MITRE ATT&CK technique

T1049

System Network Connections Discovery

About this technique

Adversaries may attempt to get a listing of network connections to or from the compromised system they are currently accessing or from remote systems by querying for information over the network.

Read the full ATT&CK description

An adversary who gains access to a system that is part of a cloud-based environment may map out Virtual Private Clouds or Virtual Networks in order to determine what systems and services are connected. The actions performed are likely the same types of discovery techniques depending on the operating system, but the resulting information may include details about the networked cloud environment relevant to the adversary's goals.

Cloud providers may have different ways in which their virtual networks operate.(Citation: Amazon AWS VPC Guide)(Citation: Microsoft Azure Virtual Network Overview)(Citation: Google VPC Overview) Similarly, adversaries who gain access to network devices may also perform similar discovery activities to gather information about connected systems and services.

Utilities and commands that acquire this information include netstat, "net use," and "net session" with Net. In Mac and Linux, netstat and <code>lsof</code> can be used to list current connections. <code>who -a</code> and <code>w</code> can be used to show which users are currently logged in, similar to "net session".

Additionally, built-in features native to network devices and Network Device CLI may be used (e.g. <code>show ip sockets</code>, <code>show tcp brief</code>).(Citation: US-CERT-TA18-106A) On ESXi servers, the command `esxi network ip connection list` can be used to list active network connections.(Citation: Sygnia ESXi Ransomware 2025)

TA0007
Curated mapping

Curated incident relationships

These associations come from maintained incident records. The recorded confidence is shown when the source record provides it.

0 items
No curated incident mappings yet.
Heuristic association

Daily items linked through predicted CVEs

A Daily item appears here when it mentions a CVE whose triage artifact predicts this technique. This is not a verified ATT&CK mapping.

0 items
No heuristic Daily associations yet.
Heuristic association

Predicted CVE associations

These backfilled or model-produced candidates come from the current triage artifact. They are informational, not official MITRE mappings.

0 items
No predicted associations yet for this technique.
T1049 · System Network Connections Discovery · Baitaphish