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Every technique
T1553.002No distinct observable

Code Signing

Defense ImpairmentmacOS, Windows

Where this stands

A reviewer read the telemetry and concluded there is nothing here to detect that a sibling technique does not already cover.

The technique's own description carves out the exact thing a naive rule would catch: 'Unlike Invalid Code Signature, this activity will result in a valid signature.' Code Signing abuse is a stolen or purchased certificate producing a genuinely valid Authenticode chain, indistinguishable at the single-event level from a legitimate publisher's signature — so a selector on SignatureStatus != Valid (the one signature field Sysmon EventID 7 image_load actually carries: Signed, Signature, SignatureStatus) would fire on invalid/broken signatures instead, which is T1036.001 Invalid Code Signature, a different technique. […]

Covered instead by T1036.001, T1037.002, T1059.002, T1548.004.

What the technique is

Adversaries may create, acquire, or steal code signing materials to sign their malware or tools. Code signing provides a level of authenticity on a binary from the developer and a guarantee that the binary has not been tampered with. The certificates used during an operation may be created, acquired, or stolen by the adversary. Unlike Invalid Code Signature, this activity will result in a valid signature. Code signing to verify software on first run can be used on modern Windows and macOS systems. It is not used on Linux due to the decentralized nature of the platform. Code signing certificates may be used to bypass security policies that require signed code to execute on a system.

Read it on attack.mitre.org

What MITRE says you would watch

  • AN0643

    Detects execution of binaries signed with unusual or recently issued certificates, correlation of process execution with abnormal publisher metadata, and mismatched certificate chains. Monitors for revoked or unknown code signing certificates used in high-privilege contexts.

  • AN0644

    Monitors Gatekeeper, spctl, and unified log entries for binaries executed with unexpected or untrusted signatures. Correlates file metadata changes with process launches where signature validation is skipped, altered, or fails but the process still executes.

Technique names and descriptions © MITRE ATT&CK®, CC BY 4.0. Not endorsed by MITRE.