{"source_checked_on":"2026-10-19","schema_version":1,"key":"enterprise/T1594","id":"T1594","name":"Search Victim-Owned Websites","domain":"enterprise","reviewed_on":"2026-09-28","source_url":"https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1594","source_file":{"file":"enterprise.json","url":"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mitre-attack/attack-stix-data/20664a889568dce884a1dac0ec7b12ae3a199f51/enterprise-attack/enterprise-attack-20.0.json","sha256":"81113ba98afa2928f3dcff62022539f7ce30c315c32e14422f11ff95ce534352","bytes":55271014},"source_object_sha256":"708176c0fcb82c38298dd95c60159d5dc2b17651fc6baf2ef50ab95c8a115ecf","description":"Adversaries may search websites owned by the victim for information that can be used during targeting. Victim-owned websites may contain a variety of details, including names of departments/divisions, physical locations, and data about key employees such as names, roles, and contact info (ex: [Email Addresses](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1589/002)). These sites may also have details highlighting business operations and relationships.(Citation: Comparitech Leak)\n\nAdversaries may search victim-owned websites to gather actionable information. Information from these sources may reveal opportunities for other forms of reconnaissance (ex: [Phishing for Information](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1598) or [Search Open Technical Databases](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1596)), establishing operational resources (ex: [Establish Accounts](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1585) or [Compromise Accounts](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1586)), and/or initial access (ex: [Trusted Relationship](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1199) or [Phishing](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1566)).\n\nIn addition to manually browsing the website, adversaries may attempt to identify hidden directories or files that could contain additional sensitive information or vulnerable functionality. They may do this through automated activities such as [Wordlist Scanning](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1595/003), as well as by leveraging files such as sitemap.xml and robots.txt.(Citation: Perez Sitemap XML 2023)(Citation: Register Robots TXT 2015) ","references":[{"source_name":"mitre-attack","url":"https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1594","external_id":"T1594"},{"source_name":"Perez Sitemap XML 2023","description":"Adi Perez. (2023, February 22). How Attackers Can Misuse Sitemaps to Enumerate Users and Discover Sensitive Information. Retrieved July 18, 2024.","url":"https://medium.com/@adimenia/how-attackers-can-misuse-sitemaps-to-enumerate-users-and-discover-sensitive-information-361a5065857a"},{"source_name":"Comparitech Leak","description":"Bischoff, P. (2020, October 15). Broadvoice database of more than 350 million customer records exposed online. Retrieved October 20, 2020.","url":"https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/350-million-customer-records-exposed-online/"},{"source_name":"Register Robots TXT 2015","description":"Darren Pauli. (2015, May 19). Robots.txt tells hackers the places you don't want them to look. Retrieved July 18, 2024.","url":"https://www.theregister.com/2015/05/19/robotstxt/"}],"platforms":["PRE"],"environments":["external-services"],"visibility":"source_mapped","visibility_note":null,"parent":null,"children":[],"telemetry":[{"id":"DC0038","name":"Application Log Content","page":"telemetry/DC0038/","kind":"attack_component","category":"Application and service audit","description":"Application-emitted audit or operational event content.","collection_focus":"Select the application event family required by the detection and document its native schema before normalization.","providers":[{"name":"Application audit logs","scope":"First-party service events and request/result fields; schema is application-specific.","source_id":"otel"},{"name":"OpenTelemetry-compatible log pipelines","scope":"Transport and normalization of emitted records; do not create missing audit instrumentation.","source_id":"otel"}],"configuration":["Enable the application audit category or instrument the owned lab application at the authorization/action boundary.","Define a schema with timestamp, service, actor, object, action, result and correlation ID. Export structured records through an authenticated collector.","Redact secrets and personal content, separate audit from debug logs, set retention and verify delivery during rotation/restart."],"configuration_example":null,"required_fields":["service","action","actor","record_count","result"],"example":{"schema":"1200km.telemetry.example.v1","synthetic":true,"timestamp":"2026-09-27T12:00:00Z","telemetry_id":"DC0038","collector":"illustrative-lab-collector","observation":{"service":"lab-portal","action":"export_requested","actor":"lab-reader","record_count":3,"result":"authorized"}},"example_note":"Project-normalized synthetic JSON, not a native provider log, captured event, attack verdict or validated detection. A parser/adapter is required for a real SIEM. Example names, IPs and values are fictional.","limitations":"Debug output is not necessarily a durable audit trail. Application developers must emit the relevant event; installing a log pipeline does not make an absent event exist.","sources":[{"id":"otel","title":"OpenTelemetry log data model","url":"https://opentelemetry.io/docs/specs/otel/logs/data-model/"}],"association":"attack_component","anomaly_design":"Per application, client and route: request rate, rare actions, failure ratios and unusual state transitions. Version changes, retries, health probes and seasonal load need separate baselines."