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MITRE ATT&CK® Technique

T1027: Obfuscated Files or Information

Adversaries may attempt to make an executable or file difficult to discover or analyze by encrypting, encoding, or otherwise obfuscating its contents on the system or in transit. This is common behavior that can be used across different platforms and the network to evade defenses.

Payloads may be compressed, archived, or encrypted in order to avoid detection. These payloads may be used during Initial Access or later to mitigate detection. Sometimes a user's action may be required to open and Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information for User Execution. The user may also be required to input a password to open a password protected compressed/encrypted file that was provided by the adversary.[1] Adversaries may also use compressed or archived scripts, such as JavaScript.

Portions of files can also be encoded to hide the plain-text strings that would otherwise help defenders with discovery.[2] Payloads may also be split into separate, seemingly benign files that only reveal malicious functionality when reassembled.[3]

Adversaries may also abuse Command Obfuscation to obscure commands executed from payloads or directly via Command and Scripting Interpreter. Environment variables, aliases, characters, and other platform/language specific semantics can be used to evade signature based detections and application control mechanisms.[4][5][6]

EnterpriseT1027TechniqueObject v2.0 Modified
Glexia's Take

Analyst context for executives and security teams

Analyst confidence High

Obfuscated Files or Information matters because it is a broad stealth behavior that can weaken controls that depend on readable content, known hashes, simple signatures, or user-visible file intent. For leaders, the practical issue is not one file type; it is whether the organization can still inspect, log, detonate, and investigate payloads that are encrypted, encoded, compressed, packed, embedded, split, or otherwise made hard to analyze across Windows, Linux, macOS, ESXi, and network device environments.

Executive priority

Treat T1027 as a coverage-validation priority for malware prevention, email/web filtering, endpoint behavior detection, SOC triage, and incident response readiness. Budget and assurance discussions should ask whether controls can handle password-protected archives, encoded scripts, packed binaries, embedded payloads, command obfuscation, and platform-specific blind spots rather than relying only on static signatures. It also supports audit and compliance evidence: teams should be able to show that logging, malware controls, user reporting, and analysis workflows are configured to retain and review suspicious obfuscated content.

Technical view

MITRE provides no official detection text for this technique, but the relationship to DET0378 indicates behavioral detection is relevant. SOC and detection teams should validate behavior-based analytics around suspicious file creation, archive extraction, encoded or encrypted content handling, script execution from compressed or embedded sources, and obfuscated command execution via command and scripting interpreters. IR teams should preserve original files, decoded/decompressed artifacts where available, process context, command lines, parent-child process chains, and network transit evidence. Relationship context also shows many sub-techniques under T1027, so coverage should be tested by class: binary padding, packing, steganography, compile-after-delivery, indicator removal, HTML/SVG/LNK smuggling, dynamic API resolution, stripped payloads, embedded payloads, command obfuscation, fileless storage, encrypted or encoded files, compression, junk code, and invisible Unicode.

Likely telemetry

  • Endpoint file creation, modification, quarantine, and malware-prevention events
  • Process execution, parent-child process lineage, command-line arguments, and script interpreter telemetry
  • Archive, compression, encryption, and extraction events where collected
  • Email and web gateway attachment, content-type, URL, and download metadata
  • EDR or antivirus heuristic and behavioral alerts, not only hash or signature matches

Detection direction

  • Prioritize behavioral detections over static-only signatures because the technique is specifically intended to make files or content difficult to discover or analyze.
  • Test whether controls inspect or safely detonate compressed, archived, encrypted, encoded, embedded, and password-protected content, and document where inspection is not possible.
  • Tune analytics for suspicious combinations such as downloaded archives followed by script execution, encoded command usage, compilation after delivery, or extraction followed by unusual process activity.
  • Review false positives carefully: compression, encoding, software packing, stripped binaries, and embedded content can be legitimate in development, administration, and software distribution workflows.
  • Map detections to the relevant sub-techniques so coverage gaps are visible; broad T1027 coverage may not imply coverage for HTML smuggling, command obfuscation, fileless storage, or invisible Unicode.

