Introduction

Incidents in virtual environments can begin with a software vulnerability, human error, a configuration weakness, or several of these factors at once. The investigation is rarely limited to the workload. Hypervisors, container runtimes, management consoles, monitoring platforms, identity systems, virtual networks, datastores, backups, and automation accounts all influence what an attacker can reach.

Kaspersky GERT recently investigated two more ransomware cases on ESXi and Proxmox environments in which weak access controls, insufficient network separation, exposed administrative services, and poor management of privileged credentials contributed to the impact. A monitoring system that could reach the virtualization layer also exposed a reusable root credential. Once the attacker controlled that route, ordinary administrative access was enough to affect several hosts. No VM escape was required.

The incidents show why patching and secure configuration must be managed together. A fully patched hypervisor can still be compromised through a shared password, an overprivileged monitoring account, an open SSH path, or an administrator interface reachable from a general server network. NIST guidance places secure configuration baselines, restricted administrative access, current patches, and monitoring across all layers within the same set of sound security practices.

In this article, we’re going to describe both incidents with additional focus on common unsafe practices that were exploited, leading to compromise, as well as remediation tactics. We’ll also discuss the broader scope of threats targeting virtual environments for a better understanding of possible protection strategies.

The connected system defenders must protect

A business virtual environment is not just Hyper-V, VMware, or Docker but rather a connected stack. Management consoles, orchestration tools, monitoring platforms, and automation accounts sit above hypervisors and container engines. Registries, image stores, virtual switches, datastores, and backup systems connect the layers. Applications and business services run at the bottom, while much of the administrative power sits near the top.

The important boundaries extend beyond guest to host. They include workload to management plane, monitoring system to hypervisor, registry to deployment, administrator workstation to console, management plane to storage, and one virtual network segment to another. An attacker only needs one usable route. The possibility of compromise may lie in one stolen or insecurely placed administrator credential rather than in a complex escape exploit. In the GERT case, the compromise route passed through the monitoring platform and included a valid virtualization platform credential.

Case #1: From network monitoring to ESXi encryption

The investigation began with evidence of BlackNevas ransomware activity on a Windows system in a virtualized domain controller segment. UserAssist artifacts recorded execution of the AnyDesk RMM tool and GMER binaries. The environment also used PRTG Network Monitor to monitor its virtual infrastructure.

UserAssist artifacts

The available evidence showed that the PRTG deployment had broad access to the ESXi hosts and that the same root password was reused across several nodes. After obtaining access to the monitoring environment, the attacker used the ESXi credential to connect over SSH to the hosts that shared the same password. This design joined monitoring, credential storage, and direct administration into one attack path.

PRTG supports storing VMware credentials at the device or inherited group level. That feature is operationally useful, but a monitoring server becomes privileged infrastructure when it holds credentials that can administer the systems it observes. The security question is therefore not whether monitoring needs access, but whether the identity, privileges, storage method, and permitted network path are limited to the monitoring task.

The threat actor gained root access to the ESXi environment and used the esxcli command to bypass the system restriction by disabling the execInstalledOnly policy to execute the encryption binary and also perform anti-forensic log deletion. Let’s look closely at the timeline of the initial host compromise.

ESXi (192.168.*.*) timeline

2025-10-18 Connection attempts from IP address 192.168.*.*.
2025-10-19 During an SSH session by root from IP 192.168.*.*, the file esx is uploaded to the system.
2025-10-19 User "root" attempts to execute the binary esx with the error "Execution of non-installed file prevented".
	chmod 777 esx
	./esx /log
2025-10-19 User "root" deactivates the execInstalledOnly option.
	esxcli system settings advanced set -o 
	/User/execInstalledOnly -i 0
2025-10-19 User "root" executes the malware esx.
2025-10-19 New connection attempts from IP 192.168.*.*.

Now, at the same time, the following activities ensued on a different host with the same password for the root user:

ESXi (172.16.*.*) timeline

2025-10-19 SSH connection by user "root" from IP 172.16.*.*.
2025-10-19 User "root" executes the malware esx and clears the logs.
	chmod a+x esx && chmod 777 esx
	./esx /selftest
	nohup ./esx /p /vmfs/ /depth 5 /log /wipe
	./esx /depth 5 /log /wipe

Case #2: Credential notes impacting the whole Proxmox environment

GERT responded to a ransomware incident by The Gentlemen group, in which the threat actor gained access to Proxmox using information collected during the dwell time between initial access and visible impact. On a compromised system administrator workstation, the actor discovered administrative credentials and access details stored in notes in plain text. These records provided the information needed to log in to Proxmox using the root account.

The actor then activated the VNC web socket through the compromised root account, gaining extensive control over the Proxmox environment. This access was subsequently used to download and execute ransomware within the cluster, which resulted in the encryption of the entire virtual environment. Below are the log records showing the root account being used to access other hosts via a VNC web socket.

root@pam [01/08/2026:00:28:36 -0400] "GET /api2/json/nodes/******/vncwebsocket?port=5900&vncticket=****
root@pam [01/08/2026:00:30:17 -0400] "GET /api2/json/nodes/******/vncwebsocket?port=5900&vncticket=****
root@pam [01/08/2026:00:31:19 -0400] "GET /api2/json/nodes/******/vncwebsocket?port=5900&vncticket=****
root@pam [01/08/2026:00:43:38 -0400] "GET /api2/json/nodes/******/vncwebsocket?port=5900&vncticket=****
root@pam [01/08/2026:00:44:49 -0400] "GET /api2/json/nodes/******/vncwebsocket?port=5900&vncticket=****

This incident is a clear example of the risks of storing privileged credentials in unsecured notes or other easily accessible files. Once the administrator workstation was compromised, the saved credentials allowed the actor to move from a single endpoint into the virtualization management layer. Because the credentials belonged to a highly privileged root account, one poor credential handling practice significantly increased the scope and impact of the attack. Privileged credentials should instead be stored in an approved password manager or privileged access management system, protected with multifactor authentication and rotated immediately if an administrator workstation is suspected of being compromised.

Why the misconfiguration caused broad impact

Both cases exhibited unsafe misconfiguration practices whose exploitation led to a bigger impact on the host system. Next, we will break down each misconfiguration to see how it enabled further compromise and what should be done to avoid it.

Monitoring inherited excessive privilege

In Case 1, the monitoring platform could do more than collect health and performance data. It held or could use credentials with enough privilege to reach ESXi directly. A compromise of the monitoring system therefore became a compromise of the management plane. Monitoring identities should be dedicated to the task and given only the permissions required by the deployed sensors.

Credential reuse

Password reuse converted one recovered secret into farm-wide access. System administration should use named identities through the central management plane. Each host should have unique credentials and proper password storage hygiene. Password strength alone does not limit the impact of theft, but where the credential can be used and where it is stored do.

Direct root access bypassed central control

Direct SSH access allowed the actor to authenticate as root, upload a binary, and change a security setting without first passing through vCenter role controls. Broadcom, the parent company of VMware, recommends managing vSphere through vCenter, disabling SSH during normal operation, and using Lockdown Mode where suitable. Required service accounts should be explicit exceptions rather than members of a broad administrator group.

Lack of enhanced security settings

The initial execution attempt was blocked by execInstalledOnly, but the attacker had enough privilege to disable this policy. Broadcom documents enforcement options that combine execInstalledOnly with UEFI Secure Boot and TPM-backed configuration protection. These controls must be enabled, tested, and monitored for change. A setting that can be silently disabled by the same credential used for daily administration provides limited resistance after account compromise.

Unsafe credential storage

Case 2 demonstrated the possibility of compromise lying in privileged credential exposure. The mitigation strategy involves not only securing the administrative credential storage but also general hardening practices of secret handling, such as privilege management and regular access audits.

