T1598 — Phishing for Information

# T1598 - Phishing for Information

## SOC Recommendation
Investigate Phishing for Information activity in the context of Reconnaissance: 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contain the affected host or account | Medium | No | Yes |
| Collect and preserve evidence | Low | Yes | No |

## KQL
```kql
let threshold = 3;
ZoomLogs
| where Event =~ "chat_message.sent"
| extend Channel = tostring(parse_json(ChatEvents).Channel)
| extend Message = tostring(parse_json(ChatEvents).Message)
| where Message matches regex "http(s?):\\/\\/"
| summarize Channels = makeset(Channel), StartTime = min(TimeGenerated), EndTime = max(TimeGenerated) by Message, User, UserId
| extend ChannelCount = arraylength(Channels)
| where ChannelCount > threshold
| extend AccountName = tostring(split(User, "@")[0]), AccountUPNSuffix = tostring(split(User, "@")[1])
```
```kql
Alerts_cyber_crime_forums 
| where Service == "cyber_crime_forums" 
| extend MappedSeverity = Severity
```
```kql
Alerts_flash_report 
| where Service == "flash_report" 
| extend MappedSeverity = Severity
```

## Escalation Criteria
- Phishing for Information 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/T1598.json
• /api/recommendations/T1598.json
• /api/d3fend/T1598.json
• /api/mappings/T1598.json
• /api/confluence/T1598.md

Example curl:

curl https://atlas.basyrix.com/api/recommendations/T1598.json

Response:

{
  "technique_id": "T1598",
  "name": "Phishing for Information",
  "priority": "low",
  "status": "draft",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "last_reviewed": "2026-07-23",
  "generated_by": "SOC Response Atlas by Basyrix",
  "tactics": [
    "Reconnaissance"
  ],
  "platforms": [
    "PRE"
  ],
  "summary": "Adversaries may send phishing messages to elicit sensitive information that can be used during targeting. Phishing for information is an attempt to trick targets into divulging information, frequently credentials or other actionable information. Phishing for information is different from [Phishing](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1566) in that the objective is gathering data from the victim rather than executing malicious code...",
  "soc_recommendation": "Investigate Phishing for Information activity in the context of Reconnaissance: 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 phishing for information 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: \"Suspicious link sharing pattern\" -- Alerts in links that have been shared across multiple Zoom chat channels by the same user in a short space if time. Adjust the threshold figure to change the number of channels a message needs to be posted in before an alert is raised.'"
    ]
  },
  "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": "1218175f-c534-421c-8070-5dcaabf28067 — Suspicious link sharing pattern",
        "description": "Alerts in links that have been shared across multiple Zoom chat channels by the same user in a short space if time. Adjust the threshold figure to change the number of channels a message needs to be posted in before an alert is raised.' (Source: Microsoft's official Azure-Sentinel Detections (MIT licensed).)",
        "query": "let threshold = 3;\nZoomLogs\n| where Event =~ \"chat_message.sent\"\n| extend Channel = tostring(parse_json(ChatEvents).Channel)\n| extend Message = tostring(parse_json(ChatEvents).Message)\n| where Message matches regex \"http(s?):\\\\/\\\\/\"\n| summarize Channels = makeset(Channel), StartTime = min(TimeGenerated), EndTime = max(TimeGenerated) by Message, User, UserId\n| extend ChannelCount = arraylength(Channels)\n| where ChannelCount > threshold\n| extend AccountName = tostring(split(User, \"@\")[0]), AccountUPNSuffix = tostring(split(User, \"@\")[1])"
      },
      {
        "name": "b78c4641-cc16-48e0-9d05-c9b36a55d214 — CybleVision Alerts Cyber Crime Forum Alerts",
        "description": "Detects discussions, marketplace posts, threat actor activity, and intelligence mentions from cybercrime forums. Extracts discussion metadata, topic details, URLs, emails, phone numbers, and content using Alerts_CyberCrimeForums parser.' (Source: Microsoft's official Azure-Sentinel Detections (MIT licensed).)",
        "query": "Alerts_cyber_crime_forums \n| where Service == \"cyber_crime_forums\" \n| extend MappedSeverity = Severity"
      },
      {
        "name": "2c86652a-bbbe-4a32-8b1c-4b53aad0750e — Cyble Vision Alerts Flash Report",
        "description": "Detects new threat intelligence flash reports from CybleVision. Extracts company-level context and report identifiers for triage.' (Source: Microsoft's official Azure-Sentinel Detections (MIT licensed).)",
        "query": "Alerts_flash_report \n| where Service == \"flash_report\" \n| extend MappedSeverity = Severity"
      }
    ],
    "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": [
    "Phishing for Information 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": "T1598 - Phishing for Information Response Guidance",
    "labels": [
      "mitre",
      "attack",
      "d3fend",
      "secops",
      "basyrix"
    ],
    "sections": [
      "summary",
      "d3fend_mappings",
      "investigation_steps",
      "response_actions",
      "queries",
      "automation",
      "escalation_criteria",
      "false_positive_considerations"
    ]
  }
}