Most people who aren’t much aware of cybersecurity trends in the business world would question what does MITRE stand for. Surprisingly, MITRE is not an acronym but is a thought-about company name to represent the substantial cybersecurity knowledge base funded by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology).
But the framework that it released by the name of ATT&CK stands for Adversary Tactics, Techniques and Common Knowledge. This framework adds cybersecurity potential to MITRE and acts as a knowledgebase for all security officials to determine loopholes in their defenses for specific cyber threats and their approaches.
Considering you are new to the terminology of MITRE and its ATT&CK framework, this article will give you a glimpse at its capabilities and use cases.
One of the earliest board members of MITRE, James McCormack, clarified to the audience what does MITRE stand for. He said that all of the board members wanted the name to basically mean nothing but still become evocative for people to rely on for ensuring cybersecurity.
MITRE ATT&CK is a knowledge base curated with the ideation of all identified threat tactics and techniques. It reflects the several details associated with a threat, which explains how it will affect the data or system. It specifies categories based on which it will be easy for IT professionals to identify the adversary threats and find out ideal ways of defending themselves.
As per a statistic released by Cybercrime magazine, cybercrimes will cost the world around $10.5 trillion by the end of 2025. It is a whopping amount for the world to lose to cyber attackers, who feed themselves onto the system's vulnerabilities. So, if you ask what does MITRE stand for, we would say it is a necessary resource for all organizations and cyber defenders of the world to identify potential threats and use insightful analysis to overcome them.
The only intention of MITRE ATT&CK EDR is to make a safer virtual world. Therefore, the company operates as a non-profit and functions in the public interest. ATT&CK offers a foundation base for IT security officials to create ideal security solutions to overcome specific threats across all departments.
It is a structured list of adversary attacks, patterns, and specific behaviors. MITRE has also identified a specific group of threats that critically affect the most vulnerable areas of the system. Therefore, almost all organizations use it on both defensive and offensive approaches. In this way, MITRE ATT&CK helps them overcome the security vulnerabilities in their system.
How To Use MITRE ATT&CK?
MITRE ATT&CK is in matrices, where all techniques and tactics are described comprehensively. In every column, you will find individual techniques listed over the top, and the associated tactics are available at the bottom. It is mostly used for security operations, implementing threat intelligence or building a security architecture.
Some of the mandatory use cases of MITRE ATT&CK are as follows:
- Red teaming
- Adversary emulation
- Defensive gap assessment
- Cyber threat intelligence
- Analytics development of adversary behavior
- Assessment of SOC maturity
To help you better understand the MITRE ATT&CK implementation, one should know how tactics, techniques and procedures are defined within this framework. Each represents varying meanings for the security system developers to assess and build their respective solutions. So, here is a brief understanding of these three terminologies:
- Tactics
It represents the immediate objectives of attackers over your system or data infrastructure. The adversary threats listed under tactics are meant to gain initial access, establish control & command, and maintain persistence. As per MITRE’s insights, an attacker will try to use multiple tactics to succeed in an attack on your system.
- Techniques
It represents the methods that attackers use to break through the security defenses of your system and breach critical information. All of the tactics within each listing consist of multiple techniques. The enterprise matrix is responsible for breaking down certain techniques into further sub-techniques. It is to give clarity on threat assessment.
- Procedures
It represents the specific software solutions, tools or malware the attackers have used to enter your system. These are the specific implementations of all tactics, techniques and sub-techniques.
How Much Of Data Is Currently Available With MITRE ATT&CK?
Do you finally have answers for what does MITRE stand for? If yes, then it’s time to determine if it is an effective knowledge base to help you prepare your organizational system with ideal defenses against cyber threats.
MITRE ATT&CK currently applies to enterprise IT systems, network infrastructure, container technologies, SaaS, Office 365, Google Workspace, and others. The 2022 version of MITRE ATT&CK for the Enterprise matrix consisted of the following:
- 14 tactics
- 193 techniques
- 401 sub-techniques
- 135 Groups
- 14 Campaigns
- 718 Software
MITRE consistently updates all the discovered tactics and techniques to ensure that the organizations stay updated with the potential threats in the virtual world. The consistent updates will help security officials strengthen their loose defense ends and prevent such adversary attacks.
Conclusion
This is a clear understanding of what does MITRE stand for and how it helps enhance cybersecurity for organizations. Most organizations are now actively using it, alongside partnering with proficient cybersecurity developers, to ensure quick determination and execution.
Xcitium is an organization that can help you detect potential threats, assess them with the MITRE ATT&CK framework and eliminate them. Get in touch or explore the website to learn more about Xcitium’s services.
