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18 lines
3.2 KiB
Markdown
18 lines
3.2 KiB
Markdown
# Technique T0097.207: NGO Persona
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* **Summary**: Institutions which present themselves as an NGO (Non-Governmental Organisation), an organisation which provides services or advocates for public policy (while not being directly affiliated with any government), are presenting an NGO persona.<br><br> While presenting as an NGO is not an indication of inauthentic behaviour, NGO personas are commonly used by threat actors (such as intelligence services) as a front for their operational activity (T0143.002: Fabricated Persona, T0097.207: NGO Persona). They are created to give legitimacy to the influence operation and potentially infiltrate grassroots movements<br><br> Legitimate NGOs could use their persona for malicious purposes, or be exploited by threat actors (T0143.001: Authentic Persona, T0097.207: NGO Persona). For example, an NGO could take money for using their position to provide legitimacy to a false narrative, or be tricked into doing so without their knowledge.<br><br> <b>Associated Techniques and Sub-techniques:</b><br> <b>T0097.103: Activist Persona:</b> Institutions presenting as activist groups may also present activists working within the organisation.
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* **Belongs to tactic stage**: TA16
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| Incident | Descriptions given for this incident |
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| -------- | -------------------- |
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| [I00069 Uncharmed: Untangling Iran's APT42 Operations](../../generated_pages/incidents/I00069.md) | <I>“[Iranian state-sponsored cyber espionage actor] APT42 cloud operations attack lifecycle can be described in details as follows:<br> <br>- “Social engineering schemes involving decoys and trust building, which includes masquerading as legitimate NGOs and conducting ongoing correspondence with the target, sometimes lasting several weeks. <br>- The threat actor masqueraded as well-known international organizations in the legal and NGO fields and sent emails from domains typosquatting the original NGO domains, for example aspenlnstitute[.]org. <br>- The Aspen Institute became aware of this spoofed domain and collaborated with industry partners, including blocking it in SafeBrowsing, thus protecting users of Google Chrome and additional browsers. <br>- To increase their credibility, APT42 impersonated high-ranking personnel working at the aforementioned organizations when creating the email personas. <br>- APT42 enhanced their campaign credibility by using decoy material inviting targets to legitimate and relevant events and conferences. In one instance, the decoy material was hosted on an attacker-controlled SharePoint folder, accessible only after the victim entered their credentials. Mandiant did not identify malicious elements in the files, suggesting they were used solely to gain the victim’s trust.”</I><br><br> In this example APT42, an Iranian state-sponsored cyber espionage actor, created a domain impersonating the existing NGO The Aspen Institute (T0143.003: Impersonated Persona, T0097.207: NGO Persona). They increased the perceived legitimacy of the impersonation by also impersonating high-ranking employees of the NGO (T0097.100: Individual Persona, T0143.003: Impersonated Persona). |
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| Counters | Response types |
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| -------- | -------------- |
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