Definition
Active physical link mapping sends and receives network traffic as a means to map the physical layer.
Implementation perspective
Active Physical Link Mapping should be treated as a technical defensive capability rather than a product checkbox. In practice, teams should define the protected scope, the conditions under which the technique acts, and the observable evidence that demonstrates the intended behavior. For this technique, likely engineering context includes Network Node, Physical Link.
Use the technique to improve the shared model of systems, activities, dependencies, threats, or risk before making defensive decisions.
Questions to ask
- What system, activity, relationship, or risk is being modeled, and where is the scope boundary?
- Which authoritative data sources populate the model, and how is their quality assessed?
- How often is the model refreshed after architectural, operational, or threat changes?
- Which decisions, analyses, or engineering actions are expected to use the model?
Evidence and validation
- Documented model scope, assumptions, and ownership
- Source inventories, data-quality checks, and refresh records
- Version history showing material changes to the model
- Examples of decisions or analyses that used the model
Common failure patterns
- The model is treated as a one-time diagram rather than a maintained decision aid.
- Unverified or stale source data is accepted without recording uncertainty.
- The model is comprehensive in appearance but disconnected from engineering or operational decisions.
This implementation perspective is original Bare Metal Cyber educational content. It does not replace the official D3FEND definition or establish that a specific product implements the technique.
Technique hierarchy
Top-level family
Parent techniques
Direct child techniques
None listed at this level.
Artifacts and ontology entities
These relationships describe how D3FEND connects a defensive technique to artifacts or other ontology entities. They describe graph semantics, not a product certification.
Explicit technique relationships
Show inferred artifact relationship paths (2)
Offensive-technique relationships
These relationships are generated from D3FEND graph paths and are explicitly experimental. They should be treated as hypotheses for defensive analysis—not as proof that the technique prevents, detects, or removes an offensive behavior.
ATT&CK Enterprise (7)
ATT&CK for ICS (10)
Authoritative sources
- Open this technique on the official D3FEND website ↗
- Open the official ontology resources ↗
- Identification of traceroute nodes and associated devices ↗SolarWinds Worldwide LLC · Tomas KUBIK, Lan Li, Tomas RYBKA, Karlo ZATYLNY, Chris O'Brien · PatentReference
- Using spanning tree protocol (STP) to enhance layer-2 topology maps ↗SolarWinds Worldwide LLC · Michael Jon Swan · PatentReference
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