How to close this attack path

In this section, we share remediation advice on how to mitigate such attacks, and detect and prevent them from going further. We recommend the following actions:

• Separate monitoring from administration. Create a dedicated monitoring identity for each platform and restrict it to the smallest set of objects and actions that the monitoring sensors require. Do not use ESXi root or another emergency account for routine polling. Prevent monitoring servers from starting interactive administrator sessions unless a separately approved support workflow requires it. The same principle applies beyond VMware.
• Replace stored root passwords. Locate every copy of hypervisor, management, storage, and backup credentials in monitoring tools, scripts, scheduled tasks, connection managers, and service configurations. Replace static passwords with vault retrieval, brokered identities, or limited API tokens where the platform supports them. Record every retrieval and rotate the secret after emergency use or compromise.
• Restrict direct host access. Route normal ESXi administration through vCenter and enable an appropriate Lockdown Mode after testing monitoring, backup, and recovery dependencies. Keep ESXi Shell and SSH stopped by default. When support work requires SSH, enable it for a defined period, restrict the source, and alert on service activation, root login, and changes to the exception list of users who are allowed to connect via SSH.
• Use a specialized security solution. In our portfolio, Kaspersky Cloud Workload Security (KCWS) is perfectly suited to address virtual environment risks, offering a powerful combination of two products: Kaspersky Hybrid Cloud Security (KHCS) and Kaspersky Container Security (KCS). Kaspersky Hybrid Cloud Security is specifically built to secure virtualized infrastructures, private data centers, and hybrid clouds. A patented Light Agent architecture minimizes resource impact without compromising performance, while comprehensive infrastructure visualization through a unified console gives administrators complete visibility and control over the entire hybrid network. Kaspersky Container Security covers every stage of a containerized app’s lifecycle, from development to operation. Among other capabilities, the solution allows for detecting misconfigurations using a dedicated scanner for images, file systems, and repositories that contain IaC files (such as Terraform, CloudFormation, Azure ARM templates, Helm charts, and Dockerfiles).
• Treat configuration changes as security events. Alert when execInstalledOnly, Secure Boot enforcement, Lockdown Mode, SSH, local accounts, exception users, firewall rules, or remote logging settings change. Baseline the expected state and test whether the security team can detect an unauthorized change. A secure configuration set once does not mean that the control remains active on the host.
• Isolate the management network. Place hypervisor, monitoring, backup, storage, and cluster administration on restricted management networks. Permit only the exact source and destination services required. Administrative workstations should enter through hardened jump hosts with named identities and multifactor authentication.
• Protect logs, backups, and recovery. Forward ESXi, vCenter, Proxmox monitoring, identity, and network logs to protected storage that a compromised administrator cannot erase. Backup platforms should use separate identities, restricted management paths, and recovery copies outside ordinary administrative reach.

Configuration checks for monitored virtualization

Below are recommended checks to run when enabling virtualization monitoring. The safest state depends on the platform and monitoring method, but each control should be tested.

The wider attack surface

Closing the monitoring and credential routes does not secure the environment by itself. Virtualization also relies on isolation boundaries, trusted images, management APIs, virtual networks, storage, and backups. Each layer requires a different control and leaves evidence in a different place.

VM and container escapes

In a VM escape, code inside a guest reaches past the VM boundary and affects the host or another guest. The weakness may be in a virtual device, an integration feature, a hypercall interface, or another component that translates guest requests for the host. If the escape works, control of one VM may lead to control of the physical server and every workload on it. VMware CVE-2025-22224 showed this risk: an attacker with administrator rights inside a VM could execute code as the VMX process on the host, and Broadcom reported exploitation in the wild.

A container escape can reach a similar result, but the starting point is different. Linux containers share the host kernel, so their isolation model differs from that of a VM. Namespaces limit what processes can see, cgroups control resource use, and capabilities split root privileges into smaller parts. A kernel or runtime bug can break this isolation. Copy Fail (CVE-2026-31431) is a good example of a kernel flaw. Code already running in a container could use a Linux AF_ALG crypto socket to change pages in the shared Linux kernel page cache. Because the host and other containers may read the same cached pages, the effect did not have to stay inside one container. The fix is a kernel update; Docker Engine 29.4.3 also tightened its default security profiles to reduce exposure on hosts that had not yet been patched.

Unsafe settings can also break the boundary. Privileged mode, excessive capabilities, writable host mounts, or access to the Docker socket may remove isolation without any software exploit. For instance, runc CVE-2024-21626 involved leaked file descriptors that could expose the host filesystem to a malicious image or container process.

This difference changes the investigation. A VM can often be treated like a separate computer with its own kernel, memory, and disk. A container is a group of host processes placed inside namespaces. If investigators collect only the container filesystem, they may leave the most useful process, socket, and control-plane evidence on the host.

Images and templates

A compromised golden VM image or container base image can spread through normal automation. Common weaknesses include unofficial public images, mutable tags, overprivileged build tokens, recoverable secrets in older layers, and stale templates that restore vulnerable software or forgotten accounts. Scanning might help, but it does not establish who built the artifact or whether the exact image tested and approved was the one ultimately deployed to production. Use controlled builders, provenance records, signature checks, and planned rebuilds from trusted sources.

Management tools and APIs

A stolen vCenter identity, exposed Docker API, overpowered Portainer role, or compromised backup console may give an attacker an easier route than an escape exploit. Portainer advisory GHSA-7fw3-x4r2-g7wc showed how a proxy validated one bind-mount representation but missed an equivalent API form, allowing an authenticated non-administrator with container creation privileges to reach host paths. The runtime performed a valid request after authorization had already failed in the management layer.

Administrative file-copy operations also deserve attention. Docker fixed archive and mount-handling flaws in CVE-2026-41567, CVE-2026-41568, and CVE-2026-42306. These cases required particular conditions and operator or API activity. They are a reminder to patch the daemon and record who initiated copy operations, which container was involved, the source and destination paths, and the result.

Virtual networks, storage, and backups

East-west traffic between virtual workloads may stay inside one host and bypass a physical sensor. Management, migration, storage, and workload traffic should use separate zones with filtering between them. Snapshot and memory files may contain credentials, while weak datastore permissions can expose whole virtual disks. Backup systems need broad access to recover services, which also makes them valuable to an attacker who wants to delete recovery points or reach several hosts.

Attack surface examples by layer

To sum up, the described attack vectors might be mitigated as follows:

Conclusion

GERT cases that we presented in this article did not require an attacker to break the VM boundary. The attack path was created by an overprivileged monitoring relationship, an insecure password storage approach, a recoverable and reused root credential, broad management-network reachability, and direct SSH administration. Each element was legitimate on its own, but together they allowed one compromise to reach virtualization hosts and their workloads.

Misconfiguration should therefore receive the same operational attention as vulnerability management. Teams need to know where privileged credentials exist, which systems can use them, which network paths make them effective, and which logs will show their use. Escape flaws, unsafe images, API weaknesses, virtual network exposure, and attacks on storage or backups remain serious, but closing the known administrative route should come first.

Executive summary

In 2025, several threat actors exploited CVE-2025-53770 and CVE-2025-53771 (ToolShell vulnerabilities) in on-premises Microsoft SharePoint to achieve remote code execution through crafted HTTP requests. One of the threat actors deployed ransomware on the target’s systems after successful exploitation. Microsoft attributed this ransomware-related ToolShell activity to Storm-2603, distinguishing it from other actors whose observed activity was primarily focused on credential theft, espionage, and data exfiltration.

In December, our retrospective analysis identified activity consistent with Storm-2603’s TTPs. This activity involved the attacker using the IIS worker process as an in-memory bridge to the customer’s infrastructure, keeping the access and control layer entirely within w3wp.exe without writing anything to disk. Although subsequent post-exploitation activity generated disk artifacts, the bridge used to maintain access remained memory-resident.

