T1557.003: DHCP Spoofing
Adversaries may redirect network traffic to adversary-owned systems by spoofing Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) traffic and acting as a malicious DHCP server on the victim network. By achieving the adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) position, adversaries may collect network communications, including passed credentials, especially those sent over insecure, unencrypted protocols. This may also enable follow-on behaviors such as Network Sniffing or Transmitted Data Manipulation.
DHCP is based on a client-server model and has two functionalities: a protocol for providing network configuration settings from a DHCP server to a client and a mechanism for allocating network addresses to clients.[1] The typical server-client interaction is as follows:
1. The client broadcasts a `DISCOVER` message.
2. The server responds with an `OFFER` message, which includes an available network address.
3. The client broadcasts a `REQUEST` message, which includes the network address offered.
4. The server acknowledges with an `ACK` message and the client receives the network configuration parameters.
Adversaries may spoof as a rogue DHCP server on the victim network, from which legitimate hosts may receive malicious network configurations. For example, malware can act as a DHCP server and provide adversary-owned DNS servers to the victimized computers.[2][3] Through the malicious network configurations, an adversary may achieve the AiTM position, route client traffic through adversary-controlled systems, and collect information from the client network.
DHCPv6 clients can receive network configuration information without being assigned an IP address by sending a INFORMATION-REQUEST (code 11) message to the All_DHCP_Relay_Agents_and_Servers multicast address.[4] Adversaries may use their rogue DHCP server to respond to this request message with malicious network configurations.
Rather than establishing an AiTM position, adversaries may also abuse DHCP spoofing to perform a DHCP exhaustion attack (i.e, Service Exhaustion Flood) by generating many broadcast DISCOVER messages to exhaust a network’s DHCP allocation pool.
Security context for executives and security teams
T1557.003: DHCP Spoofing describes Adversaries may redirect network traffic to adversary-owned systems by spoofing Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) traffic and acting as a malicious DHCP server on the victim network. By achieving the adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) position, adversaries may collect network communications, including passed credentials, especially those sent over insecure, unencrypted protocols. This may also enable follow-on behaviors such as [Network Sniffing](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1040) or [Transmitted Data ...
Executive priority
T1557.003: DHCP Spoofing is an official MITRE ATT&CK technique. 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 T1557.003: DHCP Spoofing by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (credential-access, collection), supported platforms (Linux, Windows, macOS), and available local telemetry before making detection or mitigation decisions.
Likely telemetry
- Official ATT&CK relationships and object metadata
- Identity, privilege, and authentication events
- Network, endpoint, and security-tool telemetry
Detection direction
- Validate whether T1557.003: DHCP Spoofing 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.
DHCP Spoofing
Adversaries may redirect network traffic to adversary-owned systems by spoofing Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) traffic and acting as a malicious DHCP server on the victim network. By achieving the adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) position, adversaries may collect network communications, including passed credentials, especially those sent over insecure, unencrypted protocols. This may also enable follow-on behaviors such as Network Sniffing or Transmitted Data Manipulation.
DHCP is based on a client-server model and has two functionalities: a protocol for providing network configuration settings from a DHCP server to a client and a mechanism for allocating network addresses to clients.[1] The typical server-client interaction is as follows:
1. The client broadcasts a `DISCOVER` message.
2. The server responds with an `OFFER` message, which includes an available network address.
3. The client broadcasts a `REQUEST` message, which includes the network address offered.
4. The server acknowledges with an `ACK` message and the client receives the network configuration parameters.
Adversaries may spoof as a rogue DHCP server on the victim network, from which legitimate hosts may receive malicious network configurations. For example, malware can act as a DHCP server and provide adversary-owned DNS servers to the victimized computers.[2][3] Through the malicious network configurations, an adversary may achieve the AiTM position, route client traffic through adversary-controlled systems, and collect information from the client network.
DHCPv6 clients can receive network configuration information without being assigned an IP address by sending a INFORMATION-REQUEST (code 11) message to the All_DHCP_Relay_Agents_and_Servers multicast address.[4] Adversaries may use their rogue DHCP server to respond to this request message with malicious network configurations.
Rather than establishing an AiTM position, adversaries may also abuse DHCP spoofing to perform a DHCP exhaustion attack (i.e, Service Exhaustion Flood) by generating many broadcast DISCOVER messages to exhaust a network’s DHCP allocation pool.
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.
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.
| Domain | ID | Name | Relationship / procedure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | T1557 | Adversary-in-the-Middle | This object subtechnique of Adversary-in-the-Middle. |
All related ATT&CK context
Mitigation direction
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(3)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20.0 | 1.1 | Current bundle | d3cd4c8afb37… | ||
| 19.2 | 1.1 | Older bundle | d3cd4c8afb37… | ||
| 19.1 | 1.1 | Older bundle | d3cd4c8afb37… |
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]rfc2131
Droms, R. (1997, March). Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. Retrieved March 9, 2022.
Open source URL - [2]new_rogue_DHCP_serv_malware
Irwin, Ullrich, J. (2009, March 16). new rogue-DHCP server malware. Retrieved January 14, 2022.
Open source URL - [3]w32.tidserv.g
Symantec. (2009, March 22). W32.Tidserv.G. Retrieved January 14, 2022.
Open source URL - [4]rfc3315
J. Bound, et al. (2003, July). Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPv6). Retrieved June 27, 2022.
Open source URL - [5]dhcp_serv_op_events
Microsoft. (2006, August 31). DHCP Server Operational Events. Retrieved March 7, 2022.
Open source URL - [6]mitre-attackT1557.003Open source URL
- [7]solution_monitor_dhcp_scopes
Shoemaker, E. (2015, December 31). Solution: Monitor DHCP Scopes and Detect Man-in-the-Middle Attacks with PRTG and PowerShell. Retrieved September 12, 2024.
Open source URL
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