MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise
T1525

Implant Internal Image

Description

Adversaries may implant cloud or container images with malicious code to establish persistence after gaining access to an environment. Amazon Web Services (AWS) Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Images, and Azure Images as well as popular container runtimes such as Docker can be implanted or backdoored. Unlike [Upload Malware](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1608/001), this technique focuses on adversaries implanting an image in a registry within a victim’s environment. Depending on how the infrastructure is provisioned, this could provide persistent access if the infrastructure provisioning tool is instructed to always use the latest image.(Citation: Rhino Labs Cloud Image Backdoor Technique Sept 2019) A tool has been developed to facilitate planting backdoors in cloud container images.(Citation: Rhino Labs Cloud Backdoor September 2019) If an adversary has access to a compromised AWS instance, and permissions to list the available container images, they may implant a backdoor such as a [Web Shell](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1505/003).(Citation: Rhino Labs Cloud Image Backdoor Technique Sept 2019)

Mapped SPARTA techniques

No techniques mapped to this control.

Cross-framework references

Relationships published by the source frameworks themselves, reproduced here with attribution. They are not SafeMode Space mappings and carry no confidence rating of ours.

Countered by 1 in MITRE D3FEND (Defensive Techniques)

Cite as SafeMode Space, mitre-attack-enterprise T1525.

Built 2026-07-25 from 216 techniques, 334 regulation articles, 125 ENISA controls, 2,610 framework controls, and 90 countermeasures.