T1600.002
About this technique
Adversaries disable a network device’s dedicated hardware encryption, which may enable them to leverage weaknesses in software encryption in order to reduce the effort involved in collecting, manipulating, and exfiltrating transmitted data.
Read the full ATT&CK description
Many network devices such as routers, switches, and firewalls, perform encryption on network traffic to secure transmission across networks. Often, these devices are equipped with special, dedicated encryption hardware to greatly increase the speed of the encryption process as well as to prevent malicious tampering.
When an adversary takes control of such a device, they may disable the dedicated hardware, for example, through use of Modify System Image, forcing the use of software to perform encryption on general processors.
This is typically used in conjunction with attacks to weaken the strength of the cipher in software (e.g., Reduce Key Space). (Citation: Cisco Blog Legacy Device Attacks)
Curated incident relationships
These associations come from maintained incident records. The recorded confidence is shown when the source record provides it.
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.
Predicted CVE associations
These backfilled or model-produced candidates come from the current triage artifact. They are informational, not official MITRE mappings.