* **Summary**: A Compromised Asset is an asset which was originally created or belonged to another person or organisation, but which an actor has gained access to without their consent.<br><br>See also MITRE ATT&CK T1708: Valid Accounts.
* **Belongs to tactic stage**: TA06
| Incident | Descriptions given for this incident |
| [I00066 The online war between Qatar and Saudi Arabia](../../generated_pages/incidents/I00066.md) | _"In the early hours of 24 May 2017, a news story appeared on the website of Qatar's official news agency, QNA, reporting that the country's emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, had made an astonishing speech."_<br/><br/>_"[…]_ <br/><br/>_"Qatar claimed that the QNA had been hacked. And they said the hack was designed to deliberately spread fake news about the country's leader and its foreign policies. The Qataris specifically blamed UAE, an allegation later repeated by a Washington Post report which cited US intelligence sources. The UAE categorically denied those reports._ <br/><br/>_"But the story of the emir's speech unleashed a media free-for-all. Within minutes, Saudi and UAE-owned TV networks - Al Arabiya and Sky News Arabia - picked up on the comments attributed to al-Thani. Both networks accused Qatar of funding extremist groups and of destabilising the region."_ <br/><br/>This incident demonstrates how threat actors used a compromised website to allow for an inauthentic narrative to be given a level of credibility which caused significant political fallout (T0097.202: News Outlet Persona, T0143.003: Impersonated Persona, T0152.004: Website Asset, T0150.005: Compromised Asset). |
| [I00071 Russia-aligned hacktivists stir up anti-Ukrainian sentiments in Poland](../../generated_pages/incidents/I00071.md) | <i>“The August 17 [2022] Telegram post [which contained a falsified letter from the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs asking Poland to rename Belwederska Street in Warsaw — the location of the Russian embassy building — as Stepan Bandera Street, in honor of the far-right nationalist who led the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during WWII] also contained screenshots of Facebook posts that appeared on two Facebook accounts belonging to Polish nationals Piotr Górka, an expert in the history of the Polish Air Force, and Dariusz Walusiak, a Polish historian and documentary maker. The Górka post suggested that he fully supported the Polish government’s decision to change Belwederska Street to Stepan Bandera Street.<br><br> “In a statement to the DFRLab, Górka said his account was accessed without his consent. “This is not my post loaded to my Facebook page,” he explained. “My site was hacked, some days ago.” At the time of publishing, Piotr Górka’s post and his Facebook account were no longer accessible.<br><br> “The post on Górka’s Facebook page was shared by Dariusz Walusiak’s Facebook account; the account also reposted it on the Facebook walls of more than twenty other Facebook users, including Adam Kalita, currently working at Krakow branch of the Institute of National Remembrance; Jan Kasprzyk, head of the Office for War Veterans and Victims of Oppression; and Alicja Kondraciuk, a Polish public figure living in Krakow.<br><br> “Walusiak’s Facebook account is also no longer accessible. Given his work on Polish history and identity, it seems highly unlikely he would support the Bandera measure; the DFRLab has also reached out to him for comment.<br><br> “The fact that Joker DPR’s Telegram post included screenshots of their Facebook posts raises the strong possibility that both Facebook accounts were compromised, and that hackers planted false statements on their pages that would seem out of character for them in order to gain further attention to the forged documents.”</I><br><br> In this example, threat actors used compromised accounts of Polish historians who have enough relevant knowledge to plausibly weigh in on the forged letter’s narrative (T0143.003: Impersonated Persona, T0097.101: Local Persona, T0097.108: Expert Persona, T0146: Account Asset, T0150.005: Compromised Asset, T0151.001: Social Media Platform). <br><br> This matches T0097.108: Expert Persona because the impersonation exploited Górka and Walusiak’s existing personas as experts in Polish history. |