}],"detection":{"key":"enterprise/T1594","id":"T1594","name":"Search Victim-Owned Websites","domain":"enterprise","platforms":["PRE"],"environments":["external-services"],"source_url":"https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1594","technique_page":"techniques/enterprise/T1594/","page":"detections/enterprise/T1594/","status":"guidance_only","counts":{"sigma":0,"atlas_basic":0,"atlas_anomaly":0,"strategies":1,"analytics":1,"live_validated":0},"sigma_rules":[],"atlas_basic":[],"atlas_anomaly":[],"anomaly_types":[],"strategies":[{"id":"DET0810","name":"Detection of Search Victim-Owned Websites","url":"https://attack.mitre.org/detectionstrategies/DET0810","stix_id":"x-mitre-detection-strategy--52cee5e7-a92e-433e-9b56-38c8f7b16264","relationship_id":"relationship--a3d917d5-cffa-4ac1-a8b7-64947eb72ee7","description":"","analytics":[{"id":"AN1942","name":"Analytic 1942","guidance":"Monitor for suspicious network traffic that could be indicative of adversary reconnaissance, such as rapid successions of requests indicative of web crawling and/or large quantities of requests originating from a single source (especially if the source is known to be associated with an adversary). Analyzing web metadata may also reveal artifacts that can be attributed to potentially malicious activity, such as referer or user-agent string HTTP/S fields.","url":"https://attack.mitre.org/detectionstrategies/DET0810#AN1942","platforms":["PRE"],"tuning":[],"log_sources":[{"component_id":"DC0038","component":"Application Log Content","name":"Application Log","channel":"None","platforms":["PRE"],"analytic_id":"AN1942","source_url":"https://attack.mitre.org/detectionstrategies/DET0810#AN1942","validation":"upstream_definition_not_locally_validated","component_page":"telemetry/DC0038/"}]}]}],"telemetry_references":[{"id":"DC0038","name":"Application Log Content","tag":"Application Log Content","page":"telemetry/DC0038/","kind":"attack_component"}],"visibility":"source_mapped","visibility_note":null,"tool_references":[],"related_parent":null,"article_url":"https://1200km.com/articles/read/2026/2026-04-20-malicious-activity-as-a-statistical-signal-a-detection-engineering-analysis-of-anomaly-bas-90df8b6dea12/","validation":{"source_join":"exact_ids","sigma_yaml":"parsed","backend_compilation":"not_run","live_telemetry":"not_run","detection_execution":"not_run"}},"tools":[],"software":[],"actors":[{"id":"G0034","name":"Sandworm Team","url":"https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0034","kind":"intrusion-set","description":"[Sandworm Team](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0034) has conducted research against potential victim websites as part of its operational planning.(Citation: US District Court Indictment GRU Unit 74455 October 2020)","relationship_id":"relationship--bfb63eb2-7db6-45d0-83c4-1fc93a8e51c5","references":[{"source_name":"US District Court Indictment GRU Unit 74455 October 2020","description":"Scott W. Brady. (2020, October 15). United States vs. Yuriy Sergeyevich Andrienko et al.. Retrieved November 25, 2020.","url":"https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1328521/download"}]},{"id":"G0094","name":"Kimsuky","url":"https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0094","kind":"intrusion-set","description":"[Kimsuky](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0094) has searched for information on the target company's website.(Citation: KISA Operation Muzabi)","relationship_id":"relationship--5d705563-a639-4ec1-a19d-f797c1c0c078","references":[{"source_name":"KISA Operation Muzabi","description":"KISA. (2021). Phishing Target Reconnaissance and Attack Resource Analysis Operation Muzabi. Retrieved March 8, 2024.","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20220328121326/https://boho.or.kr/filedownload.do?attach_file_seq=2695&attach_file_id=EpF2695.pdf"}]},{"id":"G0122","name":"Silent Librarian","url":"https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0122","kind":"intrusion-set","description":"[Silent Librarian](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0122) has searched victim's websites to identify the interests and academic areas of targeted individuals and to scrape source code, branding, and organizational contact information for phishing pages.