C0001: Frankenstein
Frankenstein was described by security researchers as a highly-targeted campaign conducted by moderately sophisticated and highly resourceful threat actors in early 2019. The unidentified actors primarily relied on open source tools, including Empire. The campaign name refers to the actors' ability to piece together several unrelated open-source tool components.[1]
Security context for executives and security teams
C0001: Frankenstein describes [Frankenstein](https://attack.mitre.org/campaigns/C0001) was described by security researchers as a highly-targeted campaign conducted by moderately sophisticated and highly resourceful threat actors in early 2019. The unidentified actors primarily relied on open source tools, including [Empire](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0363). The campaign name refers to the actors' ability to piece together several unrelated open-source tool components.(Citation: Talos Frankenstein June 2019)
Executive priority
C0001: Frankenstein is an official MITRE ATT&CK campaign. Glexia treats it as defensive behavior context for prioritizing monitoring, control validation, and response planning without using the object by itself as an attribution claim.
Technical view
Security teams should validate C0001: Frankenstein by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (the mapped ATT&CK tactic context), supported platforms (the platforms named in the official object), and available local telemetry before making detection or mitigation decisions.
Likely telemetry
- Official ATT&CK relationships and object metadata
Detection direction
- Validate whether C0001: Frankenstein appears in your detection coverage and tabletop scenarios.
- Use the object to align executive risk language with SOC, incident response, and detection engineering work.
- Do not treat ATT&CK relationship context as attribution without corroborating evidence.
Mitigation priorities
- Map the object to existing controls and identify missing telemetry or response ownership.
- Prioritize mitigations that reduce exposure on the listed platforms and tactics.
- Review adjacent ATT&CK relationships before changing policy, detections, or reporting language.
Additional notes and limits
Baseline Glexia take generated from the official MITRE ATT&CK STIX object, source hash, tactics, platforms, and detection fields. It is safe to replace with a richer model-generated take for the same source hash later.
This baseline take is source-grounded and schema-validated, but it does not include environment-specific telemetry, incident evidence, or threat-intelligence corroboration.
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Frankenstein
Frankenstein was described by security researchers as a highly-targeted campaign conducted by moderately sophisticated and highly resourceful threat actors in early 2019. The unidentified actors primarily relied on open source tools, including Empire. The campaign name refers to the actors' ability to piece together several unrelated open-source tool components.[1]
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | T1057 | Process Discovery | During Frankenstein, the threat actors used Empire to obtain a list of all running processes.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1082 | System Information Discovery | During Frankenstein, the threat actors used Empire to obtain the compromised machine's name.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1027.010 | Command ObfuscationSub-technique | During Frankenstein, the threat actors ran encoded commands from the command line.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1020 | Automated Exfiltration | During Frankenstein, the threat actors collected information via Empire, which was automatically sent back to the adversary's C2.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1053.005 | Scheduled TaskSub-technique | During Frankenstein, the threat actors established persistence through a scheduled task using the command: `/Create /F /SC DAILY /ST 09:00 /TN WinUpdate /TR`, named "WinUpdate" [1] |
| Enterprise | T1204.002 | Malicious FileSub-technique | During Frankenstein, the threat actors relied on a victim to enable macros within a malicious Microsoft Word document likely sent via email.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1566.001 | Spearphishing AttachmentSub-technique | During Frankenstein, the threat actors likely used spearphishing emails to send malicious Microsoft Word documents.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1105 | Ingress Tool Transfer | During Frankenstein, the threat actors downloaded files and tools onto a victim machine.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1059.001 | PowerShellSub-technique | During Frankenstein, the threat actors used PowerShell to run a series of Base64-encoded commands that acted as a stager and enumerated hosts.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1518.001 | Security Software DiscoverySub-technique | During Frankenstein, the threat actors used WMI queries to determine if analysis tools were running on a compromised system.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1059.005 | Visual BasicSub-technique | During Frankenstein, the threat actors used Word documents that prompted the victim to enable macros and run a Visual Basic script.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1071.001 | Web ProtocolsSub-technique | During Frankenstein, the threat actors used HTTP GET requests for C2.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1221 | Template Injection | During Frankenstein, the threat actors used trojanized documents that retrieved remote templates from an adversary-controlled website.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1203 | Exploitation for Client Execution | During Frankenstein, the threat actors exploited CVE-2017-11882 to execute code on the victim's machine.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1059.003 | Windows Command ShellSub-technique | During Frankenstein, the threat actors ran a command script to set up persistence as a scheduled task named "WinUpdate", as well as other encoded commands from the command-line [1] |
| Enterprise | T1497.001 | System ChecksSub-technique | During Frankenstein, the threat actors used a script that ran WMI queries to check if a VM or sandbox was running, including VMWare and Virtualbox. The script would also call WMI to determine the number of cores allocated to the system; if less than two the script would stop execution.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1047 | Windows Management Instrumentation | During Frankenstein, the threat actors used WMI queries to check if various security applications were running as well as to determine the operating system version.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1119 | Automated Collection | During Frankenstein, the threat actors used Empire to automatically gather the username, domain name, machine name, and other system information.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1036.004 | Masquerade Task or ServiceSub-technique | During Frankenstein, the threat actors named a malicious scheduled task "WinUpdate" for persistence.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1005 | Data from Local System | During Frankenstein, the threat actors used Empire to gather various local system information.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1041 | Exfiltration Over C2 Channel | During Frankenstein, the threat actors collected information via Empire, which sent the data back to the adversary's C2.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1016 | System Network Configuration Discovery | During Frankenstein, the threat actors used Empire to find the public IP address of a compromised system.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1140 | Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information | During Frankenstein, the threat actors deobfuscated Base64-encoded commands following the execution of a malicious script, which revealed a small script designed to obtain an additional payload.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1588.002 | ToolSub-technique | For Frankenstein, the threat actors obtained and used Empire.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1127.001 | MSBuildSub-technique | During Frankenstein, the threat actors used MSbuild to execute an actor-created file.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1033 | System Owner/User Discovery | During Frankenstein, the threat actors used Empire to enumerate hosts and gather username, machine name, and administrative permissions information.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1573.001 | Symmetric CryptographySub-technique | During Frankenstein, the threat actors communicated with C2 via an encrypted RC4 byte stream and AES-CBC.[1] |
Groups, software, and campaigns
S0363: Empire
Empire is an open-source, cross-platform remote administration and post-exploitation framework that is publicly available on GitHub. While the tool itself is primarily written in Python, the post-exploitation agents are written in pure PowerShell for Windows and Python for Linux/macOS. Empire was one of five tools singled out by a joint report on public hacking tools being widely used by adversaries.[1][2][3]
All related ATT&CK context
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(2)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19.2 | 1.1 | Current bundle | cc4d642080a4… | ||
| 19.1 | 1.1 | Older bundle | e31a4b7d3f56… |
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.
- [1]Talos Frankenstein June 2019
Adamitis, D. et al. (2019, June 4). It's alive: Threat actors cobble together open-source pieces into monstrous Frankenstein campaign. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
Open source URL - [2]mitre-attackC0001Open source URL
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