Part 1. MITRE ATT&CK-based Countermeasures for Covert Abuse Like Coercion, Systemic Sexual Abuse, Human Trafficking Like Experience
2 min read
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Mar 26, 2025
After studying, analyzing, and documenting techniques of coercion applied to me and other women and vulnerable people, I created a framework of coercion and abuse and mapped the techniques of coercion and abuse to the Mitre Att&ck framework.
Initial Access<->Love Bombing & Grooming
Adversaries create an illusion of safety, showering targets with praise, promotions, and benefits to gain trust.
Persistence<->Continuous Psychological Manipulation
Adversaries maintain control through gaslighting, false mentorship, and dangling future opportunities.
Privilege Escalation<->False Empowerment Followed by Retaliation
An adversary may grant privileges to a target, but when that target pushes back, those privileges are revoked as punishment.
Defense Evasion<->Gaslighting & Superficial Support
Adversaries pretend to care by offering superficial gestures, like check-ins, while actually undermining victims behind closed doors.
Credential Access<->Digging Up Personal Information
Adversaries seek personal details about an employee’s weaknesses, struggles, or even their private life to later use as leverage.
Discovery<->Testing Boundaries of Resistance
Adversaries probe to see how much a target will tolerate. Targets who resist too much are quickly marked for retaliation.
Lateral Movement<->Coercing Employees Family and Friends
Just like attackers pivot through a network, adversaries restrict victims’ communication, separating them from their peers and allies.
Collection<->Gathering Information to Undermine the Victim
Adversaries collect emails, Slack messages, private conversations, or performance data to later weaponize against the target.
Command and Control (C2)<->Manipulative Oversight & Control
Adversaries keep tight control over targets, micromanaging, spying on their work, or using surveillance tactics.
Exfiltration<->Coercive Extraction & Life Hijacking
Removing something essential from the victim — their autonomy, safety, energy, identity, relationships, or life direction — and repurposing it to serve the abuser’s agenda.
Impact<->Career and Personal Sabotage, Professional Retaliation, and Isolating the Target
Just like cyberattacks cripple systems, adversaries destroy victims’ careers, personal lives, mental health, and financial stability.
How this information can be used
1. Predictable Tactics Can Be Defended Against
• Just like cyber threats, adversaries follow a structured escalation path. Targets can learn to identify red flags early (e.g., love bombing before or after coercion).
2. Countermeasures Can Be Designed
• Security professionals develop defenses against cyber intrusions; similarly, targets can develop psychological countermeasures, such as documentation, boundary-setting, counter-abuse strategies, and external support networks.
3. Recognition Empowers Victims
• Recognizing retaliation, gaslighting, and coercion as attack patterns helps victims detach emotionally and respond strategically rather than reactively.
4. Coercion is a Systemic Threat, Not Just an Individual Issue
Just as cyberattacks target organizations, coercion is often embedded in culture and requires systemic fixes, like policy changes, independent oversight, and many layers of protections.
Embedded below is a Google spreadsheet containig the framework for coercion and abuse mapped to the Mitre Att&ck framework.
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