Avaddon

the ransomware operators obtained initial access via remote access portals such as RDP and VPN, a pivot away from direct email access.

The content repeatedly describes threat actors and malware using WMI/WMIC/wmiexec for remote execution, lateral movement, discovery, persistence, and administrative actions; e.g., 'APT41 used WMI in several ways, including for execution of commands via WMIEXEC as well as for persistence via PowerSploit' and 'Scattered Spider used Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to move laterally via Impacket.'

AppleSeed has the ability to use JavaScript to execute PowerShell. APT32 has used JavaScript for drive-by downloads and C2 communications. Astaroth uses JavaScript to perform its core functionalities.

Across the content, malware repeatedly 'adds Registry Run keys', 'creates Registry entries', 'modifies the Windows Registry', or 'overwrites registry keys' to maintain persistence.

the ransomware operators obtained initial access via remote access portals such as RDP and VPN, a pivot away from direct email access.

The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors establishing persistence by adding values under HKCU/HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run or RunOnce, and by placing executables, scripts, or .lnk files in the Startup folder.

The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors establishing persistence by adding values under HKCU/HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run or RunOnce, and by placing executables, scripts, or .lnk files in the Startup folder.

Avaddon modifies several registry keys for persistence and UAC bypass. LockBit 2.0 can create Registry keys to bypass UAC and for persistence. Lokibot has modified the Registry as part of its UAC bypass process.

The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors using obfuscated code, encrypted strings, Base64/XOR/RC4/AES encoding, VMProtect/ConfuserEx/SmartAssembly, stack strings, control-flow flattening, opaque predicates, and hidden payloads to evade analysis and detection.

The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors decoding, decrypting, deobfuscating, or unpacking payloads, strings, configuration data, commands, and C2 responses prior to execution or use.

Across the content, malware repeatedly 'adds Registry Run keys', 'creates Registry entries', 'modifies the Windows Registry', or 'overwrites registry keys' to maintain persistence.

The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors using commands and APIs such as ipconfig /all, ifconfig, arp -a, route print, nbtstat, netsh, GetAdaptersInfo, and GetIpNetTable to gather IP addresses, MAC addresses, DNS, DHCP, gateways, routing tables, ARP cache, proxy settings, domains, and network adapter/interface details.

The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors obtaining lists of running processes, using utilities such as tasklist, ps, WMI, Get-Process, CreateToolhelp32Snapshot, EnumProcesses, and similar APIs/commands to enumerate active processes on victim systems.

The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors listing files and directories, enumerating drives, searching for files by extension/name/path, retrieving file metadata, and browsing file systems (for example: "APT28 has used Forfiles to locate PDF, Excel, and Word documents during collection" and "cmd can be used to find files and directories with native functionality such as dir commands").

Avaddon checks for specific keyboard layouts and OS languages to avoid targeting Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) entities... Bazar can perform a check to ensure that the operating system's keyboard and language settings are not set to Russian... Clop has checked the keyboard language using the GetKeyboardLayout() function... Ryuk has been observed to query the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\Language and the value InstallLanguage.

Numerous ransomware/wiper examples enumerate files before encryption, such as "BlackCat can enumerate files for encryption", "NotPetya searches for files ending with dozens of different file extensions prior to encryption", and "WastedLocker can enumerate files and directories just prior to encryption."

Examples include 'Avaddon uses wmic.exe to delete shadow copies,' 'BlackCat can use wmic.exe to delete shadow copies on compromised networks,' and 'WannaCry utilizes wmic to delete shadow copies.'

The content repeatedly describes threat actors and malware disabling, stopping, uninstalling, or modifying antivirus, EDR, Windows Defender, AMSI, logging, and other security controls.

Adversaries may modify and/or disable security tools to avoid possible detection of their malware/tools and activities... killing security software processes or services, modifying / deleting Registry keys or configuration files... Adversaries may also disable updates...