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Inconsistent External References for MITRE ATT&CK ICS Techniques (12 affected entries) #63

@philipempl

Description

@philipempl

Description

While reviewing the generated STIX data for MITRE ATT&CK ICS techniques, I noticed that most attack patterns correctly use the expected external reference format with source_name: "mitre-ics-attack".

However, 12 entries deviate from this convention and instead contain an external reference with:

{
  "external_references": [
    {
      "source_name": "mitre-attack",
      "url": "https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T0816",
      "external_id": "T0816"
    }
  ]
}

This is inconsistent with the rest of the dataset and breaks consumers that rely on a stable source_name for MITRE ICS ATT&CK techniques.

Expected Behavior

All ICS techniques should reference MITRE ATT&CK ICS using:

{
  "source_name": "mitre-ics-attack"
}

12 Affected Techniques

STIX ID Name
attack-pattern--23270e54-1d68-4c3b-b763-b25607bcef80 Role Identification
attack-pattern--50d3222f-7550-4a3c-94e1-78cb6c81d064 Data Historian Compromise
attack-pattern--539d0484-fe95-485a-b654-86991c0d0d00 Network Service Scanning
attack-pattern--5f3da2f3-91c8-4d8b-a02f-bf43a11def55 Serial Connection Enumeration
attack-pattern--7374ab87-0782-41f8-b415-678c0950bb2a Location Identification
attack-pattern--94f042ae-3033-4a8d-9ec3-26396533a541 Detect Program State
attack-pattern--a8cfd474-9358-464f-a169-9c6f099a8e8a Change Program State
attack-pattern--abb0a255-eb9c-48d0-8f5c-874bb84c0e45 Control Device Identification
attack-pattern--ae62fe1a-ea1a-479b-8dc0-65d250bd8bc7 Program Organization Units
attack-pattern--d614a9cf-18eb-4800-81e4-ab8ddf0baa73 Engineering Workstation Compromise
attack-pattern--e0d74479-86d2-465d-bf36-903ebecef43e Modify Control Logic
attack-pattern--e2994b6a-122b-4043-b654-7411c5198ec0 I/O Module Discovery

Proposed Fix

Standardize the external reference by rewriting the affected objects to use:

{
  "source_name": "mitre-ics-attack"
}

If needed, merge or reconcile any mismatching MITRE ATT&CK references before normalization.

Impact

Systems or pipelines expecting consistent MITRE ICS reference identifiers may misinterpret or skip these techniques due to the unexpected source_name value.

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