AN2013: Analytic 2013
If infrastructure or patterns in the malicious web content related to SEO poisoning or Drive-by Target have been previously identified, internet scanning may uncover when an adversary has staged web content supporting a strategic web compromise. Much of this activity will take place outside the visibility of the target organization, making detection of this behavior difficult. Detection efforts may be focused on other phases of the adversary lifecycle, such as Drive-by Compromise or Exploitation for Client Execution.
Analyst context for executives and security teams
This analytic matters because it highlights a visibility gap: malicious web content used for SEO poisoning or drive-by targeting may be staged on infrastructure outside the organization’s direct control. For executives and security leaders, the practical issue is not whether internal tools can see everything, but whether the organization has a plan to discover, assess, and respond when external web content is being prepared to lure users or enable later compromise.
Executive priority
Treat this as an external visibility and incident-readiness problem. Leaders should ask whether threat intelligence, managed detection, brand/exposure monitoring, and incident response processes can identify suspicious web content before or during user impact. Because the ATT&CK object notes that much of the activity occurs outside target visibility and provides no direct detection logic, priority should be on validating coverage assumptions, escalation paths, and evidence collection for related downstream behaviors such as drive-by compromise or exploitation for client execution.
Technical view
For SOC, detection engineering, and IR teams, this analytic supports monitoring for previously identified malicious infrastructure or web-content patterns associated with SEO poisoning or Drive-by Target activity. Since the platform is PRE and no ATT&CK tactic or detection logic is supplied, teams should not treat this as an endpoint-only analytic. Validate whether external scanning, threat intelligence feeds, web-content monitoring, proxy/DNS logs, browser security events, and endpoint exploitation telemetry can be correlated when suspicious staged content is discovered or when users interact with it. Detection should also pivot to related lifecycle phases named in the object: Drive-by Compromise and Exploitation for Client Execution.
Likely telemetry
- External internet scanning or exposure-monitoring results for suspicious web content and infrastructure patterns
- Threat intelligence indicators related to previously identified malicious infrastructure or SEO poisoning content
- DNS, proxy, secure web gateway, or browser telemetry showing user interaction with suspicious external sites
- Endpoint or EDR telemetry relevant to client-side exploitation attempts following web access
- Incident response case notes linking external staged content to user activity or downstream compromise indicators
Detection direction
- Validate whether the organization has any visibility into externally hosted web content that may impersonate, target, or lure users; internal telemetry alone may miss the staging phase.
- Use previously identified infrastructure or content patterns as pivots for internet scanning and threat intelligence review, while controlling for false positives from benign SEO activity and shared hosting infrastructure.
- Correlate external findings with internal DNS/proxy/browser/endpoint evidence to determine whether users reached the content or experienced follow-on exploitation behavior.
- Because official detection logic is not provided, document assumptions, data sources, and review frequency rather than claiming deterministic detection.
- Tune downstream detections for Drive-by Compromise and Exploitation for Client Execution, since the object explicitly notes those phases may be more observable.
Mitigation priorities
- Prioritize external visibility processes: threat intelligence review, internet scanning, and exposure monitoring for suspicious infrastructure or content patterns where feasible.
- Ensure web security, DNS/proxy logging, browser protections, and endpoint telemetry are retained and usable for investigations involving drive-by or client-exploitation scenarios.
- Define IR playbooks for suspected malicious web content affecting users, including triage of visited URLs, affected endpoints, and any client-side exploitation evidence.
- Use awareness and policy controls to reduce user exposure to suspicious search results or untrusted web content, while recognizing this does not replace technical detection.
- Maintain audit-ready evidence of monitoring coverage, escalation criteria, and response actions because this analytic depends heavily on cross-team process maturity.
Analyst notes and limits
The supplied ATT&CK object is a detection analytic, not a technique, and it has no relationship context, no tactic, and no official detection field. Its value is mainly in highlighting where detection may need to occur outside the organization’s normal telemetry boundary and where defenders should pivot to better-observed phases of the adversary lifecycle.
This take is limited to the supplied ATT&CK fields. It does not assert active exploitation, attribution, specific adversary infrastructure, customer exposure, or guaranteed detection. Local value depends on whether the organization collects external scanning intelligence and can correlate it with internal web, DNS, browser, and endpoint telemetry.
Analytic 2013
If infrastructure or patterns in the malicious web content related to SEO poisoning or Drive-by Target have been previously identified, internet scanning may uncover when an adversary has staged web content supporting a strategic web compromise. Much of this activity will take place outside the visibility of the target organization, making detection of this behavior difficult. Detection efforts may be focused on other phases of the adversary lifecycle, such as Drive-by Compromise or Exploitation for Client Execution.
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.
All related ATT&CK context
No relationships are available in the current normalized data for this object.
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 .
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases (1)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19.1 | 1.0 | Current bundle | 8d87c3ff35ba… |
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.
External references and citations
MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.
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mitre-attack AN2013Open source URL
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