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MITRE ATT&CK sub-technique

T1563.001 — SSH Hijacking

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T1563.001 (SSH Hijacking) is a MITRE ATT&CK sub-technique tracked in WhisperGraph, serving the Lateral Movement tactic.

Description

Adversaries may hijack a legitimate user's SSH session to move laterally within an environment. Secure Shell (SSH) is a standard means of remote access on Linux and macOS systems. It allows a user to connect to another system via an encrypted tunnel, commonly authenticating through a password, certificate or the use of an asymmetric encryption key pair. In order to move laterally from a compromised host, adversaries may take advantage of trust relationships established with other systems via public key authentication in active SSH sessions by hijacking an existing connection to another system. This may occur through compromising the SSH agent itself or by having access to the agent's socket. If an adversary is able to obtain root access, then hijacking SSH sessions is likely trivial.(Citation: Slideshare Abusing SSH)(Citation: SSHjack Blackhat)(Citation: Clockwork SSH Agent Hijacking)(Citation: Breach Post-mortem SSH Hijack) [SSH Hijacking](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1563/001) differs from use of [SSH](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1021/004) because it hijacks an existing SSH session rather than creating a new session using [Valid Accounts](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1078).

Tactics

Related techniques

Parent technique: T1563 · Remote Service Session Hijacking

Threat actors observed using this technique

No threat actor is recorded using T1563.001 in WhisperGraph.

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

Related pages

Pivot from T1563.001 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.