M0913: Application Developer Guidance
This mitigation describes any guidance or training given to developers of applications to avoid introducing security weaknesses that an adversary may be able to take advantage of.
Analyst context for executives and security teams
Application Developer Guidance is an ICS mitigation focused on reducing security weaknesses introduced during application development. Its practical value is preventive: better developer training and secure design guidance can reduce conditions that let adversaries abuse valid, default, or compromised accounts in control system environments.
Executive priority
Treat this as a governance and resilience control, not a SOC alert. Leaders should ask whether developers who build or maintain ICS-related applications receive security guidance that addresses credential handling, default account risks, access control assumptions, and secure authentication patterns. It can also support compliance evidence because the object is mapped to NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 4 AT-3 training awareness labels.
Technical view
ATT&CK provides no detection text and no specific platforms for this mitigation. SOC, IR, and detection teams should therefore validate outcomes indirectly: whether internally developed or maintained ICS applications avoid hard-coded credentials, unsafe defaults, weak account lifecycle assumptions, and insecure authentication flows that could contribute to Valid Accounts abuse under T0859.
Likely telemetry
- Secure development training records and completion evidence
- Application security review findings
- Code review results related to credential storage and authentication
- Configuration review evidence for default or shared accounts
- Identity and access management records for service and user accounts
Detection direction
- Do not treat this mitigation as directly detectable; ATT&CK provides no official detection guidance.
- Use relationship context with T0859 Valid Accounts to test whether monitoring can distinguish expected account use from suspicious use of legitimate credentials.
- Review whether application logs expose enough authentication, authorization, and account-use detail to support investigations.
- Watch for blind spots where custom ICS applications, service accounts, or default credentials are outside centralized identity monitoring.
Mitigation priorities
- Establish developer security guidance and training for applications that interact with ICS environments.
- Prioritize credential handling, avoidance of hard-coded secrets, secure defaults, least privilege, and account lifecycle expectations.
- Make secure development review evidence available for audit, compliance, and incident response readiness.
- Pair training with review processes; guidance alone is weak if code, configuration, and account practices are not validated.
Analyst notes and limits
The key decision value is whether the organization can prove developers are being guided away from application design choices that make Valid Accounts abuse easier. This is especially relevant where custom or vendor-modified applications touch control system operations.
The supplied ATT&CK object is a mitigation only. It has no official detection guidance, tactics, or platforms, and the relationship context only states that it mitigates T0859 Valid Accounts. Local architecture, application inventory, and identity controls are required to assess actual coverage.
Application Developer Guidance
This mitigation describes any guidance or training given to developers of applications to avoid introducing security weaknesses that an adversary may be able to take advantage of.
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.
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.
| Domain | ID | Name | Relationship / procedure |
|---|---|---|---|
| ICS | T0859 | Valid Accounts | Ensure that applications and devices do not store sensitive data or credentials insecurely (e.g., plaintext credentials in code, published credentials in repositories, or credentials in public cloud storage). CitationCISA June 2013 |
All related ATT&CK context
Object version and sync metadata
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Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases (1)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19.1 | 1.0 | Current bundle | b7df90c3d6bc… |
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 M0913Open source URL
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