Mitigation priorities

  • Start with M1047 Audit: ensure relevant endpoint, script, file, email/web, and security-control logs are enabled, retained, and reviewable for investigation and compliance evidence.
  • Apply M1049 Antivirus/Antimalware broadly, with attention to heuristic and behavioral capabilities as well as current signatures.
  • Use M1040 Behavior Prevention on Endpoint to block or alert on suspicious process, file, API, and script behaviors that survive simple obfuscation.
  • Use M1017 User Training for cases requiring user action, such as opening suspicious archives, password-protected files, or unexpected attachments.
  • Define exception and escalation processes for legitimate encrypted, packed, or compressed business files so analysts can distinguish expected activity from suspicious delivery or execution patterns.
Analyst notes and limits

T1027 is a parent technique with many sub-techniques, so a useful assessment should not stop at the parent label. The most defensible Glexia-style validation is to inventory which obfuscation classes are relevant to the organization’s platforms and workflows, then prove which telemetry and controls cover each class. The supplied relationships include mitigation mappings to User Training, Behavior Prevention on Endpoint, Audit, and Antivirus/Antimalware, plus a behavioral detection strategy relationship, but no detailed official detection logic.

The official ATT&CK object does not provide detection guidance for T1027, and the supplied relationship descriptions are partial for some mitigations and sub-techniques. This take does not assert active exploitation, actor attribution, or customer exposure. Local evidence is required to determine whether specific platforms, file types, logging sources, and security tools provide meaningful coverage.

Official MITRE ATT&CK definition

Obfuscated Files or Information

Adversaries may attempt to make an executable or file difficult to discover or analyze by encrypting, encoding, or otherwise obfuscating its contents on the system or in transit. This is common behavior that can be used across different platforms and the network to evade defenses.

Payloads may be compressed, archived, or encrypted in order to avoid detection. These payloads may be used during Initial Access or later to mitigate detection. Sometimes a user's action may be required to open and Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information for User Execution. The user may also be required to input a password to open a password protected compressed/encrypted file that was provided by the adversary.[1] Adversaries may also use compressed or archived scripts, such as JavaScript.

Portions of files can also be encoded to hide the plain-text strings that would otherwise help defenders with discovery.[2] Payloads may also be split into separate, seemingly benign files that only reveal malicious functionality when reassembled.[3]

Adversaries may also abuse Command Obfuscation to obscure commands executed from payloads or directly via Command and Scripting Interpreter. Environment variables, aliases, characters, and other platform/language specific semantics can be used to evade signature based detections and application control mechanisms.[4][5][6]

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

Related techniques

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.

10 rows
Domain ID Name Relationship / procedure
Enterprise T1027.005 Indicator Removal from Tools Sub-technique Indicator Removal from Tools subtechnique of this object.
Enterprise T1027.009 Embedded Payloads Sub-technique Embedded Payloads subtechnique of this object.
Enterprise T1027.013 Encrypted/Encoded File Sub-technique Encrypted/Encoded File subtechnique of this object.
Enterprise T1027.012 LNK Icon Smuggling Sub-technique LNK Icon Smuggling subtechnique of this object.
Enterprise T1027.017 SVG Smuggling Sub-technique SVG Smuggling subtechnique of this object.
Enterprise T1027.018 Invisible Unicode Sub-technique Invisible Unicode subtechnique of this object.
Enterprise T1027.006 HTML Smuggling Sub-technique HTML Smuggling subtechnique of this object.
Enterprise T1027.011 Fileless Storage Sub-technique Fileless Storage subtechnique of this object.
Enterprise T1027.014 Polymorphic Code Sub-technique Polymorphic Code subtechnique of this object.
Enterprise T1027.010 Command Obfuscation Sub-technique Command Obfuscation subtechnique of this object.
Associated objects

Groups, software, and campaigns

Group Enterprise

G1039: RedCurl

RedCurl is a threat actor active since 2018 notable for corporate espionage targeting a variety of locations, including Ukraine, Canada and the United Kingdom, and a variety of industries, including but not limited to travel agencies, insurance companies, and banks.[1] RedCurl is allegedly a Russian-speaking threat actor.[1][2] The group’s operations typically start with spearphishing emails to gain initial access, then the group executes discovery and collection commands and scripts to find corporate data. The group concludes operations by exfiltrating files to the C2 servers.

