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Introduction:
Three cybersecurity titans—Palo Alto Networks, SentinelOne, and Microsoft—have simultaneously withdrawn from the 2025 MITRE ATT&CK evaluations. This unprecedented move signals a major shift in the industry, moving away from standardized public testing towards internal, customer-focused development. For security professionals, this necessitates a deeper, more hands-on understanding of the tools that protect their environments, as third-party validation becomes less commonplace.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the core reasons behind the vendor exodus from MITRE ATT&CK and its implications for the industry.
- Learn critical command-line techniques for validating EDR and security tool efficacy on Windows and Linux systems.
- Develop a practical methodology for testing and hardening your own environment independent of vendor marketing claims.
You Should Know:
1. Interrogating Windows EDR Logging (Sysmon)
`Get-WinEvent -LogName “Microsoft-Windows-Sysmon/Operational” -MaxEvents 50 | Where-Object {$_.ID -eq 1} | Format-List -Property TimeCreated, Message`
This PowerShell command queries the Sysmon operational log for the 50 most recent Event ID 1 entries (process creation). This is a foundational command for investigating whether your EDR or endpoint logging is properly capturing process execution, a core technique evaluated by MITRE.
Step-by-step guide: Sysmon, a system monitoring tool, provides detailed logging of system activity. After installing Sysmon with a robust configuration (like SwiftOnSecurity’s), use this command to verify process creation events. The output will show the process path, command-line arguments, parent process, and user context. Consistent, detailed logging here confirms a baseline level of visibility. A lack of logs indicates a critical logging gap.
2. Validating Linux Process Auditing with auditd
`sudo ausearch -sc execve -i | head -20`
The `ausearch` command queries the Linux audit daemon (auditd) for execve system calls, which are responsible for program execution. This is the Linux equivalent of validating process creation logging.
Step-by-step guide: The Linux audit framework is essential for detecting malicious activity. Ensure `auditd` is running (systemctl status auditd) and has rules monitoring execve (-a always,exit -F arch=b64 -S execve). This command will output the last 20 execution events, including the user ID (uid), process ID (pid), and the executed command (exe). Regularly running this check verifies that your Linux host-based detection is operational.
- Testing Network Detection with Custom PowerShell Web Requests
`$h=@{‘User-Agent’=’Undercode-Security-Test-1.0’}; Invoke-WebRequest -Uri ‘https://canarytokens.com/static/1m2m3k4n5v/articles/feedback.html’ -Headers $h -UseBasicParsing`
This command generates a unique, beaconing network flow using a custom User-Agent string to a Canarytoken URL, testing your network’s ability to detect anomalous outbound connections.
Step-by-step guide: Canarytokens are free, automated tripwires that alert you when someone interacts with a file, URL, or other resource. Generate a web bug URL from canarytokens.com/generate. This PowerShell command uses `Invoke-WebRequest` with a custom header to trigger that token. A successful test will generate an email alert to you, confirming your network (proxies, firewalls, or NDR tools) can detect and alert on suspicious egress traffic, a key evasion technique.
4. Querying Azure Activity Logs for Security Changes
`Get-AzActivityLog -MaxRecords 10 -Status “Succeeded” | Where-Object {$_.Authorization.Action -like “Microsoft.Security/”} | Format-Table EventName, Caller, ResourceGroupName`
For Microsoft Azure environments, this PowerShell cmdlet (from the `Az.Monitor` module) fetches the last 10 successful activity logs related to Microsoft Security operations.
Step-by-step guide: With Microsoft focusing on its Secure Future Initiative (SFI), internal auditing is critical. This command helps you monitor what security changes are being made in your tenant and by whom. It filters the activity log for actions within the `Microsoft.Security` namespace, such as updating security policies or alerts. Regular auditing of this log is vital for detecting misconfigurations or unauthorized changes that could weaken your posture.
- Detecting Living-off-the-Land Binaries (LOLBins) with Windows Command Line
`wmic process get caption,commandline,processid`
WMIC is a classic Windows management instrumentation tool often abused by attackers (a LOLBin). This command lists all running processes with their command-line arguments, which is crucial for spotting malicious use of legitimate system tools.
Step-by-step guide: Attackers use built-in tools like WMIC, PowerShell, and bitsadmin to evade detection. Regularly running this command provides a baseline of normal WMIC usage. Investigate any instances of `wmic` that are not part of standard administrative activity, paying close attention to the `commandline` parameter for connections to remote shares or unusual process calls. This is a manual check for techniques automated by MITRE evaluations.
6. Auditing Linux User and Group Permissions
`awk -F: ‘($3 == 0) {print $1}’ /etc/passwd`
This Linux command parses the `/etc/passwd` file to list all users with a User ID (UID) of 0, which grants root-level privileges.
Step-by-step guide: Privilege escalation is a cornerstone of the MITRE ATT&CK framework. This command is a critical audit check to ensure that only the intended users have root privileges. Any unexpected user in this list (e.g., test, admin, oracle) represents a severe security risk and must be investigated immediately. Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) enforcement starts with knowing who has elevated access.
- Testing Endpoint Detection Response (EDR) with Simple Execution Chain
`cmd.exe /c “for /l %i in (1,1,5) do @(powershell -nop -c \”Write-Host ‘EDR Test Beacon %i’; Start-Sleep -Seconds 2\”)”`
This Windows command line one-liner creates a simple execution chain where `cmd.exe` spawns a PowerShell process five times in a loop, with a delay. This tests basic EDR telemetry for parent-child process relationships.
Step-by-step guide: Execute this command on a test endpoint with your EDR agent installed. Immediately afterward, open your EDR console and search for the process tree or command-line history. Can you see that `cmd.exe` was the parent ofpowershell.exe? Can you see the exact command-line arguments passed? The ability to quickly trace and alert on this simple sequence is a fundamental capability of a competent EDR platform.
What Undercode Say:
- The retreat from MITRE is less about resource allocation and more about controlling the narrative. Vendors can no longer risk a public, side-by-side comparison that might show deficiencies next to a competitor.
- This shift places the burden of validation squarely on the customer. Security teams must now develop their own continuous testing regimens, moving beyond a reliance on a yearly evaluation report.
The industry is pivoting from transparent, comparable security benchmarking to a model driven by proprietary, marketing-led claims. While vendors cite a focus on customer-driven innovation, the void left by independent validation creates significant opacity. For enterprise security teams, this means the value of a product will be determined not by its performance in a lab but by its efficacy in your unique environment. The need for in-house technical expertise to verify, test, and monitor security controls has never been more critical. This exodus is a clear signal: trust, but verify—yourself.
Prediction:
The 2025 MITRE ATT&CK Evaluations will feature a noticeably smaller vendor pool, dominated by newer players seeking market validation. This will create a two-tier market: one tier of established vendors operating on faith and marketing, and another of challengers using MITRE results to compete. In response, we will see the rapid growth of independent, third-party penetration testing and security validation firms offering “ATT&CK-based” assessment services directly to enterprises, filling the transparency gap left by the vendors themselves. The ultimate outcome will be a more fragmented but potentially more mature market where the customer’s own testing capability becomes the ultimate metric for success.
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IT/Security Reporter URL:
Reported By: Nickvangilder Interestingly – Hackers Feeds
Extra Hub: Undercode MoN
Basic Verification: Pass ✅
