T1090 — Proxy

# T1090 - Proxy

## SOC Recommendation
Investigate Proxy activity in the context of Command and Control: 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
let timeframe = 24h;
BitSightGraphData
| where ingestion_time() > ago(timeframe)and toint(RatingDifferance) < 0
| extend percentage = -(toreal(RatingDifferance)/toreal(Rating))*100
| where percentage >= 10
| project RatingDate, Rating, CompanyName, percentage
```
```kql
let timeframe = 24h;
BitSightGraphData
| where ingestion_time() > ago(timeframe)
| where toint(RatingDifferance) < 0
| project RatingDate, Rating, CompanyName, RatingDifferance
```
```kql
// High Severity - Malicious Domain/IP Reputation Detected
let timeFrame = 5m;
CyfirmaASDomainIPReputationAlerts_CL
| where severity == 'Critical' and TimeGenerated between (ago(timeFrame) .. now())
| extend
    FirstSeen=first_seen,
    LastSeen=last_seen,
    RiskScore=risk_score,
    Domain=sub_domain,
    TopDomain=top_domain,
    NetworkIP=ip,
    AlertUID=alert_uid,
    UID=uid,
    Categories=categories,
    IPversion=ip_version,
    ISP=isp,
    ThreatActors=threat_actors,
    Country=country,
    LastUsersReported=last_users_reported,
    ProviderName='CYFIRMA',
    ProductName='DeCYFIR/DeTCT'
| project
    TimeGenerated,
    Domain,
    TopDomain,
    RiskScore,
    FirstSeen,
    LastSeen,
    NetworkIP,
    AlertUID,
    UID,
    Categories,
    IPversion,
    ISP,
    ThreatActors,
    Country,
    LastUsersReported,
    ProviderName,
    ProductName
```

## Escalation Criteria
- Proxy 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/T1090.json
• /api/recommendations/T1090.json
• /api/d3fend/T1090.json
• /api/mappings/T1090.json
• /api/confluence/T1090.md

Example curl:

curl https://atlas.basyrix.com/api/recommendations/T1090.json

Response:

{
  "technique_id": "T1090",
  "name": "Proxy",
  "priority": "high",
  "status": "draft",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "last_reviewed": "2026-07-23",
  "generated_by": "SOC Response Atlas by Basyrix",
  "tactics": [
    "Command and Control"
  ],
  "platforms": [
    "ESXi",
    "Linux",
    "macOS",
    "Network Devices",
    "Windows"
  ],
  "summary": "Adversaries may use a connection proxy to direct network traffic between systems or act as an intermediary for network communications to a command and control server to avoid direct connections to their infrastructure. Many tools exist that enable traffic redirection through proxies or port redirection, including [HTRAN](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0040), ZXProxy, and ZXPortMap...",
  "soc_recommendation": "Investigate Proxy activity in the context of Command and Control: 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 proxy 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: \"BitSight - drop in company ratings\" -- Rule helps to detect when there is a drop of 10% or more in BitSight company ratings.'"
