",
      "secops",
      "basyrix"
    ],
    "sections": [
      "summary",
      "d3fend_mappings",
      "investigation_steps",
      "response_actions",
      "queries",
      "automation",
      "escalation_criteria",
      "false_positive_considerations"
    ]
  }
}