T1092 — Communication Through Removable Media

# T1092 - Communication Through Removable Media

## SOC Recommendation
Investigate Communication Through Removable Media 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Radiation Hardening | Harden | Apply Radiation Hardening to reduce this technique's viability before an incident occurs. |
| IO Port Restriction | Isolate | Apply IO Port Restriction to contain the blast radius once this technique is observed. |
| Hardware Component Inventory | Model | Use Hardware Component Inventory to establish a baseline that makes this technique's deviations easier to spot. |

## 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
DeviceEvents
| where TimeGenerated > ago(24h)
| where ActionType has "<tune to T1092>"
```

## Escalation Criteria
- Communication Through Removable Media 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/T1092.json
• /api/recommendations/T1092.json
• /api/d3fend/T1092.json
• /api/mappings/T1092.json
• /api/confluence/T1092.md

Example curl:

curl https://atlas.basyrix.com/api/recommendations/T1092.json

Response:

{
  "technique_id": "T1092",
  "name": "Communication Through Removable Media",
  "priority": "medium",
  "status": "draft",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "last_reviewed": "2026-07-23",
  "generated_by": "SOC Response Atlas by Basyrix",
  "tactics": [
    "Command and Control"
  ],
  "platforms": [
    "Linux",
    "macOS",
    "Windows"
  ],
  "summary": "Adversaries can perform command and control between compromised hosts on potentially disconnected networks using removable media to transfer commands from system to system. Both systems would need to be compromised, with the likelihood that an Internet-connected system was compromised first and the second through lateral movement by [Replication Through Removable Media](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1091)...",
  "soc_recommendation": "Investigate Communication Through Removable Media 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-RH",
      "name": "Radiation Hardening",
      "relationship": "harden",
      "practical_action": "Apply Radiation Hardening to reduce this technique's viability before an incident occurs.",
      "tooling": [
        "Defender for Endpoint"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "D3-IOPR",
      "name": "IO Port Restriction",
      "relationship": "isolate",
      "practical_action": "Apply IO Port Restriction to contain the blast radius once this technique is observed.",
      "tooling": [
        "Defender for Endpoint"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "D3-HCI",
      "name": "Hardware Component Inventory",
      "relationship": "model",
      "practical_action": "Use Hardware Component Inventory to establish a baseline that makes this technique's deviations easier to spot.",
      "tooling": [
        "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 communication through removable media 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."
    ]
  },
  "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": "Starting point for T1092",
        "description": "Generic starting query -- tune to the specific data source relevant to this technique.",
        "query": "DeviceEvents\n| where TimeGenerated > ago(24h)\n| where ActionType has \"<tune to T1092>\""
      }
    ],
    "spl": [],
    "esql": []
  },
  "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": [
    "Communication Through Removable Media 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": "T1092 - Communication Through Removable Media Response Guidance",
    "labels": [
      "mitre",
      "attack",
      "d3fend",
      "secops",
      "basyrix"
    ],
    "sections": [
      "summary",
      "d3fend_mappings",
      "investigation_steps",
      "response_actions",
      "queries",
      "automation",
      "escalation_criteria",
      "false_positive_considerations"
    ]
  }
}