Stage Capabilities T1608

Tactic: Resource Development

Adversaries may upload, install, or otherwise set up capabilities that can be used during targeting. To support their operations, an adversary may need to take capabilities they developed (Develop Capabilities) or obtained (Obtain Capabilities) and stage them on infrastructure under their control. These capabilities may be staged on infrastructure that was previously purchased/rented by the adversary (Acquire Infrastructure) or was otherwise compromised by them (Compromise Infrastructure). Capabilities may also be staged on web services, such as GitHub or Pastebin, or on Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings that enable users to easily provision applications.

Events covered

7 catalog events are tagged with this technique by at least one rule.

Authoring guide

Patterns shared across the 13 rules above: which fields they filter on, what specific values they look for, and what they exclude. The catalog normalizes field names across vendors so Sigma's Image, Elastic's process.name, and Splunk's process_name collapse into one row. Each rule contributes at most once per row.

Fields filtered most (19 distinct)

The fields most rules look at when detecting this technique. The How column shows the operators authors use (eq, wildcard, regex_match, match) and how often each appears. Sample values are concrete examples to start from, not an exhaustive list.

FieldRulesHowSample values
EventType4eq 4FileMalwareDetected, CreateTopic, SetValue
data_stream.dataset4eq 4o365.audit, aws.cloudtrail, azure.activitylogs
EventID3eq 3SharePointFileOperation, 4104
Provider_Name3eq 3OneDrive, SharePoint, sns.amazonaws.com
CommandLine2contains 2-classpath , .downloadfile(, .downloadstring(, .payload, \\appdata\\local\\temp\\~spawn
Image2ends_with 2\\atlassian\\confluence\\jre\\bin\\java.exe, \curl.exe, \wget.exe
event.outcome2eq 1, in 1success, Success
Details1contains 1microsoft.hybridconnectionmanager.listener.exe
OriginalFileName1eq 1northstarstager.exe
ScriptBlockText1eq 1*));iex (new-object io.streamreader(new-object...
TargetFilename1contains 1, in 1*.bat, *.cmd, *.dat
TargetObject1contains 1\services\hybridconnectionmanager
aws::eventName1eq 1DeleteImportedKeyMaterial, ImportKeyMaterial
aws::eventSource1eq 1kms.amazonaws.com
azure.activitylogs.operation_name1in 1MICROSOFT.AUTOMATION/AUTOMATIONACCOUNTS/WEBHOOKS/ACTION, MICROSOFT.AUTOMATION/AUTOMATIONACCOUNTS/WEBHOOKS/WRITE

Top indicator values (55 distinct)

Specific (field, operator, value) combinations the rules check for, ranked by how many rules under this technique use each one. The Corpus reach column counts how many rules across the entire catalog (any technique) check the same combination. High numbers point to widely-used indicators that are likely noisy on their own; combine them with another condition for useful signal. Blank means the combination is specific to rules under this technique. Click a value to expand the rules under this technique that use it.

FieldKindValueRules (here)Corpus reach
EventIDeq
SharePointFileOperation
22
EventIDeq
4104
1268
EventTypeeq
FileMalwareDetected
22
EventTypeeq
CreateTopic
1
EventTypeeq
SetValue
16
data_stream.dataseteq
o365.audit
245
CommandLinecontains
-classpath
12
CommandLinecontains
.downloadfile(
18
CommandLinecontains
.downloadstring(
18
CommandLinecontains
.payload
12
CommandLinecontains
\\appdata\\local\\temp\\~spawn
1
CommandLinecontains
curl
112
CommandLinecontains
https://attachment.outlook.live.net/owa/
1
CommandLinecontains
https://onenoteonlinesync.onenote.com/onenoteonlinesync/
1
CommandLinecontains
invoke-webrequest
113
CommandLinecontains
iwr
113
CommandLinecontains
start-bitstransfer
14
CommandLinecontains
wget
18
Detailscontains
microsoft.hybridconnectionmanager.listener.exe
1
Imageends_with
\\atlassian\\confluence\\jre\\bin\\java.exe
1
Imageends_with
\curl.exe
130
Imageends_with
\wget.exe
19
OriginalFileNameeq
northstarstager.exe
1
Provider_Nameeq
OneDrive
12
Provider_Nameeq
SharePoint
12
Provider_Nameeq
sns.amazonaws.com
13
ScriptBlockTexteq
*));iex (new-object io.streamreader(new-object...
1
TargetFilenamecontains
\\atlassian\\confluence\\
1
TargetFilenamein
*.bat
1
TargetFilenamein
*.cmd
12

Rules under this technique

Every rule in the catalog tagged with this technique, grouped by vendor. Click a rule title for its full predicates, exclusions, and indicators.

Platform (all)
Domain (all)

Sigma 3 rules

Elastic 4 rules

Splunk 4 rules

Panther 2 rules