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MITRE ATT&CK sub-technique

T1071.005 — Publish/Subscribe Protocols

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T1071.005 (Publish/Subscribe Protocols) is a MITRE ATT&CK sub-technique tracked in WhisperGraph, serving the Command and Control tactic.

Description

Adversaries may communicate using publish/subscribe (pub/sub) application layer protocols to avoid detection/network filtering by blending in with existing traffic. Commands to the remote system, and often the results of those commands, will be embedded within the protocol traffic between the client and server. Protocols such as <code>MQTT</code>, <code>XMPP</code>, <code>AMQP</code>, and <code>STOMP</code> use a publish/subscribe design, with message distribution managed by a centralized broker.(Citation: wailing crab sub/pub)(Citation: Mandiant APT1 Appendix) Publishers categorize their messages by topics, while subscribers receive messages according to their subscribed topics.(Citation: wailing crab sub/pub) An adversary may abuse publish/subscribe protocols to communicate with systems under their control from behind a message broker while also mimicking normal, expected traffic.

Tactics

Related techniques

Parent technique: T1071 · Application Layer Protocol

Threat actors observed using this technique

No threat actor is recorded using T1071.005 in WhisperGraph.

© The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation.

Related pages

Pivot from T1071.005 into its tactic, related techniques and the actors that use it.

Queries

Resolves the segment to this technique or tactic.


MATCH (t:ATTACK_PATTERN {name: $id})
RETURN t.id AS id, t.name AS name, t.kind AS kind, t.description AS description
Run yourself →

The tactic(s) this technique serves.


MATCH (t:ATTACK_PATTERN {name: $id})-[:USES_TACTIC]->(tac:ATTACK_PATTERN)
RETURN tac.id AS id, tac.name AS name
LIMIT 10
Run yourself →

This id's parent technique, if it is a sub-technique.


MATCH (p:ATTACK_PATTERN {name: $parentId})
RETURN p.id AS id, p.name AS name
LIMIT 1
Run yourself →

Sub-techniques of this technique, if any.


MATCH (c:ATTACK_PATTERN) WHERE c.id STARTS WITH $subPrefix
RETURN c.id AS id, c.name AS name
ORDER BY c.id
LIMIT 25
Run yourself →

Threat actors observed using this technique.


MATCH (a:ACTOR)-[:USES_TECHNIQUE]->(t:ATTACK_PATTERN {name: $id})
RETURN a.name AS name
LIMIT 100
Run yourself →

Or query Whisper from your own LLM workflow via the Whisper MCP server.