AI Service API - AI Security Technique
AI Security TechniqueAdversaries may communicate using the API of an AI service on the victim's system. The adversary's commands to the victim system, and often the results, are embedded in the normal traffic of the AI service. An AI service API command and control channel is covert because the adversary's commands blend in with normal communications, so an adversary may use this technique to avoid detection. Using existing infrastruc...
Overview
A source-backed snapshot of this AI security technique.
Adversaries may communicate using the API of an AI service on the victim's system. The adversary's commands to the victim system, and often the results, are embedded in the normal traffic of the AI service.
An AI service API command and control channel is covert because the adversary's commands blend in with normal communications, so an adversary may use this technique to avoid detection. Using existing infrastructure on the victim's system allows the adversary to live off the land, further reducing their footprint.
AI service APIs may be abused as C2 channels when an adversary wants to be stealthy and maintain long-term persistence for espionage activities [1].
References
Technique details
Identifiers, maturity, and source taxonomy for this technique.
- ATLAS ID
- AML.T0096
- Maturity
- realized
- Priority score
- 40
Attack flow
How to read the public records connected to this technique.
Impact
Why this technique may deserve attention in the current dataset.
- Evidence levelrealized
- Mapped defenses0 ATLAS mitigation records
- Public examples1 linked case study records
- Research risks0 related MIT AI Risk records above the confidence threshold
- Vulnerabilities0 linked CVE records
Mitigations
Defenses that may help against this attack.
Case studies
Examples from public reports and exercises.
SesameOp: Novel backdoor uses OpenAI Assistants API for command and control
The Microsoft Incident Response - Detection and Response Team (DART) investigated a compromised system where a threat actor utilized SesameOp, a backdoor implant that abuses the OpenAI Assistants API as a covert command and control channel, for espionage activities. The SesameOp malware used the OpenAI API to fetch and execute the threat actor’s commands and to exfiltrate encrypted results from the victim system.
The threat actor had maintained a presence on the compromised system for several months. They had control of multiple internal web shells which executed commands from malicious processes that relied on compromised Visual Studio utilities. Investigation of other Visual Studio utilities led to the discovery of the novel SesameOp backdoor.
Source evidence
Original public records and references for this page.
Original source
Original source links
Open the public records and source datasets used for this page.