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Masquerade File Type (T1036.008) is a MITRE ATT&CK technique associated with Stealth . Adversaries may masquerade malicious payloads as legitimate files through changes to the payload's formatting, including the file’s signature, extension, icon, and contents.
Masquerade File Type (T1036.008) is a MITRE ATT&CK technique associated with Stealth. Adversaries may masquerade malicious payloads as legitimate files through changes to the payload's formatting, including the file’s signature, extension, icon, and contents.
Attackers use Masquerade File Type because it provides a reliable way to advance their objective within the Stealth tactic, often with a favorable balance of impact versus detectability on Linux, macOS, Windows environments. Defenders should assess this behavior in the context of the affected platform and adjacent activity rather than treating it as a standalone indicator.
Adversaries may masquerade malicious payloads as legitimate files through changes to the payload's formatting, including the file’s signature, extension, icon, and contents. Various file types have a typical standard format, including how they are encoded and organized. For example, a file’s signature (also known as header or magic bytes) is the beginning bytes of a file and is often used to identify the file’s type. For example, the header of a JPEG file, is <code> 0xFF 0xD8</code> and the file extension is either .JPE, .JPEG or .JPG.
Adversaries may edit the header’s hex code and/or the file extension of a malicious payload in order to bypass file validation checks and/or input sanitization. This behavior is commonly used when payload files are transferred (e.g., Ingress Tool Transfer) and stored (e.g., Upload Malware) so that adversaries may move their malware without triggering detections.
Common non-executable file types and extensions, such as text files (.txt) and image files (.jpg, .gif, etc.) may be typically treated as benign. Based on this, adversaries may use a file extension to disguise malware, such as naming a PHP backdoor code with a file name of <code>test.gif</code>. A user may not know that a file is malicious due to the benign appearance and file extension.
Polyglot files, which are files that have multiple different file types and that function differently based on the application that will execute them, may also be used to disguise malicious malware and capabilities.(Citation: polygot_icedID)
No universal command represents Masquerade File Type. Capture the exact command line, arguments, parent process, account, host, and execution time from the investigated environment; do not operationalize unverified examples.
| Event ID | Log Channel | What It Indicates |
|---|---|---|
| Environment-specific | Relevant Windows channel(s) | Correlate authentication, process, object-access, and configuration events with the observed execution context. |
| Sysmon Event ID | Name | Why It's Relevant Here |
|---|---|---|
| Environment-specific | Validate configured telemetry | Use process, network, file, registry, DNS, or image-load telemetry only when relevant and enabled. |
No MITRE detection guidance published for this technique.
Relevant ATT&CK Data Sources: N/A
A universal Sigma rule would create unreliable results because this technique has no single guaranteed observable. Build detection logic from a documented behavior and supported data source, scope it to the affected platform, and validate it against benign administrative activity before deployment.
Start with the data sources named in the detection section. Scope searches by asset, identity, and time window; correlate the primary behavior with preceding access and subsequent actions. A portable query is intentionally not provided where the technique lacks a universal schema or observable.