A0005: Intelligent Electronic Device (IED)

Intelligent Electronic Devices are embedded field devices used in the electric sector for protection, monitoring, and control. Their business importance is that they sit close to the physical process: if their settings, communications, availability, or operating mode are manipulated, operators may lose trusted telemetry or expected response functions. For executives, this makes IED coverage a resilience and cyber-physical risk issue, not just an OT asset inventory detail.

Executive priority

Prioritize IED visibility where they support safety, protection, monitoring, or control functions. Leaders should ask whether the organization has an accurate inventory of IEDs, knows which RTUs and Control Servers they communicate with, can evidence change control for parameters and alarm settings, and can respond if devices enter unexpected modes, restart, stop responding, or show abnormal network behavior. Because ATT&CK lists many techniques targeting this asset, IEDs should be part of OT incident response planning, vulnerability prioritization, supplier assurance, and compliance evidence for critical operational environments.

Technical view

ATT&CK does not provide a detection section for A0005, so SOC and OT teams should validate coverage from the relationship context. Relevant behaviors include firmware update mode activation, process-state monitoring, brute-force I/O changes, data destruction, denial of service, restart or shutdown, exploitation for evasion or remote services, adversary-in-the-middle activity, parameter and alarm setting modification, network discovery, sniffing, rogue master activity, valid account use, point and tag identification, removable media replication, rootkit behavior, and supply chain compromise. Detection engineering should focus on whether embedded IED communications, configuration changes, management access, protocol activity, and device state changes are observable and correlated with authorized work orders or engineering activity.

Likely telemetry

IED asset inventory and configuration baselines
Network automation protocol traffic between IEDs, RTUs, and Control Servers
Device mode, restart, shutdown, and availability events where available
Parameter, alarm setting, firmware, and configuration change records
Authentication and account-use logs for engineering or device-management access

Detection direction

Start by mapping which IEDs support critical protection, monitoring, or control functions and which communications are normal for each device.
Baseline expected protocol peers, polling patterns, command sources, and maintenance windows; alert on deviations such as new masters, unexpected discovery traffic, or unusual request volume.
Correlate parameter, alarm, firmware, and mode changes with approved engineering change records to reduce false positives from legitimate maintenance.
Treat device restarts, shutdowns, unresponsiveness, or update-mode transitions as high-context OT events requiring process-owner validation, not purely IT alerts.
Validate whether monitoring can see embedded-device traffic directly; a common blind spot is assuming enterprise EDR or server logs cover field devices.

Mitigation priorities

Maintain an authoritative IED inventory with ownership, criticality, firmware/software versions, communications peers, and supported management paths.
Enforce formal change control for parameter, alarm, firmware, and mode changes, including operational approval and post-change verification.
Restrict and monitor management access, valid account use, and remote service exposure to only required engineering and operations paths.
Segment and monitor IED communications with RTUs and Control Servers so unexpected masters, discovery, or abnormal traffic volumes are visible.
Include IED restart, denial-of-service, firmware-mode, and configuration-manipulation scenarios in OT incident response playbooks.

Additional notes and limits

This object is an ATT&CK ICS asset, not a technique. The strongest decision value comes from its relationship context: many ICS techniques target IEDs, spanning discovery, credential use, configuration modification, denial of service, firmware/update behavior, and supply-chain or removable-media pathways. The supplied description specifically places IEDs in the electric sector and identifies embedded implementation and communication with RTUs and Control Servers.

MITRE provides no official detection text, no tactics, no aliases, and only the Embedded platform for this asset. Local architecture, vendor implementation, protocol use, logging capability, safety role, and maintenance practices are required before assessing actual exposure, control effectiveness, or detection coverage.

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.

Official MITRE ATT&CK definition

Intelligent Electronic Device (IED)

An Intelligent Electronic Device (IED) is a type of specialized field device that is designed to perform specific operational functions, frequently for protection, monitoring, or control within the electric sector. IEDs are typically used to both acquire telemetry and execute tailored control algorithms/actions based on customizable parameters/settings. An IED is usually implemented as a dedicated embedded device and supports various network automation protocols to communicate with RTUs and Control Servers.

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.

