LiveActive security incident?Get immediate response
MITRE ATT&CK® Tool

S0590: NBTscan

NBTscan is an open source tool that has been used by state groups to conduct internal reconnaissance within a compromised network.[1][2][3][4]

EnterpriseS0590ToolObject v1.0Modified
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis

Security context for executives and security teams

Automation confidenceMedium

S0590: NBTscan describes [NBTscan](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0590) is an open source tool that has been used by state groups to conduct internal reconnaissance within a compromised network.(Citation: Debian nbtscan Nov 2019)(Citation: SecTools nbtscan June 2003)(Citation: Symantec Waterbug Jun 2019)(Citation: FireEye APT39 Jan 2019)

Executive priority

S0590: NBTscan is an official MITRE ATT&CK software. 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 S0590: NBTscan by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (the mapped ATT&CK tactic context), supported platforms (Windows, Linux, macOS), and available local telemetry before making detection or mitigation decisions.

Likely telemetry

  • Official ATT&CK relationships and object metadata
  • Network, endpoint, and security-tool telemetry

Detection direction

  • Validate whether S0590: NBTscan 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.

Official MITRE ATT&CK definition

NBTscan

NBTscan is an open source tool that has been used by state groups to conduct internal reconnaissance within a compromised network.[1][2][3][4]

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.

5 rows
DomainIDNameRelationship / procedure
EnterpriseT1033System Owner/User Discovery

NBTscan can list active users on the system.[1][2]

EnterpriseT1016System Network Configuration Discovery

NBTscan can be used to collect MAC addresses.[1][2]

EnterpriseT1040Network Sniffing

NBTscan can dump and print whole packet content.[1][2]

EnterpriseT1046Network Service Discovery

NBTscan can be used to scan IP networks.[1][2]

EnterpriseT1018Remote System Discovery

NBTscan can list NetBIOS computer names.[1][2]

Associated objects

Groups, software, and campaigns

GroupEnterprise

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]

GroupEnterprise

G0129: Mustang Panda

Mustang Panda is a China-based cyber espionage threat actor that has been conducting operations since at least 2012. Mustang Panda has been known to use tailored phishing lures and decoy documents to deliver malicious payloads. Mustang Panda has targeted government, diplomatic, and non-governmental organizations, including think tanks, religious institutions, and research entities, across the United States, Europe, and Asia, with notable activity in Russia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Vietnam. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]

GroupEnterprise

G0087: APT39

APT39 is one of several names for cyber espionage activity conducted by the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) through the front company Rana Intelligence Computing since at least 2014. APT39 has primarily targeted the travel, hospitality, academic, and telecommunications industries in Iran and across Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America to track individuals and entities considered to be a threat by the MOIS.[1][2][3][4][5]

GroupEnterprise

G0010: Turla

Turla is a cyber espionage threat group that has been attributed to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). They have compromised victims in over 50 countries since at least 2004, spanning a range of industries including government, embassies, military, education, research and pharmaceutical companies. Turla is known for conducting watering hole and spearphishing campaigns, and leveraging in-house tools and malware, such as Uroburos.[1][2][3][4][5]

GroupEnterprise

G1030: Agrius

Agrius is an Iranian threat actor active since 2020 notable for a series of ransomware and wiper operations in the Middle East, with an emphasis on Israeli targets.[1][2] Public reporting has linked Agrius to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).[3]

GroupEnterprise

G0131: Tonto Team

Tonto Team is a suspected Chinese state-sponsored cyber espionage threat group that has primarily targeted South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and the United States since at least 2009; by 2020 they expanded operations to include other Asian as well as Eastern European countries. Tonto Team has targeted government, military, energy, mining, financial, education, healthcare, and technology organizations, including through the Heartbeat Campaign (2009-2012) and Operation Bitter Biscuit (2017).[1][2][3][4][5][6]

GroupEnterprise

G1006: Earth Lusca

Earth Lusca is a suspected China-based cyber espionage group that has been active since at least April 2019. Earth Lusca has targeted organizations in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Nepal, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates, Nigeria, Germany, France, and the United States. Targets included government institutions, news media outlets, gambling companies, educational institutions, COVID-19 research organizations, telecommunications companies, religious movements banned in China, and cryptocurrency trading platforms; security researchers assess some Earth Lusca operations may be financially motivated.[1]

Earth Lusca has used malware commonly used by other Chinese threat groups, including APT41 and the Winnti Group cluster, however security researchers assess Earth Lusca's techniques and infrastructure are separate.[1]

GroupEnterprise

G0027: Threat Group-3390

Threat Group-3390 is a Chinese threat group that has extensively used strategic Web compromises to target victims.[1] The group has been active since at least 2010 and has targeted organizations in the aerospace, government, defense, technology, energy, manufacturing and gambling/betting sectors.[2][3][4]

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
19.2
Object version
1.0
Created
Modified
Raw hash
7df831f02d4138ab...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)
ReleaseBundle importedObject versionModifiedStatusRaw hash
19.21.0Current bundle7df831f02d41…
19.11.0Older bundle7df831f02d41…
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]
    Debian nbtscan Nov 2019

    Bezroutchko, A. (2019, November 19). NBTscan man page. Retrieved March 17, 2021.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    SecTools nbtscan June 2003

    SecTools. (2003, June 11). NBTscan. Retrieved March 17, 2021.

    Open source URL
  3. [3]
    Symantec Waterbug Jun 2019

    Symantec DeepSight Adversary Intelligence Team. (2019, June 20). Waterbug: Espionage Group Rolls Out Brand-New Toolset in Attacks Against Governments. Retrieved July 8, 2019.

    Open source URL
  4. [4]
    FireEye APT39 Jan 2019

    Hawley et al. (2019, January 29). APT39: An Iranian Cyber Espionage Group Focused on Personal Information. Retrieved February 19, 2019.

    Open source URL
  5. [5]
    mitre-attackS0590
    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.