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MITRE ATT&CK® ICS Asset

A0009: Data Gateway

Data Gateway is a device that supports the communication and exchange of data between different systems, networks, or protocols within the ICS. Different types of data gateways are used to perform various functions, including: * Protocol Translation: Enable communication to devices that support different or incompatible protocols by translating information from one protocol to another. * Media Converter: Convert data across different Layer 1 and 2 network protocols / mediums, for example, converting from Serial to Ethernet. * Data Aggregation: Collect and combine data from different devices into one consistent format and protocol interface. * Data Mirroring: Create a real-time, exact copy of data streams from devices to a separate destination for redundancy, monitoring, or backup purposes. Data gateways are often critical to the forwarding/transmission of critical control or monitoring data within the ICS. Further, these devices often have remote various network services that are used to communicate across different zones or networks. These assets may focus on a single function listed below or combinations of these functions to best fit the industry use-case.
ICSA0009ICS AssetObject v2.1 Modified
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Glexia's Take

Analyst context for executives and security teams

Analyst confidence Medium

A Data Gateway is a high-value ICS asset because it sits between systems, networks, or protocols and forwards critical control or monitoring data. If its data paths, remote services, or translation functions are disrupted or manipulated, operators may lose visibility, receive altered data, or lose expected communications across ICS zones.

Executive priority

Treat data gateways as resilience and trust-boundary assets, not just network plumbing. Leaders should ask whether these devices are inventoried, owned, monitored, access-controlled, and included in incident response plans. They are relevant to operational continuity, third-party/vendor access decisions, vulnerability prioritization, and audit evidence for segmentation and privileged access controls.

Technical view

For SOC, detection engineering, and IR teams, validate coverage around Windows, Linux, Embedded, and Network-based gateway implementations. The relationship context shows this asset can be involved in remote services, CLI/GUI access, valid accounts, discovery, port/broadcast/multicast enumeration, network sniffing, adversary-in-the-middle behavior, rogue master activity, firmware update mode, restart/shutdown, data destruction, alarm modification, scripting, masquerading, rootkits, and removable media replication. Focus on whether gateway communication baselines, administrative access, service exposure, configuration changes, and process data flows are observable.

Likely telemetry

  • Asset inventory and network topology showing gateway role, connected zones, protocols, and upstream/downstream systems
  • Network flow and packet/protocol telemetry for gateway communications, including broadcast, multicast, and port-scan-like activity
  • Authentication and session logs for remote services, CLI, GUI, and valid account use where available
  • Configuration, firmware/update mode, restart/shutdown, alarm setting, and service change records
  • Host or embedded device logs for scripts, files, processes, masqueraded executables, and removable media activity where supported

Detection direction

  • Build baselines for normal gateway peers, protocols, volumes, polling intervals, and mirrored or aggregated data paths; investigate deviations in context with maintenance windows.
  • Tune discovery detections for ICS realities: engineering tools, vendor diagnostics, and asset management can resemble port scans, broadcast discovery, or multicast discovery.
  • Correlate remote access, valid account use, CLI/GUI sessions, and configuration or firmware state changes on the same gateway rather than relying on any single event.
  • Look for indicators of communication interference, such as unexpected new masters, abnormal connection ownership, blocked or modified traffic patterns, or loss of expected forwarding.
  • Account for blind spots: embedded devices may have limited logging, remote services may sit across zones, and official ATT&CK detection guidance is not provided for this asset.

Mitigation priorities

  • Prioritize authoritative inventory, ownership, and criticality mapping for every data gateway and the systems it bridges.
  • Restrict and review remote services, administrative interfaces, and valid account use, especially where gateways connect different zones or networks.
  • Apply segmentation and least-privilege access around gateway communications while preserving required control and monitoring flows.
  • Include gateway firmware/update modes, restart/shutdown paths, alarm settings, and configuration changes in change control and IR playbooks.
  • Validate resilience measures such as redundancy, monitoring, backup, and recovery for gateway functions that support critical control or monitoring data.
Analyst notes and limits

This take is based on ATT&CK asset A0009 and the listed technique relationships that target the Data Gateway asset. The strongest defensive value is in treating the gateway as both a communications dependency and a security boundary where identity, remote access, network monitoring, and change control intersect.