Let’s look in more detail at this attack.

The attack chain, from reconnaissance to infrastructure compromise

Intrusion timeline: Strategic latency and exploitation

The intrusion analyzed in this report occurred in two stages, with a temporal gap between initial access and subsequent exploitation activity. The attack timeline was as follows:

• Dec 20 – Vulnerability fingerprinting: A single HTTP request targeted a SharePoint administrative endpoint associated with the ToolPane component to determine whether the host was vulnerable to CVE-2025-53770.
• Dec 21-23 – Tactical latency: A three-day period of silence followed the initial probe, separating the vulnerability fingerprinting from subsequent malicious activity and potentially reducing the likelihood of immediate detection.
• Dec 24 – High-intensity re-engagement: On Christmas Eve, when security staffing at many companies is reduced, the full RCE chain was executed through the IIS worker process (w3wp.exe) on the same endpoint as the initial probe.
• Dec 26 – Incident discovery: The three-day gap initially prevented the December 20 probe from being correlated with subsequent malicious activity, marking the event as low priority. Retrospective analysis established that the probe was the initial phase of the subsequent intrusion.

Intrusion timeline

Initial access validation phase

Vulnerability fingerprinting

A vulnerability fingerprinting request on December 20 marked the first observed interaction with the target. The request originated from infrastructure associated with ONYPHE, an internet-scale attack surface discovery and management platform for identifying exposed assets, vulnerabilities, and cyberthreats. Unlike widely used tools such as Shodan and Censys, which merely provide a list of internet-facing assets correlated with the open-source data about known vulnerabilities, ONYPHE actually checks if the target system is vulnerable.

Fingerprinting with ONYPHE

The request characteristics were consistent with ONYPHE’s vulnerability checks, which use active, non-intrusive probes to identify internet-exposed systems vulnerable to specific CVEs. For ToolShell, ONYPHE adopted the approach used by Niels Hofmans (hazcod). Namely, it attempts to inject a harmless marker into the target server to find out if it is vulnerable.

OFFICIAL ONYPHE CVE CHECKER (TOOLSHELL)

This phase served as a validation step against the SharePoint execution surface exposed over HTTP:

• The target processed structured requests through the ASP.NET pipeline without rejection.
• The request path reached application logic capable of handling serialized input.
• No defensive controls interrupted or altered the execution flow at the application boundary.

Approximately 12 minutes later, a second inbound connection originated from infrastructure associated with Pfcloud UG, a provider operating under a bulletproof hosting (BPH) model. Given the timing and the IP’s documented history of scanning and abusive activity, the connection may represent follow-on reconnaissance against the newly identified target. No exploitation was attempted at this stage.

A connection from an IP address belonging to Pfcloud UG BPH

Active exploitation: Santa took your data and left a backdoor

The main malicious activity occurred on December 24. The actor targeted the same SharePoint host with a crafted request from 45.91.94.204 (45.91.92.0/22, ASN 63473, HostHatch, LLC). This resulted in a webshell execution within the IIS worker process (w3wp.exe). The payload was not written to disk; rather, it was loaded directly into the ASP.NET runtime and used during subsequent request processing. The implant remained resident for the lifetime of the affected application domain. This runtime state was lost when the application pool was recycled or IIS was restarted.

Attack originated from an SPN node

The IP address 45.91.94.204 is a Safing Privacy Network (SPN) node. SPN routes each connection through a multilayer VPN path with multiple relay nodes that can obscure the originating IP.

SPN promotes itself as a network that offers strong privacy protection for internet traffic. Its infrastructure resembles Tor’s in many ways, but with some differences. It features the following capabilities:

• Speed: Near-VPN performance for high-speed data transfer.
• Layer 3 support: Supports multiple protocols like TCP, UDP, ICMP (unlike Tor, which only supports TCP).
• App-routing: Direct tunneling without a browser.
• Multi-identity: Simultaneous exit nodes to bypass IP rate limits.
• Fixed-size packets and padding make it harder to analyze its traffic.

It is less common than Tor, and frequently bypasses standard Tor blocklists.

Webshell architecture

The webshell the attackers injected into the w3wp.exe runtime is a multi-module in-memory framework, where execution is orchestrated through the main component (G.cs) and extended via multiple functional units across namespaces.

The implementation follows a modular C# project structure in which each capability is isolated into its own compilation unit and invoked dynamically at runtime.

Webshell components

“G.cs” pipeline control and C2

Pipeline control

The main webshell component is G.cs. It orchestrates the implant’s execution context, lifecycle, C2 and session management.

To ensure persistence within the runtime, G.cs performs the following actions:

• Registers a custom VirtualPathProvider using the non-public RegisterVirtualPassProviderInternal method from the ASP.NET HostingEnvironment class so that ASP.NET uses it for virtual-path processing. The provider is automatically added to the chain of registered virtual path providers.
  
• Delegates the provider’s .NET Remoting lifetime policy to the previous provider in the chain, preserving the existing lifetime behavior.
  

Additionally, to evade defenses and enable the VirtualPathProvider to be registered even if the application in whose AppDomain the webshell is running is precompiled, the module implements the trust control subversion (T1553) technique:

• Uses reflection to check if the application is precompiled.
• Extracts pointers for internal state fields for the BuildManager class, which manages application compilation, and modifies them at runtime.
  
• Uses reflection once again to force runtime injection.

G.cs uses the GetCacheKey() function as the interception point for the virtual path processing flow. It processes incoming requests to the SharePoint server and checks their headers to filter out requests from the attacker.

The specific User-Agent in the request headers triggers the webshell execution. If the request doesn’t match this condition, the implant remains dormant, making its traffic harder to recognize.

Command and control layer (in-memory transport)

The same core module (G.cs) implements the communication layer.

Instead of relying on external frameworks or standard beacons, it uses a custom binary protocol with XOR-based obfuscation to exchange data with the C2. These communications blend into normal application traffic. The module uses the GetCacheKey() hook to intercept standard HTTP requests. When a specific User-Agent is detected in the request headers, the module parses it, extracts the payload, and establishes a TCP connection to a target host inside the target’s network if needed.

Bidirectional TCP tunnel initialization

G.cs establishes a full-duplex proxy tunnel to support interactive control. It stores active target sockets in memory to pair concurrent HTTP read and write channels.

TCP connections from the C2 server to arbitrary hosts inside the target network are supported for pivoting and lateral movement. The traffic is proxied through the SharePoint host.

Target-to-attacker data channel

Attacker-to-target data channel

As can be seen in the screenshots, the attackers used the suo5 tool to implement traffic proxying. Its authors promote it as a stable forward-proxying tool for scenarios where outbound internet connections are prohibited.

To increase its performance, G.cs manipulates ThreadPool by raising its limits for concurrent operations and maximum timeout.

ThreadPool manipulation

“Prog.cs”: Execution entry point and task dispatcher

Prog.cs is the entry point that receives command-line arguments and passes them to uk/London.cs. The latter acts as the orchestrator, handling command parsing and privilege escalation (via named pipe impersonation). We’ll review it in more detail later. If the “suo5” command is provided, London.cs triggers G.cs to hook into the ASP.NET runtime as a memory shell. Once active, G.cs independently processes incoming web traffic inside the web server memory.

Host interaction modules

The following modules provide direct system interaction capabilities, each implemented as a separate unit. London.cs triggers these modules when it receives a corresponding command from Prog.cs.

“FileDownloader.cs”

The FileDownloader.cs module downloads arbitrary files from external URLs provided by the C2. It stores the downloaded files in the Program Data directory without any user interaction.

