Description
Adversaries may create and cultivate social media accounts that can be used during targeting. Adversaries can create social media accounts that can be used to build a persona to further operations. Persona development consists of the development of public information, presence, history and appropriate affiliations.(Citation: NEWSCASTER2014)(Citation: BlackHatRobinSage) For operations incorporating social engineering, the utilization of a persona on social media may be important. These personas may be fictitious or impersonate real people. The persona may exist on a single social media site or across multiple sites (ex: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.). Establishing a persona on social media may require development of additional documentation to make them seem real. This could include filling out profile information, developing social networks, or incorporating photos. Once a persona has been developed an adversary can use it to create connections to targets of interest. These connections may be direct or may include trying to connect through others.(Citation: NEWSCASTER2014)(Citation: BlackHatRobinSage) These accounts may be leveraged during other phases of the adversary lifecycle, such as during Initial Access (ex: [Spearphishing via Service](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1566/003)).
Threat-Mapped Scoring
ATT&CK Kill Chain Metadata
- Tactics: resource-development
- Platforms: PRE
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Detection Guidance:
Consider monitoring social media activity related to your organization. Suspicious activity may include personas claiming to work for your organization or recently created/modified accounts making numerous connection requests to accounts affiliated with your organization. Detection efforts may be focused on related stages of the adversary lifecycle, such as during Initial Access (ex: [Spearphishing via Service](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1566/003)).