MITRE does not provide official detection text for this asset, and tactics are not specified. The relationship list identifies relevant behaviors but does not prove they are present in any specific environment. Local architecture, vendor implementation, logging capability, and operational constraints determine actual detection and mitigation options.

Official MITRE ATT&CK definition

Data Gateway

Data Gateway is a device that supports the communication and exchange of data between different systems, networks, or protocols within the ICS. Different types of data gateways are used to perform various functions, including: * Protocol Translation: Enable communication to devices that support different or incompatible protocols by translating information from one protocol to another. * Media Converter: Convert data across different Layer 1 and 2 network protocols / mediums, for example, converting from Serial to Ethernet. * Data Aggregation: Collect and combine data from different devices into one consistent format and protocol interface. * Data Mirroring: Create a real-time, exact copy of data streams from devices to a separate destination for redundancy, monitoring, or backup purposes. Data gateways are often critical to the forwarding/transmission of critical control or monitoring data within the ICS. Further, these devices often have remote various network services that are used to communicate across different zones or networks. These assets may focus on a single function listed below or combinations of these functions to best fit the industry use-case.

View the same entry on attack.mitre.org (MITRE-hosted reference; in-page links above use the Glexia ATT&CK library.)

Glexia analysis

How security teams should use this page

Treat this object as behavior context, not an attribution claim. Validate the related groups, software, data sources, and mitigations against official ATT&CK relationships and your own telemetry before making control-coverage decisions.

ATT&CK relationship table

Techniques used

This mirrors the MITRE pattern of making group, software, campaign, and technique relationships scannable. Relationship notes come from mirrored ATT&CK relationship text when available.

48 rows
Domain ID Name Relationship / procedure
ICS T0846 Remote System Discovery Remote System Discovery targets this object.
ICS T0823 Graphical User Interface Graphical User Interface targets this object.
ICS T0807 Command-Line Interface Command-Line Interface targets this object.
ICS T0878 Alarm Suppression Alarm Suppression targets this object.
ICS T0800 Activate Firmware Update Mode Activate Firmware Update Mode targets this object.
ICS T0838 Modify Alarm Settings Modify Alarm Settings targets this object.
ICS T0853 Scripting Scripting targets this object.
ICS T0822 External Remote Services External Remote Services targets this object.
ICS T0862 Supply Chain Compromise Supply Chain Compromise targets this object.
ICS T0874 Hooking Hooking targets this object.
ICS T0814 Denial of Service Denial of Service targets this object.
ICS T1693.001 System Firmware Sub-technique System Firmware targets this object.
ICS T0846.003 Multicast Discovery Sub-technique Multicast Discovery targets this object.
ICS T0820 Exploitation for Evasion Exploitation for Evasion targets this object.
ICS T1691.002 Reporting Message Sub-technique Reporting Message targets this object.
ICS T1692.002 Reporting Message Sub-technique Reporting Message targets this object.
ICS T0892 Change Credential Change Credential targets this object.
ICS T0842 Network Sniffing Network Sniffing targets this object.
ICS T0869 Standard Application Layer Protocol Standard Application Layer Protocol targets this object.
ICS T0846.001 Port Scan Sub-technique Port Scan targets this object.
ICS T0859 Valid Accounts Valid Accounts targets this object.
ICS T0834 Native API Native API targets this object.
ICS T0851 Rootkit Rootkit targets this object.
ICS T0840 Network Connection Enumeration Network Connection Enumeration targets this object.
ICS T0890 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Exploitation for Privilege Escalation targets this object.
ICS T0848 Rogue Master Rogue Master targets this object.
ICS T1695.002 Ethernet Sub-technique Ethernet targets this object.
ICS T1694 Insecure Credentials Insecure Credentials targets this object.
ICS T0809 Data Destruction Data Destruction targets this object.
ICS T0846.002 Broadcast Discovery Sub-technique Broadcast Discovery targets this object.
ICS T0872 Indicator Removal on Host Indicator Removal on Host targets this object.
ICS T0866 Exploitation of Remote Services Exploitation of Remote Services targets this object.
ICS T0888 Remote System Information Discovery Remote System Information Discovery targets this object.
ICS T0830 Adversary-in-the-Middle Adversary-in-the-Middle targets this object.
ICS T0861 Point & Tag Identification Point & Tag Identification targets this object.
ICS T0849 Masquerading Masquerading targets this object.
ICS T1694.001 Default Credentials Sub-technique Default Credentials targets this object.
ICS T1695.003 Wi-Fi Sub-technique Wi-Fi targets this object.
ICS T0847 Replication Through Removable Media Replication Through Removable Media targets this object.
ICS T0816 Device Restart/Shutdown Device Restart/Shutdown targets this object.
ICS T1695.001 Serial COM Sub-technique Serial COM targets this object.
ICS T0885 Commonly Used Port Commonly Used Port targets this object.
ICS T0871 Execution through API Execution through API targets this object.
ICS T1695 Block Communications Block Communications targets this object.
ICS T0801 Monitor Process State Monitor Process State targets this object.
ICS T0881 Service Stop Service Stop targets this object.
ICS T0886 Remote Services Remote Services targets this object.
ICS T0884 Connection Proxy Connection Proxy targets this object.
Relationship explorer