(Citation: DOJ Iran Indictments March 2018)(Citation: Phish Labs Silent Librarian)(Citation: Proofpoint TA407 September 2019)","relationship_id":"relationship--33201f98-6367-4f36-a581-98fd4d1203fa","references":[{"source_name":"DOJ Iran Indictments March 2018","description":"DOJ. (2018, March 23). U.S. v. Rafatnejad et al . Retrieved February 3, 2021.","url":"https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1045781/download"},{"source_name":"Phish Labs Silent Librarian","description":"Hassold, Crane. (2018, March 26). Silent Librarian: More to the Story of the Iranian Mabna Institute Indictment. Retrieved February 3, 2021.","url":"https://info.phishlabs.com/blog/silent-librarian-more-to-the-story-of-the-iranian-mabna-institute-indictment"},{"source_name":"Proofpoint TA407 September 2019","description":"Proofpoint Threat Insight Team. (2019, September 5). Threat Actor Profile: TA407, the Silent Librarian. Retrieved February 3, 2021.","url":"https://www.proofpoint.com/us/threat-insight/post/threat-actor-profile-ta407-silent-librarian"}]},{"id":"G1011","name":"EXOTIC LILY","url":"https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G1011","kind":"intrusion-set","description":"[EXOTIC LILY](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G1011) has used contact forms on victim websites to generate phishing e-mails.(Citation: Google EXOTIC LILY March 2022)","relationship_id":"relationship--93450717-845e-4cd8-b1ac-3a842251a331","references":[{"source_name":"Google EXOTIC LILY March 2022","description":"Stolyarov, V. (2022, March 17). Exposing initial access broker with ties to Conti. Retrieved August 18, 2022.","url":"https://blog.google/threat-analysis-group/exposing-initial-access-broker-ties-conti/"}]},{"id":"G1017","name":"Volt Typhoon","url":"https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G1017","kind":"intrusion-set","description":"[Volt Typhoon](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G1017) has conducted pre-compromise reconnaissance on victim-owned sites.(Citation: CISA AA24-038A PRC Critical Infrastructure February 2024)","relationship_id":"relationship--93150c1f-25b3-47b9-8327-dbaf97b6d2d3","references":[{"source_name":"CISA AA24-038A PRC Critical Infrastructure February 2024","description":"CISA et al.. (2024, February 7). PRC State-Sponsored Actors Compromise and Maintain Persistent Access to U.S. Critical Infrastructure. Retrieved May 15, 2024.","url":"https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2024-03/aa24-038a_csa_prc_state_sponsored_actors_compromise_us_critical_infrastructure_3.pdf"}]},{"id":"G1038","name":"TA578","url":"https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G1038","kind":"intrusion-set","description":"[TA578](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G1038) has filled out contact forms on victims' websites to direct them to adversary-controlled URLs.(Citation: Latrodectus APR 2024)","relationship_id":"relationship--c2308f9a-8564-4e10-bdab-d22c4be590db","references":[{"source_name":"Latrodectus APR 2024","description":"Proofpoint Threat Research and Team Cymru S2 Threat Research. (2024, April 4). Latrodectus: This Spider Bytes Like Ice . Retrieved May 31, 2024.","url":"https://www.proofpoint.com/us/blog/threat-insight/latrodectus-spider-bytes-ice"}]}],"mitigations":[{"id":"M1056","name":"Pre-compromise","url":"https://attack.mitre.org/mitigations/M1056","kind":"course-of-action","description":"This technique cannot be easily mitigated with preventive controls since it is based on behaviors performed outside of the scope of enterprise defenses and controls. Efforts should focus on minimizing the amount and sensitivity of data available to external parties.","relationship_id":"relationship--4bb2d90a-468a-48af-8912-5386d2a1aa1d","references":[]}],"candidates":[],"simulation":{"atomic_status":"no_atomic_candidate","lab_execution":"not_run","browser_attack_runner":false,"prerequisites":"Use disposable lab hosts and test accounts, explicit target allowlists, a clean snapshot, bounded egress and a restore plan. Review every candidate and dependency before any execution.","scenario":null},"validation":{"source_identity":"checked_against_pinned_source","relationship_join":"exact_ids_no_inheritance","page_contract":"automated_checks_required","sensor_capture":"not_run","detection_backend":"not_run","adversary_simulation":"not_run","independent_incident_fact_check":"not_performed"},"technique_links":{"T1589.002":"/ttp-simulation/techniques/enterprise/T1589.002/","T1598":"/ttp-simulation/techniques/enterprise/T1598/","T1596":"/ttp-simulation/techniques/enterprise/T1596/","T1585":"/ttp-simulation/techniques/enterprise/T1585/","T1586":"/ttp-simulation/techniques/enterprise/T1586/","T1199":"/ttp-simulation/techniques/enterprise/T1199/","T1566":"/ttp-simulation/techniques/enterprise/T1566/","T1595.003":"/ttp-simulation/techniques/enterprise/T1595.003/","T1594":"/ttp-simulation/techniques/enterprise/T1594/"},"synthetic":{"schema":"1200km.ttp.collection-fixture.v1","synthetic":true,"technique_key":"enterprise/T1594","purpose":"Collection/parser contract exercise, NOT a positive example or detection of this TTP.","events":[{"schema":"1200km.telemetry.example.v1","synthetic":true,"timestamp":"2026-09-27T12:00:00Z","telemetry_id":"DC0038","collector":"illustrative-lab-collector","observation":{"service":"lab-portal","action":"export_requested","actor":"lab-reader","record_count":3,"result":"authorized"}}]}}