T1583 — Acquire Infrastructure

# T1583 - Acquire Infrastructure

## SOC Recommendation
Investigate Acquire Infrastructure activity in the context of Resource Development: 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Network Traffic Analysis | Detect | Monitor for Network Traffic Analysis indicators relevant to this technique. |

## 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Add lookalike domain to MDO blocked senders list proactively | Medium | No | Yes |
| Add to Sentinel TI watchlist for ongoing monitoring | Low | No | Yes |
| Consider domain takedown request via NCSC or registrar abuse | Low | No | Yes |
| Alert employees to watch for phishing from this domain | Low | No | Yes |

## KQL
```kql
ThreatIntelligenceIndicator
| where TimeGenerated >= ago(1d)
| where Active == true
| where Tags has_any ("lookalike", "typosquat", "phishing", "brand-abuse", "impersonation")
| where DomainName has_any (_GetWatchlist('InternalEmailDomains')
    | extend DomainKey = tostring(column_ifexists("SearchKey", column_ifexists("domain", column_ifexists("Domain", ""))))
    | where isnotempty(DomainKey)
    | project DomainKey)
    or Description has_any (_GetWatchlist('InternalEmailDomains')
    | extend DomainKey = tostring(column_ifexists("SearchKey", column_ifexists("domain", column_ifexists("Domain", ""))))
    | where isnotempty(DomainKey)
    | project DomainKey)
| project TimeGenerated, DomainName, Description, Tags, ConfidenceScore, ThreatType
| extend timestamp = TimeGenerated
| order by ConfidenceScore desc
| extend DNSCustomEntity = DomainName
```
```kql
blacklens_CL
| summarize arg_max(TimeGenerated, *) by id
| extend AlertSeverity = case(
    tolower(severity) == "critical", "High",
    tolower(severity) == "high", "High",
    tolower(severity) == "medium", "Medium",
    tolower(severity) == "low", "Low",
    "Informational"
)
```
```kql
// High severity-  Brand Intelligence - Domain Impersonation
let timeFrame = 5m;
CyfirmaBIDomainITAssetAlerts_CL
| where severity == 'Critical' and TimeGenerated between (ago(timeFrame) .. now())
| extend
    Description=description,
    FirstSeen=first_seen,
    LastSeen=last_seen,
    RiskScore=risk_score,
    AlertUID=alert_uid,
    UID=uid,
    Domain=domain,
    DRDomain=dr_domain,
    DRSubDomain=dr_sub_domain,
    DomainSquat=signature,
    HostProvider=host_provider,
    RegisteredDate=registered_date,
    CreatedDate=created_date,
    ThreatActor=suspected_threat_actor,
    ProviderName='CYFIRMA',
    ProductName='DeCYFIR/DeTCT'
| project
    TimeGenerated,
    Description,
    RiskScore,
    FirstSeen,
    LastSeen,
    AlertUID,
    UID,
    Domain,
    DRDomain,
    DRSubDomain,
    DomainSquat,
    HostProvider,
    RegisteredDate,
    CreatedDate,
    ThreatActor,
    ProductName,
    ProviderName
```

## Escalation Criteria
- Acquire Infrastructure 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/T1583.json
• /api/recommendations/T1583.json
• /api/d3fend/T1583.json
• /api/mappings/T1583.json
• /api/confluence/T1583.md

Example curl:

curl https://atlas.basyrix.com/api/recommendations/T1583.json

Response:

