Time Providers - T1547.003 (61afc315-860c-4364-825d-0d62b2e91edc)
Adversaries may abuse time providers to execute DLLs when the system boots. The Windows Time service (W32Time) enables time synchronization across and within domains.(Citation: Microsoft W32Time Feb 2018) W32Time time providers are responsible for retrieving time stamps from hardware/network resources and outputting these values to other network clients.(Citation: Microsoft TimeProvider)
Time providers are implemented as dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) that are registered in the subkeys of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\.(Citation: Microsoft TimeProvider) The time provider manager, directed by the service control manager, loads and starts time providers listed and enabled under this key at system startup and/or whenever parameters are changed.(Citation: Microsoft TimeProvider)
Adversaries may abuse this architecture to establish persistence, specifically by creating a new arbitrarily named subkey pointing to a malicious DLL in the DllName value. Administrator privileges are required for time provider registration, though execution will run in context of the Local Service account.(Citation: Github W32Time Oct 2017)
| Cluster A | Galaxy A | Cluster B | Galaxy B | Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time Providers - T1547.003 (61afc315-860c-4364-825d-0d62b2e91edc) | Attack Pattern | Boot or Logon Autostart Execution - T1547 (1ecb2399-e8ba-4f6b-8ba7-5c27d49405cf) | Attack Pattern | 1 |