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Academy/SOC Foundations/Security Operations Foundations
TheorySOC Foundations · Entry 16 min

Speaking ATT&CK

Three critical alerts are open. Each describes a different attacker goal. To discuss them with anyone else in security you need the ATT&CK vocabulary.

Concept

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MITRE ATT&CK is the shared vocabulary for attacker behaviour. Tactics are the attacker's goals (execution, credential access, command and control); techniques are the ways they achieve them, each with a stable ID such as T1059.001.

ATT&CK matters operationally because it lets a triage note, a detection rule, a hunt hypothesis and a management coverage report all describe the same behaviour in the same words.

Key terms

Tactic
The attacker's objective at a stage of the intrusion.
Technique
A specific method used to achieve a tactic, identified as Txxxx.
Sub-technique
A narrower variant, e.g. T1059.001 PowerShell under T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter.
Coverage
How much of the relevant ATT&CK surface your detections observe.

Learning objectives

  • Distinguish tactic from technique
  • Map live alerts to ATT&CK techniques
  • Use ATT&CK IDs in analyst notes

Prerequisites