“LoggedOnUsers.cs”

This module enumerates logged-on users and identifies their session types (interactive, service, remote). The results are stored in memory. The attackers can retrieve them using the proxy and tunneling capabilities provided by G.cs.

“ProcessList.cs”

This module lists running processes with full paths to the corresponding executables on the disk. The results are stored in memory and the attackers can retrieve them via G.cs.

“NetworkInfo.cs”

This module extracts information about existing network connections, including protocols, local and remote IPs and ports, and connection state. It also enumerates network interfaces and headers. The results are stored in memory and can be retrieved by the attackers via G.cs.

“MSI.cs”

This module silently installs and executes MSI packages previously downloaded by FileDownloader.cs.

“User.cs”

This module creates administrative accounts using the native SAM RPC subsystem (SAMRPCNative namespace) rather than standard command-line tooling. This may indicate an attempt to evade detection and provide the attackers with privileged stealthy access to target systems that persists after the webshell has finished its work.

SAMRPCNative

The SAMRPCNative namespace implements a low-level C# P/Invoke wrapper for the native Windows samlib.dll library, comprising three types: SAMStructs.cs, SAMMethods.cs, and SAMEnums.cs.

“SAMEnums.cs”

Implements structured bitwise lists and constant flags mapping numeric codes to their security meaning in SAM, and translates system status return codes.

“SAMStructs.cs”

Defines native data structures required for P/Invoke memory alignment and for marshalling. It securely formats and aligns data structures.

“SAMMethods.cs”

Contains external API declarations (P/Invoke) imported from samlib.dll to perform actions such as connecting to the SAM server, creating users and opening domains.

This layer is crucial for the attackers because it enables account operations.

Privilege escalation

The uk namespace contains offensive primitives for privilege escalation. To elevate privileges to SYSTEM, it uses a local token impersonation technique via the Encrypting File System Remote Protocol (EFSRPC) interface adopted from the EfsPotato tool.

This functionality is implemented in the uk/London class. It creates a malicious named pipe while the EfsrTiny class (a tiny version of the EfsPotato tool) connects to the LSASS.exe RPC server. Then it’s London.RpcThread function calls the EfsRpcEncryptFileSrv function from EfsrTiny with a crafted \\localhost path. This tricks LSASS.exe into connecting back to the attacker’s named pipe. Finally, the London.Exp function uses ImpersonateNamedPipeClient to coerce and impersonate the LSASS.exe token and spawn a new process via CreateProcessAsUser with SYSTEM privileges. As the webshell resides in the IIS worker process, it has the necessary SeImpersonatePrivilege to perform this technique.

The uk namespace also implements a minimal MSRPC client layer by explicitly defining structures such as RPC_CLIENT_INTERFACE and MIDL_STUB_DESC, thereby spoofing an interface stub. This enables direct interaction with the Windows RPC runtime (Rpcrt4.dll) without relying on MIDL-generated stubs or higher-level RPC abstractions. This provides direct control over binding and marshaling that goes beyond the constraints of standard client APIs.

Post-exploitation activity

Shortly after the webshell injection, the infected worker process spawned msiexec.exe to install a remote MSI payload hosted in Supabase cloud storage. The payload was Velociraptor, an open-source digital forensics and incident response tool – namely version 0.73.4.0 vulnerable to CVE-2025-6264 – that the attackers abused for command execution on the target network.

In October 2025, Cisco Talos reported Velociraptor being leveraged by threat actors as a post-compromise execution framework and attributed this activity to Storm-2603. This tool enables arbitrary command execution, and can be used for various purposes. In our case, it was used for persistence, discovery, data collection and payload execution.

The threat actor used Velociraptor to deploy multiple independent tunneling mechanisms, including Zoho Assist-Unattended Support for unauthorized remote access, VS Code CLI tunneling, Cloudflare Tunnel, and a lightweight reverse proxy utility. By doing so, they attempted to maintain access even if some of their tools were detected and deleted. At this stage, they also no longer depended on the IIS worker process lifecycle and ToolShell vulnerability.

EDR-killing attempts

Once the threat actor had access to the target system, they were able to upload a vulnerable driver that is used by many attackers to terminate EDR solutions. We were able to detect the main driver at C:\programdata\rsndispot.sys (054a32d6033b1744dca7f49b2e466ea2). In addition, the adversary used a malicious DLL (2d9ebf9c042f596f435865b40edad928) in a sideloading attack. This DLL was identified as Warlock ransomware’s AV killer. It was possibly intended to kill security solutions using the vulnerable rsndispot.sys driver.

Ransomware deployment attempt

The attackers made attempts to launch ransomware on the compromised system. However, the Proactive Defense Module in Kaspersky Endpoint Security blocked the ransomware process, effectively preventing this activity. The malware DLL we obtained was identified as Warlock ransomware.

What defenders really need to look for

ToolPane deserialization and CLR artifacts

When the attackers tried to access ToolPane, both the dynamically compiled App_Web_toolpane.aspx assembly and the Microsoft.GeneratedCode helper assembly were present within the same application domain.

Both assemblies are used in legitimate scenarios. App_Web_* assemblies are generated during normal ASP.NET page compilation, while Microsoft.GeneratedCode is typically produced by the XmlSerializer during legitimate serialization workflows. However, a request to the ToolPane endpoint that results in immediate loading of Microsoft.GeneratedCode within the same execution window indicates that the runtime is processing serialized data supplied through the request.

Detecting deserialization exploitation

First, it is highly recommended to read this article (in Russian) on how deserialization exploit attempts in the CLR should be detected, with examples of YARA rules and monitoring recommendations. A summary of the main idea of the detection logic is provided below.

Deserialization vulnerabilities should be treated as a distinct class of exploitation events. In the CLR, deserialization is not merely the conversion of bytes into values – it is the reconstruction of an object graph from an incoming stream. Serialization and deserialization are performed by formatters. One of the most widely used formatters is BinaryFormatter. It uses the NRBF format, which defines the stream as a sequence of records describing classes, arrays, primitives, and references between objects. The shape of the resulting graph is determined by the data supplied to the deserializer. This means that the input stream defines not only the values but also the specific types, relationships, and lifecycle points that the runtime must materialize.

Microsoft states explicitly that BinaryFormatter is unsafe and cannot be made safe; beginning with .NET 9, the in-box implementation is effectively removed from ordinary use. However, Microsoft continues to use it in its products, including SharePoint, because it is powerful and easy to use. To fix BinaryFormatter-related issues, architectural changes are needed. Similar warnings also apply to related unsafe mechanisms, including LosFormatter (used in the vulnerable page).

The primary risk of unsafe deserialization is that the CLR may resolve unexpected types, instantiate objects outside normal constructor invariants, and invoke special lifecycle mechanisms such as ISerializable, IObjectReference, IDeserializationCallback, and methods marked [OnDeserialized]. In other words, the attacker-controlled data can force the runtime to construct a graph containing types with executable side effects.

A practical detection strategy should therefore focus on graph-construction artifacts. CLR loader events identify the relevant assemblies and application domains. Memory and metadata inspection then reveal the type names and generated serializer structures associated with the suspected gadget chain. In ToolShell-like scenarios, unsafe deserialization usually produces helper assemblies (evidence in loader events) with metadata containing fully qualified type names, gadget class names, and string representations of the constructed generic types (just scan via YARA for it). In our case, the artifacts to look for include Microsoft.GeneratedCode, App_Web_toolpane.aspx* (evidence of deserialization in loader events) as well as strings identifying ObjectDataProvider, ExpandedWrapper, and LosFormatter (evidence that the input stream was deserialized into dangerous objects). Note that these indicators are not significant in isolation; their value lies in the fact that they show the runtime has already received data requiring helper code generation to reconstruct a dangerous object graph.