{
  "technique_id": "T1583",
  "name": "Acquire Infrastructure",
  "priority": "high",
  "status": "complete",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "last_reviewed": "2026-07-23",
  "generated_by": "SOC Response Atlas by Basyrix",
  "tactics": [
    "Resource Development"
  ],
  "platforms": [
    "PRE"
  ],
  "summary": "Adversaries may buy, lease, rent, or obtain infrastructure that can be used during targeting. A wide variety of infrastructure exists for hosting and orchestrating adversary operations. Infrastructure solutions include physical or cloud servers, domains, and third-party web services. Some infrastructure providers offer free trial periods, enabling infrastructure acquisition at limited to no cost. Additionally, botnets are available for rent or purchase...",
  "soc_recommendation": "Investigate Acquire Infrastructure activity in the context of Resource Development: confirm scope, affected host/identity, and whether it matches expected administrative behaviour before deciding this is benign.",
  "d3fend_mappings": [
    {
      "id": "D3-NTA",
      "name": "Network Traffic Analysis",
      "relationship": "detect",
      "practical_action": "Monitor for Network Traffic Analysis indicators relevant to this technique.",
      "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 acquire infrastructure 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: \"Phishing Infrastructure Detected\" -- Flags newly registered lookalike/typosquat domains impersonating the organisation's brand - a strong indicator an attacker has stood up phishing infrastructure before it is used. Requires MDTI or a threat intel feed with typosquat detection."
    ]
  },
  "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": "Add lookalike domain to MDO blocked senders list proactively",
      "category": "Response",
      "risk": "Medium",
      "automation_safe": false,
      "approval_required": true,
      "tool": "Defender for Office 365"
    },
    {
      "name": "Add to Sentinel TI watchlist for ongoing monitoring",
      "category": "Response",
      "risk": "Low",
      "automation_safe": false,
      "approval_required": true,
      "tool": "Sentinel"
    },
    {
      "name": "Consider domain takedown request via NCSC or registrar abuse",
      "category": "Response",
      "risk": "Low",
      "automation_safe": false,
      "approval_required": true,
      "tool": "See investigation guide",
      "notes": "Consider domain takedown request via NCSC or registrar abuse team"
    },
    {
      "name": "Alert employees to watch for phishing from this domain",
      "category": "Response",
      "risk": "Low",
      "automation_safe": false,
      "approval_required": true,
      "tool": "See investigation guide"
    }
  ],
  "queries": {
    "kql": [
      {
        "name": "GEN-RC-003 — Phishing Infrastructure Detected",
        "description": "Flags newly registered lookalike/typosquat domains impersonating the organisation's brand - a strong indicator an attacker has stood up phishing infrastructure before it is used. Requires MDTI or a threat intel feed with typosquat detection. (Source: Bell Integration baseline detection library, mapped via sub-technique T1583.001.)",
        "query": "ThreatIntelligenceIndicator\n| where TimeGenerated >= ago(1d)\n| where Active == true\n| where Tags has_any (\"lookalike\", \"typosquat\", \"phishing\", \"brand-abuse\", \"impersonation\")\n| where DomainName has_any (_GetWatchlist('InternalEmailDomains')\n    | extend DomainKey = tostring(column_ifexists(\"SearchKey\", column_ifexists(\"domain\", column_ifexists(\"Domain\", \"\"))))\n    | where isnotempty(DomainKey)\n    | project DomainKey)\n    or Description has_any (_GetWatchlist('InternalEmailDomains')\n    | extend DomainKey = tostring(column_ifexists(\"SearchKey\", column_ifexists(\"domain\", column_ifexists(\"Domain\", \"\"))))\n    | where isnotempty(DomainKey)\n    | project DomainKey)\n| project TimeGenerated, DomainName, Description, Tags, ConfidenceScore, ThreatType\n| extend timestamp = TimeGenerated\n| order by ConfidenceScore desc\n| extend DNSCustomEntity = DomainName"
      },
      {
        "name": "e261b70a-3005-4a1b-a7a2-2c8147fafed7 — blacklens Insights",
        "description": "Creates incidents from blacklens.io Attack Surface Management alerts ingested into the blacklens_CL table. Alert severity is mapped dynamically from the source data.' (Source: Microsoft's official Azure-Sentinel Detections (MIT licensed).)",
        "query": "blacklens_CL\n| summarize arg_max(TimeGenerated, *) by id\n| extend AlertSeverity = case(\n    tolower(severity) == \"critical\", \"High\",\n    tolower(severity) == \"high\", \"High\",\n    tolower(severity) == \"medium\", \"Medium\",\n    tolower(severity) == \"low\", \"Low\",\n    \"Informational\"\n)"
      },
      {
        "name": "10bdf525-5b89-4a25-933a-e63e73b915f1 — CYFIRMA - Brand Intelligence - Domain Impersonation High Rule",
        "description": "\"This analytics rule detects high-risk domain impersonation activity, where newly registered or existing domains closely resemble the legitimate brand name or organizational assets. These suspicious domains may use typosquatting, homoglyphs, or brand keywords to mislead users, steal credentials, or host phishing/malicious content. The domains are identified through CYFIRMA's external threat intelligence feeds and flagged due to potential misuse in impersonation, fraud, or social engineering attacks targeting employees, customers, or partners. Early detection of these domains enables proactive mitigation measures such as domain takedown, DNS blocking, and awareness campaigns.\" (Source: Microsoft's official Azure-Sentinel Detections (MIT licensed), mapped via sub-technique T1583.001.)",
        "query": "// High severity-  Brand Intelligence - Domain Impersonation\nlet timeFrame = 5m;\nCyfirmaBIDomainITAssetAlerts_CL\n| where severity == 'Critical' and TimeGenerated between (ago(timeFrame) .. now())\n| extend\n    Description=description,\n    FirstSeen=first_seen,\n    LastSeen=last_seen,\n    RiskScore=risk_score,\n    AlertUID=alert_uid,\n    UID=uid,\n    Domain=domain,\n    DRDomain=dr_domain,\n    DRSubDomain=dr_sub_domain,\n    DomainSquat=signature,\n    HostProvider=host_provider,\n    RegisteredDate=registered_date,\n    CreatedDate=created_date,\n    ThreatActor=suspected_threat_actor,\n    ProviderName='CYFIRMA',\n    ProductName='DeCYFIR/DeTCT'\n| project\n    TimeGenerated,\n    Description,\n    RiskScore,\n    FirstSeen,\n    LastSeen,\n    AlertUID,\n    UID,\n    Domain,\n    DRDomain,\n    DRSubDomain,\n    DomainSquat,\n    HostProvider,\n    RegisteredDate,\n    CreatedDate,\n    ThreatActor,\n    ProductName,\n    ProviderName"
      }
    ],
    "spl": [],
    "esql": [
      {
        "name": "e3c27562-709a-42bd-82f2-3ed926cced19 — AWS Route 53 Private Hosted Zone Associated With a VPC",
        "description": "(KUERY) Identifies when an AWS Route 53 private hosted zone is associated with a new Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). Private hosted zones restrict DNS resolution to specific VPCs, and associating additional VPCs expands the scope of what networks can resolve internal DNS records... (Source: Elastic's official detection-rules repository (Elastic License v2).)",
        "query": "data_stream.dataset: aws.cloudtrail \n    and event.provider: route53.amazonaws.com \n    and event.action: AssociateVPCWithHostedZone \n    and event.outcome: success"
      }
    ]
  },
  "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": [
    "Acquire Infrastructure 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": "T1583 - Acquire Infrastructure Response Guidance",
    "labels": [
      "mitre",
      "attack",
      "d3fend",
      "secops",
      "basyrix"
    ],
    "sections": [
      "summary",
      "d3fend_mappings",
      "investigation_steps",
      "response_actions",
      "queries",
      "automation",
      "escalation_criteria",
      "false_positive_considerations"
    ]
  }
}