Tactics techniques and procedures (TTPs)

What are TTPs?

Tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) are fundamental components used in the field of cybersecurity, threat intelligence and incident response. TTPs describe how cyber adversaries operate and execute cyberattacks. These three elements provide a structured way to understand the methods and behaviors of a threat group and a specific threat actor.

TTPs also help organizations map real-world observations of threat actors to known patterns in the MITRE ATT&CK framework, providing a standardized way to categorize adversary tactics and techniques across the cyber kill chain.

Understanding TTPS within MITRE ATT&CK

TTPs are key components of MITRE ATT&CK, a knowledge base, framework and methodology for cybersecurity professionals to understand, categorize and respond to cyber threats and attacks.

Within the MITRE ATT&CK framework:

• Tactics answer the “what” question by defining the high-level objectives of an attack. 
• Techniques answer the “how” question by describing the methods adversaries use to achieve those objectives.
• Procedures answer the “how exactly” question by providing concrete examples and implementation details of techniques.

This hierarchical structure within the MITRE ATT&CK framework helps security professionals understand and respond to cyber threats effectively. The TTPs in the MITRE ATT&CK framework are utilized in various ways to enhance cybersecurity practices and defense against emerging threats, as well as potential threats, including advanced persistent threats.

How MITRE ATT&CK TTPs improve cybersecurity

TTPs within the ATT&CK framework are used to strengthen cybersecurity in several ways:

Tactics
Security professionals and threat hunters can use tactics to understand the overarching goals of an attacker, helping them anticipate potential attack vectors. Your organization can assess their security posture by considering the relevance of tactics. By understanding which tactics are most likely to be targeted, they can prioritize security measures accordingly to prevent cyberattacks.

Techniques
Security teams can map known adversary techniques to their environment’s logs and data sources to create custom detection rules and alerts. During and after a security incident, security professionals can also refer to techniques to understand how adversaries have executed their attacks at various stages of the cyber kill chain. This information helps in scoping the incident, identifying compromised systems and planning an effective response.

Procedures
Security analysts can use procedures to gain insights into the practical application of techniques. Procedures can also sometimes provide clues about the identity or origin of a malicious attacker based on unique characteristics or artifacts left behind during an attack.

Examples of tactics, techniques and procedures

Here’s how tactics, techniques and procedures relate to one another in some common examples:

Tactic: Initial access
Technique: Spearphishing email
Procedures: The specific email templates used by attackers, the file types they commonly attach and the social engineering tactics used.

Tactic: Credential access
Technique: Credential dumping
Procedures: The specific tools, commands and techniques used to extract passwords and hashes.

Tactic: Data exfiltration
Technique: Command and control channels
Procedure: The data exfiltration method, encryption used and the destination for stolen data.

What are the benefits of identifying TTPs?

Analyzing adversary TTPs helps organizations:

• Enhance threat detection with finely tuned signatures and behavioral analytics
• Enable proactive defense against advanced persistent threats (APTs)
• Customize threat intelligence aligned to relevant threat actors
• Improve incident response by identifying attacker goals and impacted systems
• Support adversary attribution using unique procedural artifacts
• Strengthen security awareness training with real-world attack patterns
• Prioritize security measures based on industry-specific risks
• Improve collaboration by sharing indicators of compromise (IOCs), resources, and attack patterns across teams

TTP analysis is a valuable approach for defending against cyber attackers. It involves studying and understanding the behavior and methods used by cybercriminals and threat actors. TTP analysis is also critical to proactive threat detection, response and defense against cybercrime. By understanding how cybercriminals operate, organizations can better prepare for and mitigate the risks associated with today’s evolving threat landscape.

Identifying TTPs used by cyber adversaries offers several benefits for organizations and their cybersecurity efforts:

• Enhanced threat detection
  By identifying threat actors’ specific methods and behaviors, a security team can create custom detection rules and finely tuned signatures to spot malicious activities.
• Proactive defense
  By focusing on the tactics and techniques used by adversaries, organizations can implement security controls and measures that directly address these attack methods.
• Customize threat intelligence
  Organizations can create custom threat intelligence that aligns with the TTPs relevant to their specific environment.
• Incident response preparedness
  When a security incident occurs, a security team can quickly recognize the tactics and techniques used and respond more effectively, potentially minimizing the impact of an attack on their systems.
• Adversary attribution
  Analyzing TTPs can contribute to attributing threat actors, helping organizations understand who they are dealing with.
• Security awareness and training
  Security awareness programs can use examples of TTPs to help employees recognize and respond to adversary behavior.
• Prioritization of security measures
  By understanding which tactics and techniques are most likely to be used in their industry or environment, organizations can allocate resources to the most critical security measures.
• Improve collaboration
  By sharing data about observed TTPs with peers, organizations may engage in joint tactics by sharing resources, threat intelligence, indicators of compromise (IOCs), and attack patterns with one another.

TTP insights with Sumo Logic

Analyzing the right data with your security tools is the first step to building a healthy security posture. By aligning log management with MITRE ATT&CK TTPs, organizations can fine-tune their security rules for optimal performance. This ensures that security alerts are both accurate and relevant. For enhanced cybersecurity, security analysts need to be able to harness TTPs effectively.

Using Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM, your security operations center can integrate the MITRE ATT&CK framework for precise cyber threat intelligence and response by categorizing attacks based on their TTPs. Identifying the TTPs that are most important enables Sumo Logic customers to ensure they are ingesting the correct log data.

See how it works in our ultimate guide to modern SIEM.