Gadget objects that exploit vulnerabilities like those associated with ToolShell are conveniently represented in corpus-style tooling such as ysoserial.net/YSoNet, which aggregate known gadget chains for unsafe .NET deserialization. For defensive purposes, the value of these projects lies not in their offensive capability but in the catalog of types and structures that can be searched for in streams, memory, and helper assemblies. The presence of any of them in memory or in a helper assembly should be treated as a strong indicator of exploitation.

To simplify deserialization exploit detection, we created a tool named CLRDeserializationExploitFinder. It can detect ToolShell exploitation attempts, as well as other gadget chains covered by ysoserial.net.

Detecting a VPP-based webshell/runtime implant

A mechanism based on VirtualPathProvider should be treated as a separate class of runtime implant (no files involved). In ASP.NET, HostingEnvironment.RegisterVirtualPathProvider registers a new virtual-path provider (VPP) in the application’s compilation system. Once registered, the application can serve virtual paths during dynamic compilation as though they were ordinary on-disk pages. Dynamic compilation does not require the payload to exist as a file in the filesystem. It operates entirely within the trust boundary of the application itself. During the compilation process, temporary files may be generated, but they cannot be treated as reliable forensic artifacts. Because VPPs can also be used for legitimate purposes, the defensive model should begin with an inventory of the legitimate VirtualPathProvider implementations. In all other cases, the registration or use of a new VPP should be considered anomalous.

To see how the dynamic generation of virtual pages using ASP.NET, IIS, and the CLR works, and to learn how to detect such activity, use our project VirtualPathProvider Lab.

The most useful telemetry source for this technique is the Microsoft-Windows-IIS-Configuration ETW provider. To detect virtual paths, events 25 and 47 are of primary value. Event 25 records the mapping of ConfigPath to PhysicalPath, and event 47 records the mapping of the configuration path to a directory. In the case of a VPP-backed path, these events create an inconsistency: IIS and ASP.NET behave as if the path has a physical representation, while the corresponding file does not exist on disk. In the example provided by VirtualPathProvider Lab, this appears as a mapping of the virtual resource googlecheck.aspx to a physical path where no real file is present. This discrepancy between configuration resolution and filesystem reality is the primary indicator of virtual content.

The second indicator is more negative than positive. For disk-backed files, IIS normally creates a FileChangeNotificationMonitor chain, as reflected in events 17, 18, 19, and 21. For virtual paths served by a custom VirtualPathProvider, this chain is absent or does not match the normal profile of an ordinary file because there is no physical object or corresponding on-disk change lifecycle. Consequently, the presence of positive events 25 and 47 combined with the absence of the expected events 17, 18, 19, and 21 for the same path forms a reliable detection pattern: the path exists for IIS as a configuration-resolved resource, yet it is not backed by the filesystem and is not accompanied by normal file-change monitoring.

To sum up, the hunting target here is the discrepancy between how IIS/ASP.NET resolves a resource and what is actually present on the disk and in the change-monitoring chain. For known applications, such cases can be filtered through an allowlist of legitimate VirtualPathProvider implementations. Anything else should be treated as a potential runtime implant and examined using ETW, filesystem verification, and memory inspection of the w3wp.exe process.

Attribution

Microsoft tracks Storm-2603 as a standalone threat actor with no known links to other groups. While they are careful about assessing the actor’s motivation, they mention that it has previously deployed Warlock and LockBit ransomware following active exploitation of on-premises SharePoint vulnerabilities. In the analyzed incident, we observed similar SharePoint exploitation activities, as well as an EDR killer associated with Warlock ransomware and unsuccessful Warlock launch attempts.

Other documented intrusions have identified Storm-2603 as leveraging known flaws within perimeter mail gateways to achieve initial access, subsequently staging the Velociraptor framework with elevated privileges and establishing persistent encrypted tunnels via commercial remote management software to orchestrate secondary lateral movement. This aligns with the post-exploitation behavior we observed in our case. Together with the ToolShell exploitation scenario, this allows us to attribute this case to Storm-2603 with moderate confidence.

Conclusion

From the incident analyzed in this article, the main defensive lesson is that exploiting an internet-facing SharePoint server can enable fileless code execution directly inside the application trust boundary. Storm-2603 did not require a conventional dropper, persistent service, or exposed C2 endpoint; instead, it deployed a webshell inside w3wp.exe, from which tunneling, privilege escalation, credential access, and lateral movement could be orchestrated. Detection therefore needs to move beyond file-based webshell hunting toward runtime behavior, such as anomalous w3wp.exe activity, unexpected outbound connections, RPC coercion, token impersonation, and the introduction of remote-management or DFIR tooling after application compromise.

To correctly attribute malicious activity and develop appropriate response measures, defenders should reconstruct execution chains and temporal relationships across application, host, and identity layers. They should also preserve memory and IIS telemetry, and correlate low-signal reconnaissance with subsequent privileged activity rather than evaluating events in isolation. A confirmed SharePoint exploit with code execution should trigger host-level containment, persistence hunting, credential and exposed MachineKey rotation, and TTP-driven investigation rather than remediation limited to the initial exploit or known IOCs.

Kaspersky products detect the threats mentioned in this article as:

• Trojan.MSIL.Agent.gen
• Trojan.Win64.DLLhijack.cdp

Indicator of compromise

Artem Stryzhak was sentenced to 70 months in prison after pleading guilty to using Nefilim ransomware in attacks.

The post Ukrainian Hive and Nefilim Ransomware Affiliate Gets 70 Months in US Prison appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Table Of Contents

Table of Contents

Introducing Ransomware in the Age of AI: A Survival Guide for Defenders

Understanding the Modern Ransomware Attack Lifecycle

Build a More Proactive Defense Against Ransomware

More

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Ransomware operators are scaling their attacks, and the barriers to entry continue to fall. In the first half of 2026, Flashpoint identified 6,256 ransomware attacks across industries, representing a 45% increase between 2025 and 2026, as Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) operations expanded and threat actors increasingly leveraged AI, stolen credentials, and vulnerability exploits to accelerate their campaigns.

The impact is widespread. Manufacturing accounted for 18% of observed attacks, followed by business services and consulting (13%) and healthcare (9%). Meanwhile, prolific ransomware groups such as Qilin and Akira continue to demonstrate the scale at which these operations can function.

Understanding how ransomware attacks develop, and where they can be interrupted, is critical for defenders.

Introducing Ransomware in the Age of AI: A Survival Guide for Defenders

Flashpoint’s new guide, Ransomware in the Age of AI: A Survival Guide for Defenders, provides cyber threat intelligence professionals, threat hunters, and security leaders with a practical look at the modern ransomware attack lifecycle, from initial reconnaissance and access to incident response and recovery.

Drawing on Flashpoint’s primary-source intelligence and analysis of evolving threat actor tactics, the guide explores how organizations can identify opportunities to disrupt attacks before they escalate, strengthen incident response, and reduce the risk of repeat compromise.

Access the guide to learn:

• How modern ransomware attacks unfold: Follow the attack lifecycle, from reconnaissance, phishing, and initial access through lateral movement, encryption, and ransom negotiations.
• Where defenders can intervene: Understand how compromised credential monitoring, vulnerability intelligence, and visibility into underground activity can help identify threats before attackers reach critical systems.
• How AI is reshaping ransomware operations: Explore how AI-enabled capabilities, commoditized tooling, and RaaS ecosystems are changing the economics and execution of ransomware attacks.
• How to strengthen response and recovery: Learn strategies for containing active incidents, restoring operations, improving cross-team coordination, and reducing exposure to repeat attacks.

“In H1 2026, Flashpoint observed a 45% surge in ransomware activity, with critical sectors like manufacturing, business consulting, and healthcare taking the brunt of these attacks. As RaaS syndicates like Qilin and Akira scale their operations alongside a 27% rise in infostealers, access is becoming faster and cheaper. Effective defense requires grounding incident response in primary-source intelligence across every phase of the attack lifecycle.”