Group Enterprise

G0106: Rocke

Rocke is an alleged Chinese-speaking adversary whose primary objective appeared to be cryptojacking, or stealing victim system resources for the purposes of mining cryptocurrency. The name Rocke comes from the email address "rocke@live.cn" used to create the wallet which held collected cryptocurrency. Researchers have detected overlaps between Rocke and the Iron Cybercrime Group, though this attribution has not been confirmed.[1]

Group Enterprise

G0093: GALLIUM

GALLIUM is a cyberespionage group that has been active since at least 2012, primarily targeting telecommunications companies, financial institutions, and government entities in Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Cambodia, Malaysia, Mozambique, the Philippines, Russia, and Vietnam. This group is particularly known for launching Operation Soft Cell, a long-term campaign targeting telecommunications providers.[1] Security researchers have identified GALLIUM as a likely Chinese state-sponsored group, based in part on tools used and TTPs commonly associated with Chinese threat actors.[1][2][3]

Group Enterprise

G0084: Gallmaker

Gallmaker is a cyberespionage group that has targeted victims in the Middle East and has been active since at least December 2017. The group has mainly targeted victims in the defense, military, and government sectors.[1]

Group Enterprise

G0063: BlackOasis

BlackOasis is a Middle Eastern threat group that is believed to be a customer of Gamma Group. The group has shown interest in prominent figures in the United Nations, as well as opposition bloggers, activists, regional news correspondents, and think tanks. [1] [2] A group known by Microsoft as NEODYMIUM is reportedly associated closely with BlackOasis operations, but evidence that the group names are aliases has not been identified. [3]

Group Enterprise

G0022: APT3

APT3 is a China-based threat group that researchers have attributed to China's Ministry of State Security.[1][2] This group is responsible for the campaigns known as Operation Clandestine Fox, Operation Clandestine Wolf, and Operation Double Tap.[1][3] As of June 2015, the group appears to have shifted from targeting primarily US victims to primarily political organizations in Hong Kong.[4]

Malware Enterprise

S9008: Shai-Hulud

Shai-Hulud is a supply chain worm, first reported in September 2025, that spreads through code repositories, including GitHub and NPM packages. It exploits CI/CD pipeline dependencies to propagate to victims and poisons the supply chain by publishing malicious packages. Once inside a victim environment, Shai-Hulud steals credentials and access tokens from compromised repository accounts and exfiltrates them to attacker-controlled servers via encoded GitHub Actions workflows.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

LinuxSaaSWindows
Tool Enterprise

S0633: Sliver

Sliver is an open source, cross-platform, red team command and control (C2) framework written in Golang. Sliver includes its own package manager, "armory," for staging and downloading additional tools and payloads to the primary C2 framework.[1][2]

WindowsLinuxmacOS
Malware Enterprise

S0446: Ryuk

Ryuk is a ransomware designed to target enterprise environments that has been used in attacks since at least 2018. Ryuk shares code similarities with Hermes ransomware.[1][2][3]

Windows
Malware Enterprise

S0447: Lokibot

Lokibot is a widely distributed information stealer that was first reported in 2015. It is designed to steal sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, cryptocurrency wallets, and other credentials. Lokibot can also create a backdoor into infected systems to allow an attacker to install additional payloads.[1][2][3]

