Steal Web Session Cookie
Steal a session cookie (via XSS, MITM, cache poison) to take over an authenticated session without credentials.
§ Where this technique fits
T1539 is catalogued under the Credential Access tactic of the offensive-security kill-chain. It appears in 14 approved dossiers in the registry, typically at step 4.6 on average.
Authoritative reference: attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1539/.
§ Dossiers chaining this technique
- step 2 / 6
Compromised CFO mailbox → invoice fraud → wire fraud
AITM phishing nets the CFO's M365 session. Attacker sets a mail rule to hide replies, edits a pending invoice's wire details, sends the modified PDF to AP from the legit mailbox.
- step 3 / 6
Citrix Bleed → steal authenticated session → MFA bypass
Send a long Host header to a vulnerable NetScaler — memory disclosure leaks an authenticated session token already past MFA. Replay the token to log into the corporate VPN.
- step 4 / 6
FIDO2 caBLE hybrid → phone authenticator hijack
Attacker phishing site shows the legitimate FIDO2 QR. Victim scans with their phone authenticator. The link completes the WebAuthn ceremony in the attacker's browser — they're now signed in as the victim.
- step 4 / 6
Malicious browser extension → cookie harvest → ATO
Publish a useful-looking extension (ad-blocker / PDF reader). It quietly reads cookies + localStorage from sensitive sites and ships them to the attacker.
- step 4 / 7
AITM phishing (Evilginx) → M365 session theft → mailbox exfil
Reverse-proxy phishing kit intercepts the entire login flow including MFA. Stolen session cookie → access M365 mailbox / SharePoint without retriggering auth.
- step 5 / 6
Compromised root CA → arbitrary cert issuance → silent MITM
Compromise the private key (or signing process) of a publicly-trusted root or intermediate. Issue an unlogged cert for the target hostname; use it for invisible TLS MITM until CT-log monitoring or revocation catches up.
- step 5 / 5
5G core GTP-U user-plane injection → subscriber MITM
Attacker on a transit network between mobile-core hops (or with compromised UPF). GTP-U packets are typically unfiltered between PEs; inject packets into subscriber bearers — credential capture, free-of-charge tunnels, downstream attacks.
- step 5 / 6
F5 BIG-IP iControl auth bypass (CVE-2022-1388) → root on LB
Connection-header smuggle bypasses iControl REST auth, command-injection RCE as root. Load balancers see all traffic — recover TLS keys, session cookies, internal SSO config.
- step 5 / 5
Compromised extension auto-update → fleet compromise
Take over a popular extension's developer account (credential stuffing on the store, abandoned email domain). Push a malicious version — every existing install runs attacker code on next launch.
- step 5 / 5
Output injection → admin XSS in support panel
Customer chats with support LLM. Prompt injection makes the model emit a malicious markdown link / image; when an admin views the conversation in the support panel, JS / pixel-tracker fires.
- step 5 / 6
Web cache poisoning → XSS → admin session hijack
An unkeyed header reflects into the response. Poison the cache with a payload, wait for an admin to fetch the cached page, exfiltrate their session.
- step 6 / 6
Subdomain takeover → ACME DNS-01 → trusted cert for victim host
Find a dangling CNAME / NS record. Claim the underlying resource; complete Let's Encrypt's DNS-01 challenge for the parent hostname. Now have a publicly-trusted cert for victim.example.com — chain into AITM.
- step 6 / 6
Browser-in-the-Browser → credential theft on a trusted page
Render a fake SSO popup inside the attacker page that looks like a real OS browser window. Victim types their credentials into the attacker's DOM.
- step 6 / 7
Subdomain takeover → cookie theft → account takeover
Dangling CNAME on a corporate subdomain (e.g. mail.target.com → unclaimed Heroku app). Claim it, serve a malicious page, harvest session cookies scoped to *.target.com.
§ What commonly comes next
- 01Valid Accountsseen 6×T1078 · Initial Access
- 02Certificate Transparency Monitoringseen 1×PKI-CT-MONITOR · Reconnaissance
- 03Mailbox Forwarding Ruleseen 1×M365-MAILBOX-FORWARD · Collection
- 04Pass the Ticketseen 1×T1550.003 · Lateral Movement