MITRE D3FEND Framework: The Ultimate Guide

MITRE is a government-backed not-for-profit organization that conducts federally funded cybersecurity research to support defensive IT security across all sectors, including government agencies and defense contractors. MITRE D3FEND^™ is a knowledge base—defined as a "knowledge-graph" by MITRE—that serves as a library of defensive cybersecurity countermeasures, technical components, and their associations and capabilities. It is complementary to the MITRE ATT&CK^® framework of cybercriminals’ Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTP).

The MITRE D3FEND Framework maps relationships between ATT&CK's adversary TTP and defensive countermeasures for developing defensive strategy that corresponds directly to known attacker behavior. D3FEND's growing collection of Tactics and Techniques define specific technical elements to monitor to neutralize offensive cyberattacks. The D3FEND framework is relatively new; MITRE released the beta in July 2021.

D3FEND validates a common defensive cybersecurity language and classification hierarchy that can be used between stakeholders when developing a cybersecurity program from the ground up or evaluating an existing cyber program, assessing and comparing the security posture of software or cloud vendors’ products, or informing acquisition and investment.

D3FEND has practical applications for organizations of all sizes, from SMBs to large enterprises. The D3FEND Tactics and Techniques can serve as a checklist for security planners, architects, and decision-makers planning and designing integrated network defenses and software products that will ultimately be the barrier between adversaries and the organization’s digital assets. 

Although the ATT&CK framework includes some limited mitigation advisory, D3FEND provides more formalized and organized insight into defensive countermeasures that mitigate and enable a long-term strategy to monitor, detect, and respond to cyberattacks.