Windows
Malware Enterprise

S1064: SVCReady

SVCReady is a loader that has been used since at least April 2022 in malicious spam campaigns. Security researchers have noted overlaps between TA551 activity and SVCReady distribution, including similarities in file names, lure images, and identical grammatical errors.[1]

Windows
Malware Enterprise

S9015: BRICKSTORM

BRICKSTORM is a cross-platform backdoor with variants written in Go and Rust that facilitates command and control, the ingress transfer of other malware, and the exfiltration of data.[1][2][3][4] BRICKSTORM has also been created from a .NET application using ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation to blend in within victim environments.[1] BRICKSTORM was first observed in April 2024.[5] BRICKSTORM has previously been leveraged by People's Republic of China (PRC) state-nexus actors identified as UNC6201, UNC5221, WARP PANDA, PunyToad, and SYLVANITE.[6][7][1][8][9][10][3][4]

ESXiLinuxNetwork Devices
Campaign Enterprise

C0057: 3CX Supply Chain Attack

The 3CX Supply Chain Attack was the first publicly reported case of one supply chain compromise triggering another, leading to a cascading, two-stage intrusion. The initial supply chain attack began when a 3CX employee downloaded and executed a trojanized, end-of-life version of the X_Trader trading software from Trading Technologies. This provided UNC4736, a threat cluster associated with AppleJeus, access to the 3CX environment. From there UNC4736 compromised the Windows and macOS build environments used to distribute the 3CX desktop application to their customers.[1] While 3CX serves more than 600,000 customers and 12 million users, only a subset of systems were affected. Subsequent targeting focused on victims in the defense and cryptocurrency sectors, where attackers deployed secondary payloads such as Gopuram for credential theft and persistence.[2] The campaign began in late 2022 and was disrupted after security vendors publicly reported the compromise in March 2023.[3][4]

Campaign Enterprise

C0017: C0017

C0017 was an APT41 campaign conducted between May 2021 and February 2022 that successfully compromised at least six U.S. state government networks through the exploitation of vulnerable Internet facing web applications. During C0017, APT41 was quick to adapt and use publicly-disclosed as well as zero-day vulnerabilities for initial access, and in at least two cases re-compromised victims following remediation efforts. The goals of C0017 are unknown, however APT41 was observed exfiltrating Personal Identifiable Information (PII).[1]

Relationship explorer

All related ATT&CK context

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
2.0
Created
Modified
Raw hash
95208046bd4e22d2...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases (1)
Release Bundle imported Object version Modified Status Raw hash
19.1 2.0 Current bundle 95208046bd4e…
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.

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]
    Volexity PowerDuke November 2016

    Adair, S.. (2016, November 9). PowerDuke: Widespread Post-Election Spear Phishing Campaigns Targeting Think Tanks and NGOs. Retrieved January 11, 2017.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    Linux/Cdorked.A We Live Security Analysis

    Pierre-Marc Bureau. (2013, April 26). Linux/Cdorked.A: New Apache backdoor being used in the wild to serve Blackhole. Retrieved September 10, 2017.

    Open source URL
  3. [3]
    Carbon Black Obfuscation Sept 2016

    Tedesco, B. (2016, September 23). Security Alert Summary. Retrieved February 12, 2018.

    Open source URL
  4. [4]
    FireEye Obfuscation June 2017

    Bohannon, D. & Carr N. (2017, June 30). Obfuscation in the Wild: Targeted Attackers Lead the Way in Evasion Techniques. Retrieved February 12, 2018.

    Open source URL
  5. [5]
    FireEye Revoke-Obfuscation July 2017

    Bohannon, D. & Holmes, L. (2017, July 27). Revoke-Obfuscation: PowerShell Obfuscation Detection Using Science. Retrieved November 17, 2024.

    Open source URL
  6. [6]
    PaloAlto EncodedCommand March 2017

    White, J. (2017, March 10). Pulling Back the Curtains on EncodedCommand PowerShell Attacks. Retrieved February 12, 2018.

    Open source URL
  7. [7]
    mitre-attack T1027
    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.