Ian GrayVP of Intelligence, Flashpoint

Understanding the Modern Ransomware Attack Lifecycle

Ransomware attacks rarely begin with encryption. Long before systems are locked or ransom demands appear, threat actors may be gathering intelligence on potential targets, exploiting exposed vulnerabilities, or acquiring stolen credentials through underground marketplaces.

Flashpoint observed a 27% increase in infostealer operations in H1 2026 compared to H1 2025, underscoring the growing role of compromised identities in the ransomware ecosystem. Stolen credentials and session data can provide attackers with access to organizational environments, potentially allowing them to bypass traditional defenses and establish a foothold.

These initial access methods are increasingly interconnected with broader criminal operations. RaaS groups can leverage specialized tools and services throughout the attack chain, while AI-enabled capabilities offer additional opportunities to automate and accelerate certain activities.

This creates multiple opportunities for defenders to act. Intelligence about exposed credentials, emerging exploitation activity, and threat actor behavior can help security teams identify risks earlier and prioritize defensive action before an intrusion progresses.

The guide examines these opportunities across the ransomware lifecycle, outlining how proactive intelligence and coordinated response can help organizations minimize operational disruption and strengthen resilience.

Build a More Proactive Defense Against Ransomware

As ransomware operations continue to evolve, organizations need visibility into the threats targeting their environments and the intelligence to respond at every stage of an attack.

From identifying compromised credentials and monitoring emerging threats to containing incidents and preventing repeat attacks, a lifecycle-based approach helps security teams make more informed decisions before, during, and after a ransomware incident.

Get the Ransomware in the Age of AI: A Survival Guide for Defenders to explore the modern ransomware attack lifecycle and learn how Flashpoint’s threat intelligence can help your organization anticipate, disrupt, and recover from ransomware attacks.

The post Ransomware in the Age of AI: How Defenders Can Break the Attack Chain appeared first on Flashpoint.

U.S. federal investigators pursuing the ShinyHunters hacking group that recently stole highly sensitive data from the FBI have identified executives at two different ransomware negotiation firms who maintained unusually close relations with the extortion group, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. Sources close to the investigation say one of the executives in the United States even helped ShinyHunters operate a website that pressured victims into paying a ransom.

Hackers aligned with ShinyHunters have claimed credit for dozens of major data breaches since 2019, when the group was primarily operated by cybercriminals living in France. As those original members were arrested or jailed one by one, control over the ShinyHunters brand eventually passed to “Rey,” identified last year as a teenage hacker from Amman, Jordan. According to the FBI, ShinyHunters has extorted more than $70 million from victims so far this year.

In late September, ShinyHunters hacked the FBI recruitment website fbijobs.gov and taunted the agency by threatening to publish the stolen files, which reportedly included medical and psychological records, Social Security numbers and home addresses, and information about each employee’s unit and specialization.

The FBI jobs site hack has prompted the agency to move with uncommon speed to arrest, detain and question people who had any communications with Rey or other ShinyHunters suspects. Reuters reported on October 3 that Rey had been detained by Jordanian authorities and was cooperating with the FBI.

Rey was able to assume control over the hacking group because one of its alleged senior members had just been nabbed. On the evening of September 15, 2026, authorities in the Netherlands arrested convicted hacker and ShinyHunters suspect Pepijn van der Stap. Dutch police reportedly used flash-bang grenades in an effort to stun and apprehend Van der Stap as he was logged in to various online accounts.

According to a source close to the investigation, the authorities arrested Van der Stap while he was using his Signal instant messaging account, which allowed them to read recent communications with frequent contacts — including ransomware negotiators based in Canada and the United States.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the matter told KrebsOnSecurity that Van der Stap’s messages were the key to unraveling a murder-for-hire plot that emerged immediately following his arrest. The Dutch news outlet RTL reported last month the two murders were allegedly to be committed abroad, and that there are indications Van der Stap gave the order for the attacks (there is no indication those orders were ever carried out).

On October 9, KrebsOnSecurity broke the news that the FBI arrested a 54-year-old Canadian cybersecurity executive named Edward Dubrovsky in connection with the ShinyHunters investigation. Dubrovsky, who recently published a book on handling cyber extortion that recommended always engaging with the hackers, was charged with threatening to disclose stolen or hacked data and interfering with interstate commerce through extortion, according to court records. Politico reports prosecutors have asked that Dubrovsky remain in custody pending trial, and that records related to his case remain under seal.

A source close to the investigation told KrebsOnSecurity that Van der Stap’s Signal messages showed he had frequent conversations with Mr. Dubrovsky and with at least one executive at a large U.S.-based consulting firm, and that these executives often knew the details about new ShinyHunters victims before the victims themselves had even learned of the breach.

That source shared another potentially explosive finding by federal investigators: the Dutch hacker’s chats showed Mr. Dubrovsky knew ShinyHunters had stolen highly sensitive data from FBI servers, and that he never informed the bureau of the data breach prior to ShinyHunters threatening on Twitter/X to publish the agency’s deeply personal personnel files.

SHINYWIRE

KrebsOnSecurity has learned from two sources close to the ShinyHunters probe that FBI investigators believe at least one executive at a U.S.-based consulting firm played an active role in operating the now-defunct ShinyHunters victim extortion website “shinywire[.]com.” KrebsOnSecurity is not naming the U.S. company or the suspected executive(s) for now because they have not yet been charged with a crime, but it is a prestigious firm with more than 1,000 associates.

A section of the homepage for the now-defunct Shinywire website.

The Shinywire website was active from approximately May 3, 2026 until October 16 and had entries for nearly 100 organizations hacked by ShinyHunters. Each entry urged victims to engage with the cybercrime group and discuss terms for payment. The pages also included samples of stolen files and promised those files would be published online if the victim ignored their demands.

The following screenshot shows a cached portion of the Shinywire extortion page for Intuitive Surgical, an American medical technology company that was breached in March 2026 after an employee fell for a targeted phishing email.

The Shinywire website, as indexed by urlscan.io. This listing is an extortion demand targeting Intuitive Surgical, an American medical technology company breached in March 2026 by a targeted phishing email attack that compromised an employee’s credentials.

Victim organizations that refused to engage or negotiate after seven days would find all of their stolen data published on the ShinyHunters victim shaming blog (a website that is only reachable via the anonymity network Tor).

In a story published October 15, The Globe and Mail wrote that a few months before Edward Dubrovsky was arrested by the FBI, the Canadian cybersecurity executive alleged in court documents he had become collateral damage in a campaign by a former business partner to “destroy” another industry executive.

The story noted that Dubrovsky filed the lawsuit in Ontario this year against Daniel Tobok, the former chief executive of Cypfer, a cybersecurity firm founded in Toronto with offices in the U.S., Britain, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, and Mexico. The two first became business partners in 2017 and later developed Cypfer together, where Mr. Dubrovsky was a managing partner and chief operating officer. But by 2024, the two had a falling out, with Dubrovsky accusing Tobok of gradually excluding him from business matters and making “increasingly capricious business decisions.”

Mr. Tobok reportedly denied the allegations and filed a counterclaim, accusing Mr. Dubrovsky of accessing confidential information and unfairly competing with Cypfer through work at another firm called CyberSteward Inc. He also said Mr. Dubrovsky has misrepresented himself as a Cypfer founder, and is not a shareholder.

GHOSTBYTE

According to interviews with several former colleagues of Mr. Tobok, as far back as eight years ago he was known to ransomware purveyors by a particular nickname: Ghostbyte. In 2018, a Canadian company was hacked by Dharma, a prolific Russian-language ransomware affiliate program that first surfaced in 2016. The victim company told the Dharma ransomware representative they were leaning toward paying because some of the files were unrecoverable after being locked, but that they needed a better guarantee that Dharma would keep their word if paid.

