T1696.001 · stealth · ATT&CK 20.0

Automate CAPTCHA Completion

Adversaries may attempt to use bots to successfully solve CAPTCHA challenges. CAPTCHA challenges are typically used by defenders to detect and prevent bot and spam traffic from accessing protected webpages. CAPTCHAs are automated tests often placed before login screens or form fields. Traditional CAPTCHAs ask the user to decipher a string of characters, type the characters into a box, and submit the form. reCAPTCHA asks the user to identify images, click a checkbox, or evaluate the user’s behavior from mouse movement and device cookies.(Citation: CAPTCHAS Cloudflare) Adversaries may use scripts or toolkits to automatically solve the CAPTCHA puzzle. For example, adversaries may develop a script that uses the ImageMagick toolkit to solve the CAPTCHA puzzles to then create multiple valid accounts. ImageMagick tool can convert the images into a RGB complemented image. The CAPTCHA challenge may be solved by identifying and comparing attributes of the RGB images to select the expected image.(Citation: Free Trial PurpleUrchin) Once the CAPTCHA challenge is solved, the adversary’s script may access the protected page. After accessing the protected the page, the adversary may submit valid forms to the target.

Open in the interactive knowledge mesh

Detection overview

Use the published detection strategies below and validate required telemetry in the target environment.

Observed groups

No current Enterprise group relationship is published in this bundle.

Cyber Knowledge context

Use these routes to move from the ATT&CK behavior into explanation, implementation, evidence handling, validation, and defensive operations. Relevance is generated from explicit identifiers/names and governed topic mappings; it is not attribution evidence.

MITRE mitigations

M1031 · Network Intrusion Prevention

Use intrusion detection signatures to block traffic at network boundaries.

MITRE mitigation source
M1037 · Filter Network Traffic

Employ network appliances and endpoint software to filter ingress, egress, and lateral network traffic. This includes protocol-based filtering, enforcing firewall rules, and blocking or restricting traffic based on predefined conditions to limit adversary movement and data exfiltration. This mitigation can be implemented through the following measures: Ingress Traffic Filtering: - Use Case: Configure network firewalls to allow traffic only from authorized IP addresses to public-facing servers. - Implementation: Limit SSH (port 22) and RDP (port 3389) traffic to specific IP ranges. Egress Traffic Filtering: - Use Case: Use firewalls or endpoint security software to block unauthorized outbound traffic to prevent data exfiltration and command-and-control (C2) communications. - Implementation: Block outbound traffic to known malicious IPs or regions where communication is unexpected. Protoc…

MITRE mitigation source

MITRE detection strategies and analytics

DET0937 · Detection of Automated CAPTCHA
  • AN2104 · Analytic 2104 — Successful CAPTCHA completion does not expose whether the challenge was solved manually, through automated tooling, through an AI-enabled solver, or through a third-party human-solving service. Providers may independently classify associated sessions as automated or bot-like, but this identifies suspicious automation rather than the method used to complete the CAPTCHA.
MITRE detection source