Cobalt Strike
- ID
- S0154
- Type
- Malware
- Platforms
- Linux, macOS, Windows
- Source
- attack.mitre.org
- MITRE last modified
- 24 Apr 2026
Cobalt Strike is a commercial, full-featured, remote access tool that bills itself as “adversary simulation software designed to execute targeted attacks and emulate the post-exploitation actions of advanced threat actors”. Cobalt Strike’s interactive post-exploit capabilities cover the full range of ATT&CK tactics, all executed within a single, integrated system.[1]
In addition to its own capabilities, Cobalt Strike leverages the capabilities of other well-known tools such as Metasploit and Mimikatz.[1]
Techniques used (73)
- T1001.003 Protocol or Service Impersonation
- T1003.001 LSASS Memory
- T1003.002 Security Account Manager
- T1005 Data from Local System
- T1007 System Service Discovery
- T1012 Query Registry
- T1016 System Network Configuration Discovery
- T1018 Remote System Discovery
- T1021.001 Remote Desktop Protocol
- T1021.002 SMB/Windows Admin Shares
- T1021.003 Distributed Component Object Model
- T1021.004 SSH
- T1021.006 Windows Remote Management
- T1027 Obfuscated Files or Information
- T1027.005 Indicator Removal from Tools
- T1029 Scheduled Transfer
- T1030 Data Transfer Size Limits
- T1046 Network Service Discovery
- T1047 Windows Management Instrumentation
- T1049 System Network Connections Discovery
- T1055 Process Injection
- T1055.001 Dynamic-link Library Injection
- T1055.012 Process Hollowing
- T1056.001 Keylogging
- T1057 Process Discovery
- T1059.001 PowerShell
- T1059.003 Windows Command Shell
- T1059.005 Visual Basic
- T1059.006 Python
- T1059.007 JavaScript
- T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation
- T1069.001 Local Groups
- T1069.002 Domain Groups
- T1070.006 Timestomp
- T1071.001 Web Protocols
- T1071.002 File Transfer Protocols
- T1071.004 DNS
- T1078.002 Domain Accounts
- T1078.003 Local Accounts
- T1083 File and Directory Discovery
- T1087.002 Domain Account
- T1090.001 Internal Proxy
- T1090.004 Domain Fronting
- T1095 Non-Application Layer Protocol
- T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer
- T1106 Native API
- T1112 Modify Registry
- T1113 Screen Capture
- T1132.001 Standard Encoding
- T1134.001 Token Impersonation/Theft
- T1134.003 Make and Impersonate Token
- T1134.004 Parent PID Spoofing
- T1135 Network Share Discovery
- T1137.001 Office Template Macros
- T1140 Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information
- T1185 Browser Session Hijacking
- T1197 BITS Jobs
- T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution
- T1218.011 Rundll32
- T1497.002 User Activity Based Checks
- T1518 Software Discovery
- T1543.003 Windows Service
- T1548.002 Bypass User Account Control
- T1548.003 Sudo and Sudo Caching
- T1550.002 Pass the Hash
- T1553.002 Code Signing
- T1564.010 Process Argument Spoofing
- T1569.002 Service Execution
- T1572 Protocol Tunneling
- T1573.001 Symmetric Cryptography
- T1573.002 Asymmetric Cryptography
- T1620 Reflective Code Loading
- T1685 Disable or Modify Tools
Groups using it (30)
- G0016 APT29
- G0027 Threat Group-3390
- G0034 Sandworm Team
- G0037 FIN6
- G0045 menuPass
- G0046 FIN7
- G0050 APT32
- G0052 CopyKittens
- G0065 Leviathan
- G0067 APT37
- G0073 APT19
- G0079 DarkHydrus
- G0080 Cobalt Group
- G0092 TA505
- G0096 APT41
- G0102 Wizard Spider
- G0114 Chimera
- G0119 Indrik Spider
- G0129 Mustang Panda
- G0143 Aquatic Panda
- G1006 Earth Lusca
- G1014 LuminousMoth
- G1020 Mustard Tempest
- G1021 Cinnamon Tempest
- G1022 ToddyCat
- G1040 Play
- G1043 BlackByte
- G1046 Storm-1811
- G1053 Storm-0501
- G1054 MirrorFace