A redacted copy of the Dharma rep’s reply is pictured below, and it shows the ransomware group urged the victim to contact a person at a Canadian IT firm that helps companies seeking such guarantees. The Dharma rep recommended the victim contact the email address ghostbyte@tutanota.com.

“If you want guarantees, you can write to the IT company,” the Dharma reply advised. “Take the phone and negotiate with them. This IT company often solves such problems in Canada. You can contact them and sign a contract for services. You’ll still have to pay.”

An email reply from the Dharma ransomware group to a victim, recommending they contact an email address that is connected to Mr. Tobok.

It’s unclear if Mr. Tobok ever used that Ghostbyte address offered by the Dharma representative, and he has not responded to multiple requests for comment. However, the breach tracking service Constella Intelligence finds an email address Mr. Tobok has frequently used — dtobok@me.com — is associated with two online accounts where the chosen username was “ghostbyte,” including a Snapchat account.

Incidentally, Constella also finds the Dharma rep’s email address luckygoodlucky@tuta.io is associated with a cryptocurrency address that processed 38 transactions totaling 43 bitcoin, ~$3.5 million at today’s value (the most recent transaction for this wallet is dated February 2019).

In a statement shared on October 14, Cypfer said the company’s business does not include making or facilitating ransomware payments, and that Cypfer learned of Dubrovsky’s arrest when the news first broke in the media.

“We had no prior knowledge of Mr. Dubrovsky’s arrest,” a spokesperson told KrebsOnSecurity via email. “CYPFER has not received any outreach from law enforcement and, to our knowledge, is not the target of any law enforcement investigation.”

The statement said CyberSteward and Cypfer are separate companies with no officers, directors or employees in common, and that Cypfer was recently acquired by the Apros Group, a holding company led by Jason Hogg, a former FBI special agent and former CEO of Aon Cyber Solutions Group. In 2020, Aon aquired Cytelligence, a security consulting firm where Mr. Tobok was founder and CEO and Mr. Dubrovsky was a managing partner.

CONFLICTING INTERESTS

It is not illegal in the United States to pay hackers for an encryption key to unlock servers infected with ransomware, or in exchange for a promise to delete any stolen files and refrain from publishing them online. While victim organizations can land in legal hot water if they pay a ransom to a group that is sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department, ShinyHunters is not among the ransomware groups currently sanctioned by the United States or by any other government.

Experts say ransomware victims are typically directed by their insurance provider to work with a specific incident response firm. But not all cyber forensics and breach response companies will agree to facilitate payments to ransomware groups on behalf of their clients. As a result, once victim firms make a decision to pay, the firms that eschew rewarding extortionists are invariably replaced by companies that have no such qualms.

In December 2024, ShinyHunters began extorting the education technology company PowerSchool, stealing private information on 62 million students and 9.5 million teachers in the U.S. and Canada. PowerSchool reportedly paid a $2.85 million ransom demand, and a “frequently asked questions” statement (PDF) about the breach says PowerSchool was assisted in that effort by CyberSteward (ShinyHunters affiliate Matthew Lane, 20, of Sterling, Mass., was sentenced in November 2025 to four years in prison for his admitted role in the PowerSchool hack).

But that ransom payment did not stop future extortion attempts using the same stolen data. By May 2025, individual school districts were reportedly receiving separate ransom demands using samples of the same stolen files. While nobody has alleged ShinyHunters was behind the second wave of extortion against PowerSchool users, the incident drives home the reality that there is no technical way to verify the threat actors have deleted the stolen data as promised, or prevent others from abusing the same records.

A number of leading cyber incident response firms, including Coveware and Unit 221B, have consistently warned victims against paying ShinyHunters, noting that “destroyed” victim data is often kept, resold or used to extort the company’s clients directly later on.

The FBI echoed those sentiments in an alert on May 15, 2026 advising victims against paying the ShinyHunters group. Meanwhile, ShinyHunters members have been harassing and threatening employees at Coveware and Unit 221B for offering this advice.

The following screenshots show just how annoyed the ShinyHunters leaders were with Coveware’s relentless advice against paying the group. The first image is from a conversation on May 6, 2026 that took place between the group’s main account on Telegram and a co-conspirator. In that chat, snippets of which were shared with KrebsOnSecurity by a trusted source, ShinyHunters complained that Coveware was harming the group’s payment rates.

The operator of the ShinyHunters account on Telegram speaking privately with a co-conspirator and complaining that Coveware was harming their business.

“Go on my website, majority of those companies would’ve paid if it weren’t for Coveware giving them misinformation,” the ShinyHunters account wrote. “Someone (100% Coveware) is going out of their way to make sure i am not paid.”

In another conversation on April 11, 2026, the ShinyHunters Telegram account privately said they were trying to “eliminate the problem,” which they said was Coveware. Coveware declined to comment for this story.

“I’m sure the company will pay but in this specific case I am aware of Coveware and their involvement, and I’ve probably been not getting a lot of other negotiations mostly likely because Coveware keeps getting involved,” the ShinyHunters account bemoaned.

The operator of the ShinyHunters account on Telegram telling a co-conspirator they were “trying to eliminate the problem,” which they identified as Coveware advising victims not to pay the cybercrime group.

Mark Camillo is chief executive at CyberAcuView, an industry group founded in 2021 by a consortium of major cyber insurance carriers. Camillo said some firms charge a flat retainer fee, while those that specialize in helping companies negotiate a ransom payment tend to charge a percentage of the total ransom amount paid.

That latter dynamic, he said, is an inherent conflict of interest, as the negotiator has every incentive to make things more favorable to the attackers because they are financially incentivized to negotiate and pay out, and to not negotiate down on the price.

“It has come to the industry’s attention that many of the ransomware payers charge a percentage of the final payment which may or may not be disclosed,” Camillo said. “This makes no sense if they are also the negotiator. There needs to be more transparency in the process as no one in the ecosystem should be profiting purely on the size of the ransomware transaction or payment itself.”

Camillo said the firms doing this work would argue the fees are needed because there may be unexpectedly higher costs to secure larger quantities of cryptocurrency or more risk carrying the float, and because cryptocurrency exchanges may charge higher fees for high risk transactions.

“There definitely needs to be more visibility around the transaction and clarity on the increasing value of the crypto and the exchange’s percent in the transaction to get to the bottom of this and remove any misaligned incentives,” he said.

In recent months, the U.S. Department of Justice has prosecuted a number of ransomware negotiators alleged to have conspired with cybercriminals to defraud their clients. On October 7, the DOJ charged MonsterCloud CEO Zohar Pinhasi, 50, with wire fraud and conspiracy for allegedly charging customers to remediate ransomware attacks without paying the hackers. According to charging documents, Pinhasi secretly went behind his customers’ backs and paid hackers anyway, paying ransomware groups $8 million while charging customers $19 million.

In July, Angelo Martino, a 41-year-old ransomware negotiator from Land O’Lakes, Florida, was sentenced to 70 months in prison for conspiring with the Blackcat/ALPHV ransomware group to extort multiple victims. According to the DOJ, Martino was paid by BlackCat attackers to provide confidential information about the negotiating position and strategy of his employer’s clients and enable the ransomware actors to maximize the ransoms paid by the victims.

A teenager from Amman, Jordan suspected of leading the prolific data theft and extortion group ShinyHunters has been detained and is reportedly cooperating with the FBI to identify other members of the hacking gang. KrebsOnSecurity has learned that the suspect, who uses the hacker handle “Rey,” was detained as ShinyHunters was in the process of extorting a business unit recently divested by the global aerospace company Boeing, which manufactures the fleet of planes used by the employer of Rey’s father — Royal Jordanian Airlines.