    ]
  },
  "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": "d8844f11-3a36-4b97-9062-1e6d57c00e37 — BitSight - drop in company ratings",
        "description": "Rule helps to detect when there is a drop of 10% or more in BitSight company ratings.' (Source: Microsoft's official Azure-Sentinel Detections (MIT licensed).)",
        "query": "let timeframe = 24h;\nBitSightGraphData\n| where ingestion_time() > ago(timeframe)and toint(RatingDifferance) < 0\n| extend percentage = -(toreal(RatingDifferance)/toreal(Rating))*100\n| where percentage >= 10\n| project RatingDate, Rating, CompanyName, percentage"
      },
      {
        "name": "b11fdc35-6368-4cc0-8128-52cd2e2cdda0 — BitSight - drop in the headline rating",
        "description": "Rule helps to detect if headline ratings is drop in BitSight.' (Source: Microsoft's official Azure-Sentinel Detections (MIT licensed).)",
        "query": "let timeframe = 24h;\nBitSightGraphData\n| where ingestion_time() > ago(timeframe)\n| where toint(RatingDifferance) < 0\n| project RatingDate, Rating, CompanyName, RatingDifferance"
      },
      {
        "name": "7ff6f6d7-9672-4567-99fc-cb8a58c3bce7 — CYFIRMA - Attack Surface - Malicious Domain/IP Reputation High Rule",
        "description": "\"This alert is raised when CYFIRMA detects a critical reputation score for an IP address linked to your infrastructure. The IP has been previously associated with hacking activity and web application attacks. Denied outbound traffic to a foreign country from a known Microsoft data center IP suggests potential misuse or compromise of cloud infrastructure.\" (Source: Microsoft's official Azure-Sentinel Detections (MIT licensed), mapped via sub-technique T1090.002.)",
        "query": "// High Severity - Malicious Domain/IP Reputation Detected\nlet timeFrame = 5m;\nCyfirmaASDomainIPReputationAlerts_CL\n| where severity == 'Critical' and TimeGenerated between (ago(timeFrame) .. now())\n| extend\n    FirstSeen=first_seen,\n    LastSeen=last_seen,\n    RiskScore=risk_score,\n    Domain=sub_domain,\n    TopDomain=top_domain,\n    NetworkIP=ip,\n    AlertUID=alert_uid,\n    UID=uid,\n    Categories=categories,\n    IPversion=ip_version,\n    ISP=isp,\n    ThreatActors=threat_actors,\n    Country=country,\n    LastUsersReported=last_users_reported,\n    ProviderName='CYFIRMA',\n    ProductName='DeCYFIR/DeTCT'\n| project\n    TimeGenerated,\n    Domain,\n    TopDomain,\n    RiskScore,\n    FirstSeen,\n    LastSeen,\n    NetworkIP,\n    AlertUID,\n    UID,\n    Categories,\n    IPversion,\n    ISP,\n    ThreatActors,\n    Country,\n    LastUsersReported,\n    ProviderName,\n    ProductName"
      }
    ],
    "spl": [],
    "esql": [
      {
        "name": "9f1c4ca3-44b5-481d-ba42-32dc215a2769 — Potential Protocol Tunneling via EarthWorm",
        "description": "(EQL) Identifies the execution of the EarthWorm tunneler. Adversaries may tunnel network communications to and from a victim system within a separate protocol to avoid detection and network filtering, or to enable access to otherwise unreachable systems. (Source: Elastic's official detection-rules repository (Elastic License v2).)",
        "query": "process where host.os.type == \"linux\" and event.type == \"start\" and\nevent.action in (\"exec\", \"start\", \"exec_event\", \"ProcessRollup2\", \"executed\", \"exec_event\", \"process_started\") and\nprocess.args : \"-s\" and process.args : \"-d\" and process.args : \"rssocks\""
      },
      {
        "name": "6926b708-7964-425f-bed8-6e006379df08 — FortiGate SOCKS Traffic from an Unusual Process",
        "description": "(EQL) This detection correlates FortiGate's application control SOCKS events with Elastic Defend network event to identify the source process performing SOCKS traffic. Adversaries may use a connection proxy to direct network traffic between systems or act as an intermediary for network communications to a command and control server to avoid direct connections to their infrastructure. (Source: Elastic's official detection-rules repository (Elastic License v2).)",
        "query": "sequence by source.port, source.ip, destination.ip with maxspan=1m\n [network where data_stream.dataset == \"fortinet_fortigate.log\" and event.action == \"signature\" and network.application in (\"SOCKS4\", \"SOCKS5\")]\n [network where event.module == \"endpoint\" and event.action in (\"disconnect_received\", \"connection_attempted\")]"
      }
    ]
  },
  "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": [
    "Proxy 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": "T1090 - Proxy Response Guidance",
    "labels": [
      "mitre",
      "attack",
      "d3fend",
      "secops",
      "basyrix"
    ],
    "sections": [
      "summary",
      "d3fend_mappings",
      "investigation_steps",
      "response_actions",
      "queries",
      "automation",
      "escalation_criteria",
      "false_positive_considerations"
    ]
  }
}