MITRE ATT&CK Technique
Command and Control
T1132.001
Description
Adversaries may encode data with a standard data encoding system to make the content of command and control traffic more difficult to detect. Command and control (C2) information can be encoded using a standard data encoding system that adheres to existing protocol specifications. Common data encoding schemes include ASCII, Unicode, hexadecimal, Base64, and MIME.(Citation: Wikipedia Binary-to-text Encoding)(Citation: Wikipedia Character Encoding) Some data encoding systems may also result in data compression, such as gzip.
Supported Platforms
ESXi
Linux
Windows
macOS
Created
April 29, 2026
Last Updated
April 29, 2026
STIX Data
{'created': '2020-03-14T23:36:52.095Z',
'created_by_ref': 'identity--c78cb6e5-0c4b-4611-8297-d1b8b55e40b5',
'description': 'Adversaries may encode data with a standard data encoding '
'system to make the content of command and control traffic '
'more difficult to detect. Command and control (C2) '
'information can be encoded using a standard data encoding '
'system that adheres to existing protocol specifications. '
'Common data encoding schemes include ASCII, Unicode, '
'hexadecimal, Base64, and MIME.(Citation: Wikipedia '
'Binary-to-text Encoding)(Citation: Wikipedia Character '
'Encoding) Some data encoding systems may also result in data '
'compression, such as gzip.',
'external_references': [{'external_id': 'T1132.001',
'source_name': 'mitre-attack',
'url': 'https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1132/001'},
{'description': 'Gardiner, J., Cova, M., Nagaraja, '
'S. (2014, February). Command & '
'Control Understanding, Denying and '
'Detecting. Retrieved April 20, 2016.',
'source_name': 'University of Birmingham C2',
'url': 'https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1408/1408.1136.pdf'},
{'description': 'Wikipedia. (2016, December 26). '
'Binary-to-text encoding. Retrieved '
'March 1, 2017.',
'source_name': 'Wikipedia Binary-to-text Encoding',
'url': 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary-to-text_encoding'},
{'description': 'Wikipedia. (2017, February 19). '
'Character Encoding. Retrieved March '
'1, 2017.',
'source_name': 'Wikipedia Character Encoding',
'url': 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_encoding'}],
'id': 'attack-pattern--04fd5427-79c7-44ea-ae13-11b24778ff1c',
'kill_chain_phases': [{'kill_chain_name': 'mitre-attack',
'phase_name': 'command-and-control'}],
'modified': '2025-10-24T17:48:20.938Z',
'name': 'Standard Encoding',
'object_marking_refs': ['marking-definition--fa42a846-8d90-4e51-bc29-71d5b4802168'],
'revoked': False,
'spec_version': '2.1',
'type': 'attack-pattern',
'x_mitre_attack_spec_version': '3.2.0',
'x_mitre_deprecated': False,
'x_mitre_detection': '',
'x_mitre_domains': ['enterprise-attack'],
'x_mitre_is_subtechnique': True,
'x_mitre_modified_by_ref': 'identity--c78cb6e5-0c4b-4611-8297-d1b8b55e40b5',
'x_mitre_platforms': ['ESXi', 'Linux', 'Windows', 'macOS'],
'x_mitre_version': '1.1'}