All related ATT&CK context

targets · Technique T0846: Remote System Discovery ICS targets · Technique T0823: Graphical User Interface ICS targets · Technique T0807: Command-Line Interface ICS targets · Technique T0878: Alarm Suppression ICS targets · Technique T0800: Activate Firmware Update Mode ICS targets · Technique T0838: Modify Alarm Settings ICS targets · Technique T0853: Scripting ICS targets · Technique T0822: External Remote Services ICS targets · Technique T0862: Supply Chain Compromise ICS targets · Technique T0874: Hooking ICS targets · Technique T0814: Denial of Service ICS targets · Technique T1693.001: System Firmware ICS targets · Technique T0846.003: Multicast Discovery ICS targets · Technique T0820: Exploitation for Evasion ICS targets · Technique T1691.002: Reporting Message ICS targets · Technique T1692.002: Reporting Message ICS targets · Technique T0892: Change Credential ICS targets · Technique T0842: Network Sniffing ICS targets · Technique T0869: Standard Application Layer Protocol ICS targets · Technique T0846.001: Port Scan ICS targets · Technique T0859: Valid Accounts ICS targets · Technique T0834: Native API ICS targets · Technique T0851: Rootkit ICS targets · Technique T0840: Network Connection Enumeration ICS
Change history

Object version and sync metadata

The fields below describe the current mirrored snapshot. When Glexia retains multiple ATT&CK source imports, you can open the table to compare the same object across releases (hashes and MITRE timestamps). For MITRE’s own release notes and roadmap, see ATT&CK resources — Updates .

ATT&CK release
19.1
Object version
2.1
Created
Modified
Raw hash
1b914ed65f9d872a...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases (1)
Release Bundle imported Object version Modified Status Raw hash
19.1 2.1 Current bundle 1b914ed65f9d…
Raw source

Mirrored ATT&CK source object

The raw object is retained through the mirrored ATT&CK source bundle and object hash. The raw endpoint returns the exact object from the mirrored bundle when available.

Open mirrored raw JSON Open MITRE-hosted copy
Source references

External references and citations

MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.

  1. [1]
    mitre-attack A0009
    Open source URL
Source and licensing

Source: MITRE ATT&CK®. © 2026 The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation. MITRE ATT&CK and ATT&CK are registered trademarks of The MITRE Corporation. Glexia is not affiliated with or endorsed by MITRE.

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