| [I00101 Pro-Putin Disinformation Warriors Take War of Aggression to Reddit](../../generated_pages/incidents/I00101.md) | This report looks at changes content posted to communities on Reddit (called Subreddits) after teams of voluntary moderators are replaced with what appear to be pro-Russian voices:<br><br><i>The r/antiwar subreddit appears to be a very recent takeover target. With 12,900 members it is not the largest community on Reddit, but this does place it squarely within the top 5% of all communities in terms of membership.<br><br>Three months ago a new moderator team was instated by subreddit head u/democracy101. Any posts documenting Russian aggression in Ukraine are now swiftly removed, while the board has been flooded with posts about how Ukraine is losing, or how American “neocons wrecked” the country.<br><br>The pinned post from moderator u/n0ahbody proclaims: “People who call for an end to Russian aggressions but not the Western aggressions Russia is reacting to don’t really want peace.” This user takes the view that any negative opinion about Russia is “shaped by what the fanatically Russophobic MSM wants you to think,” and that the United States is not threatened by its neighbors. Russia is.”<br><br>When u/n0ahbody took over the sub, the user posted a triumphant and vitriolic diatribe in another pro-Russia subreddit with some 33,500 members, r/EndlessWar. “We are making progress. We are purging the sub of all NAFO and NAFO-adjacent elements. Hundreds of them have been banned over the last 24 hours for various rule infractions, for being NAFO or NAFO-adjacent,” the user said, referencing the grassroots, pro-Ukrainian North Atlantic Fella Organization (NAFO) meme movement.<br><br>Several former users have reported they have indeed been banned from r/antiwar since the change in moderators. “If this subreddit cannot be explicitly against the invasion of Ukraine it will never truly be anti-war,” wrote one user Halcyon_Rein, in the antiwar subreddit on September 6. They then edited the post to say, “Edit: btw, I got f**king banned for this 💀💀💀”</i><br><br>A community hosted on Reddit was taken over by new moderators (T0151.011: Community Sub-Forum, T0150.005: Compromised Asset). These moderators removed content posted to the community which favoured Ukraine over Russia (T0146.004: Administrator Account Asset, T0151.011: Community Sub-Forum, T0124: Suppress Opposition). |
| [I00129 Teen who hacked Joe Biden and Bill Gates' Twitter accounts sentenced to three years in prison](../../generated_pages/incidents/I00129.md) | <i>An 18-year-old hacker who pulled off a huge breach in 2020, infiltrating several high profile Twitter accounts to solicit bitcoin transactions, has agreed to serve three years in prison for his actions.<br><br>Graham Ivan Clark, of Florida, was 17 years old at the time of the hack in July, during which he took over a number of major accounts including those of Joe Biden, Bill Gates and Kim Kardashian West.<br><br>Once he accessed them, Clark tweeted a link to a bitcoin address and wrote “all bitcoin sent to our address below will be sent back to you doubled!” According to court documents, Clark made more than $100,000 from the scheme, which his lawyers say he has since returned.<br><br>Clark was able to access the accounts after convincing an employee at Twitter he worked in the company’s information technology department, according to the Tampa Bay Times.</i><br><br>In this example a threat actor gained access to Twitter’s customer service portal through social engineering (T0146.004: Administrator Account Asset, T0150.005: Compromised Asset, T0151.008: Microblogging Platform), which they used to take over accounts of public figures (T0146.003: Verified Account Asset, T0143.003: Impersonated Persona, T0150.005: Compromised Asset, T0151.008: Microblogging Platform).<br><br>The threat actor used these compromised accounts to trick their followers into sending bitcoin to their wallet (T0148.009: Cryptocurrency Wallet)., <i>An 18-year-old hacker who pulled off a huge breach in 2020, infiltrating several high profile Twitter accounts to solicit bitcoin transactions, has agreed to serve three years in prison for his actions.<br><br>Graham Ivan Clark, of Florida, was 17 years old at the time of the hack in July, during which he took over a number of major accounts including those of Joe Biden, Bill Gates and Kim Kardashian West.<br><br>Once he accessed them, Clark tweeted a link to a bitcoin address and wrote “all bitcoin sent to our address below will be sent back to you doubled!” According to court documents, Clark made more than $100,000 from the scheme, which his lawyers say he has since returned.<br><br>Clark was able to access the accounts after convincing an employee at Twitter he worked in the company’s information technology department, according to the Tampa Bay Times.</i><br><br>In this example a threat actor gained access to Twitter’s customer service portal through social engineering (T0146.004: Administrator Account Asset, T0150.005: Compromised Asset, T0151.008: Microblogging Platform), which they used to take over accounts of public figures (T0146.003: Verified Account Asset, T0143.003: Impersonated Persona, T0150.005: Compromised Asset, T0151.008: Microblogging Platform).<br><br>The threat actor used these compromised accounts to trick their followers into sending bitcoin to their wallet (T0148.009: Cryptocurrency Wallet). |