Filter related techniques48 rows

Domain	ID	Name	Relationship / procedure
ICS	T0830	Adversary-in-the-Middle	Adversary-in-the-Middle targets this object.
ICS	T0846	Remote System Discovery	Remote System Discovery targets this object.
ICS	T0806	Brute Force I/O	Brute Force I/O targets this object.
ICS	T0851	Rootkit	Rootkit targets this object.
ICS	T0871	Execution through API	Execution through API targets this object.
ICS	T0869	Standard Application Layer Protocol	Standard Application Layer Protocol targets this object.
ICS	T0816	Device Restart/Shutdown	Device Restart/Shutdown targets this object.
ICS	T0890	Exploitation for Privilege Escalation	Exploitation for Privilege Escalation targets this object.
ICS	T1694.001	Default CredentialsSub-technique	Default Credentials targets this object.
ICS	T1695.002	EthernetSub-technique	Ethernet targets this object.
ICS	T0881	Service Stop	Service Stop targets this object.
ICS	T1695.001	Serial COMSub-technique	Serial COM targets this object.
ICS	T0820	Exploitation for Evasion	Exploitation for Evasion targets this object.
ICS	T0842	Network Sniffing	Network Sniffing targets this object.
ICS	T0888	Remote System Information Discovery	Remote System Information Discovery targets this object.
ICS	T0801	Monitor Process State	Monitor Process State targets this object.
ICS	T1691	Block Operational Technology Message	Block Operational Technology Message targets this object.
ICS	T0836	Modify Parameter	Modify Parameter targets this object.
ICS	T0846.003	Multicast DiscoverySub-technique	Multicast Discovery targets this object.
ICS	T0866	Exploitation of Remote Services	Exploitation of Remote Services targets this object.
ICS	T0878	Alarm Suppression	Alarm Suppression targets this object.
ICS	T0846.002	Broadcast DiscoverySub-technique	Broadcast Discovery targets this object.
ICS	T0874	Hooking	Hooking targets this object.
ICS	T1694	Insecure Credentials	Insecure Credentials targets this object.
ICS	T0846.001	Port ScanSub-technique	Port Scan targets this object.
ICS	T0872	Indicator Removal on Host	Indicator Removal on Host targets this object.
ICS	T0838	Modify Alarm Settings	Modify Alarm Settings targets this object.
ICS	T0885	Commonly Used Port	Commonly Used Port targets this object.
ICS	T0848	Rogue Master	Rogue Master targets this object.
ICS	T1693.001	System FirmwareSub-technique	System Firmware targets this object.
ICS	T1692.002	Reporting MessageSub-technique	Reporting Message targets this object.
ICS	T0834	Native API	Native API targets this object.
ICS	T1691.001	Command MessageSub-technique	Command Message targets this object.
ICS	T0859	Valid Accounts	Valid Accounts targets this object.
ICS	T0814	Denial of Service	Denial of Service targets this object.
ICS	T1695.003	Wi-FiSub-technique	Wi-Fi targets this object.
ICS	T1692	Unauthorized Message	Unauthorized Message targets this object.
ICS	T0840	Network Connection Enumeration	Network Connection Enumeration targets this object.
ICS	T1692.001	Command MessageSub-technique	Command Message targets this object.
ICS	T1691.002	Reporting MessageSub-technique	Reporting Message targets this object.
ICS	T0800	Activate Firmware Update Mode	Activate Firmware Update Mode targets this object.
ICS	T0892	Change Credential	Change Credential targets this object.
ICS	T1695	Block Communications	Block Communications targets this object.
ICS	T0847	Replication Through Removable Media	Replication Through Removable Media targets this object.
ICS	T0861	Point & Tag Identification	Point & Tag Identification targets this object.
ICS	T0862	Supply Chain Compromise	Supply Chain Compromise targets this object.
ICS	T0884	Connection Proxy	Connection Proxy targets this object.
ICS	T0809	Data Destruction	Data Destruction targets this object.

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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: 1.1
Created: Sep 28, 2023, 14:46 UTC (UTC+00:00)
Modified: May 12, 2026, 15:12 UTC (UTC+00:00)
Raw hash: e6801a3a0ef28ad9...

Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(1)

Release	Bundle imported	Object version	Modified	Status	Raw hash
19.1	Jul 14, 2026, 09:14 UTC (UTC+00:00)	1.1	May 12, 2026, 15:12 UTC (UTC+00:00)	Current bundle	`e6801a3a0ef2…`

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.

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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]
mitre-attackA0005
Open source URL

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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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