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.(Citation: TrendmicroHideoutsLease) Some infrastructure providers offer free trial periods, enabling infrastructure acquisition at limited to no cost.(Citation: Free Trial PurpleUrchin) Additionally, botnets are available for rent or purchase.

Use of these infrastructure solutions allows adversaries to stage, launch, and execute operations. Solutions may help adversary operations blend in with traffic that is seen as normal, such as contacting third-party web services or acquiring infrastructure to support [Proxy](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1090), including from residential proxy services.(Citation: amnesty_nso_pegasus)(Citation: FBI Proxies Credential Stuffing)(Citation: Mandiant APT29 Microsoft 365 2022) Depending on the implementation, adversaries may use infrastructure that makes it difficult to physically tie back to them as well as utilize infrastructure that can be rapidly provisioned, modified, and shut down.
Acquire Infrastructure
source_name: mitre-attack  url: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1583  external_id: T1583     source_name: amnesty_nso_pegasus  description: Amnesty International Security Lab. (2021, July 18). Forensic Methodology Report: How to catch NSO Group’s Pegasus. Retrieved February 22, 2022.  url: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2021/07/forensic-methodology-report-how-to-catch-nso-groups-pegasus/     source_name: Mandiant APT29 Microsoft 365 2022  description: Douglas Bienstock. (2022, August 18). You Can’t Audit Me: APT29 Continues Targeting Microsoft 365. Retrieved February 23, 2023.  url: https://www.mandiant.com/resources/blog/apt29-continues-targeting-microsoft     source_name: FBI Proxies Credential Stuffing  description: FBI. (2022, August 18). Proxies and Configurations Used for Credential Stuffing Attacks on Online Customer Accounts . Retrieved July 6, 2023.  url: https://www.ic3.gov/Media/News/2022/220818.pdf     source_name: Free Trial PurpleUrchin  description: Gamazo, William. Quist, Nathaniel.. (2023, January 5). PurpleUrchin Bypasses CAPTCHA and Steals Cloud Platform Resources. Retrieved February 28, 2024.  url: https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/purpleurchin-steals-cloud-resources/     source_name: Koczwara Beacon Hunting Sep 2021  description: Koczwara, M. (2021, September 7). Hunting Cobalt Strike C2 with Shodan. Retrieved October 12, 2021.  url: https://michaelkoczwara.medium.com/cobalt-strike-c2-hunting-with-shodan-c448d501a6e2     source_name: TrendmicroHideoutsLease  description: Max Goncharov. (2015, July 15). Criminal Hideouts for Lease: Bulletproof Hosting Services. Retrieved March 6, 2017.  url: https://documents.trendmicro.com/assets/wp/wp-criminal-hideouts-for-lease.pdf     source_name: Mandiant SCANdalous Jul 2020  description: Stephens, A. (2020, July 13). SCANdalous! (External Detection Using Network Scan Data and Automation). Retrieved October 12, 2021.  url: https://www.mandiant.com/resources/scandalous-external-detection-using-network-scan-data-and-automation     source_name: ThreatConnect Infrastructure Dec 2020  description: ThreatConnect. (2020, December 15). Infrastructure Research and Hunting: Boiling the Domain Ocean. Retrieved October 12, 2021.  url: https://threatconnect.com/blog/infrastructure-research-hunting/     