The logo for Jeppesen ForeFlight, a business unit divested last year by the aerospace firm Boeing.

On October 3, Reuters cited three unnamed sources saying a suspected ShinyHunters member in Amman named Saif Al-din Khader was detained by Jordanian authorities and was cooperating with the FBI. KrebsOnSecurity identified Rey as Khader in a November 2025 profile, in which the young man admitted working with multiple ransomware groups.

Rey was featured again in a September 28 exclusive about the Dutch police arresting 24-year-old convicted cybercriminal Pepijn van der Stap on suspicion of aiding in data thefts and extortions by ShinyHunters. The story noted that immediately following the Dutchman’s arrest on the evening of September 15, Rey assumed control over the ShinyHunters brand and boasted publicly about stealing highly sensitive data from the FBI and extorting the ransomware group Cl0p.

Rey taunted both the FBI and Cl0p with memes posted to his longtime account on Twitter/X, while simultaneously including images of the avatar used by Van Der Stap’s former hacker alias “Umbreon” in an apparent attempt to frame the Dutchman for both hacks.

A taunting meme uploaded to Twitter/X by Rey on Sept. 22. A giant sized version of the Pokemon character Umbreon can be seen in the bottom left.

As noted in our September 28 report, ShinyHunters gained access to the FBI site and other victims by exploiting a vulnerability (CVE-2026-35273) in PeopleSoft, a software-as-a-service platform from the tech giant Oracle that is broadly used by companies to manage hiring and human resources, benefits and payroll. Oracle quickly issued a fix for CVE-2026-35273, which ShinyHunters first began exploiting as a zero-day in June, and at the time Mandiant released web application firewall rules intended for organizations that couldn’t apply the security update quickly enough.

ShinyHunters told BleepingComputer in June that the original goal behind exploiting the PeopleSoft vulnerability was to breach the FBI’s own PeopleSoft database, but the hackers said those attacks were unsuccessful for some reason. In recent weeks, however, ShinyHunters turned to a well-known URL-encoding trick to bypass Mandiant’s suggested web application firewall rules.

In a report released Sept. 25, security experts at Mandiant and the Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) confirmed that ShinyHunters had mass-exploited the PeopleSoft vulnerability to steal data from dozens of systems across a range of industries, including higher education, technology, healthcare, agriculture, transportation and government.

Reuters reported October 5 that the FBI has removed a contractor at Accenture over their failure to patch the FBI recruitment website hacked by ShinyHunters, which exposed sensitive data on more than 5,000 FBI personnel, including each’s person’s unit and specialization, as well as medical and psychiatric records.

‘REY’ MEANS KING, AS IN ROYAL

According to two sources familiar with the ShinyHunters investigation, a navigation and digital aviation unit recently divested by the global aerospace company Boeing was among the victims that ShinyHunters was in the process of extorting when Rey was apprehended by Jordanian authorities.

Those sources said the FBI’s investigation into ShinyHunters gained renewed urgency with the group’s attempted extortion of the former Boeing unit, which allegedly included the theft of sensitive information that sources said could pose operational safety and security risks.

In a brief statement shared with KrebsOnSecurity, Boeing acknowledged the extortion attempts by ShinyHunters, and said the incident concerned data stolen from Jeppesen ForeFlight, a subsidiary that Boeing sold in November 2025 to the private equity firm Thoma Bravo for $10.55 billion.

“We are aware of claims by a threat actor regarding data allegedly associated with Boeing and our former subsidiary Jeppesen ForeFlight,” a Boeing spokesperson shared. “We are actively reviewing the matter with the Jeppesen ForeFlight team.”

A spokesperson for Jeppesen ForeFlight shared a written statement in response to questions, saying the company has seen no impact on their end. “Based on our investigation to date into this claim and proactive security posture, there was no impact to our operations or products.”

Rey’s alleged involvement in attempting to extort the former Boeing unit is noteworthy because there is strong evidence that his father works for Royal Jordanian Airlines, which is mostly controlled by the Jordanian government and operates its long-haul fleet on passenger planes built by Boeing. Rey claimed on Telegram in early 2025 that his father was an airline pilot, although that could not be independently confirmed.

However, as noted in our November 2025 profile of Rey, his family’s shared computer was at one point compromised by password-stealing malware, and the data collected by that malware clearly shows Rey’s father used the same credentials to log in at multiple online portals for Royal Jordanian Airlines employees.

Royal Jordanian Airlines has not yet responded to a request for comment. In advance of our September 28 story, KrebsOnSecurity once again emailed Rey’s father to seek comment and update him on his son’s alleged activities. Neither of the Khaders have responded. But just hours after that request was sent, Rey began deleting his various social media accounts, including the Twitter/X account he previously used to taunt the FBI, Cl0p, and other ShinyHunters victims.

Rey may have nixed many of his social media profiles, but his cybersecurity blog on GitHub somehow escaped the purge, and it shows that Rey was fixated on the leaders of the Cl0p ransomware group. In March 2026, Rey’s blog featured a lengthy post that identified two Russian men as the core developers and hackers behind Cl0p.

Rey’s blog on GitHub. This post doxes two Russian men as the core operators behind Cl0p, one of the oldest and most established ransomware groups still in operation today.

MURDER FOR HIRE?

Meanwhile, news outlets in the Netherlands reported explosive new allegations leveled at Van der Stap, whose supposed personal transformation from convicted to reformed hacker has been widely covered in the tech news media. The Dutch daily RTL reported on Sept. 29 that investigators suspect Van der Stap tried to orchestrate at least two murders. According to RTL, the murders were allegedly to be committed abroad, and there are indications Van der Stap gave the order for these attacks.

Van der Stap was released from prison after serving the better part of a four year sentence for data theft and extortion activity that prosecutors said netted between €1.5 million and €2.7 million. In an interview with KrebsOnSecurity on September 9, Van der Stap described his new role as “offensive security lead” at the Dutch cybersecurity company Neo Security, saying the job involved probing client networks for security vulnerabilities.

Neo Security’s owner Benjamin Korper told Reuters he has hired an outside firm to investigate whether Van der Stap had hacked Neo Security or its customers, but that so far investigators have found no evidence he acted against his employer or clients. Korper said Dutch forensic investigators visited his office on September 15, the night Van der ⁠Stap was arrested in a dramatic police raid that reportedly involved flash bang grenades.

A screenshot of a Sept 16 story by the Dutch news outlet at5.nl, describing a police raid on Van Der Stap’s residence that reportedly used flash-bang grenades.

Prior to his first arrest in 2023, Van der Stap was working as a software engineer at the Amsterdam-based cybersecurity startup Hadrian, while volunteering at the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure (DIVD) — even as he was hacking into and extorting a number of large organizations.

When asked in a recent interview why anyone should believe the word of a self-described “reformed” cybercriminal who had so casually deceived countless friends, co-workers and journalists for years, Van der Stap replied that his work spoke for itself and there was nothing he could say that would convince his worst critics.

“You can throw a bunch of nice words at someone, but you can’t convince them if they don’t want to be convinced,” Van der Stap told KrebsOnSecurity on Sept. 9. “I’m doing what I can to repay victims, and that’s all I can do. If someone doesn’t want to believe me, then that’s on them.”

FRANCHISING AND BURNING A BRAND

Cybercriminals aligned with ShinyHunters have been responsible for dozens of data breaches involving billions of stolen records, and breaches claimed by the group stretch back to at least 2019. But experts say the people recently operating behind the ShinyHunters name are not the same core members that populated the group in its early days, most of whom are French citizens who have been arrested (if not also imprisoned) on at least one prior occasion for alleged cybercrime activity.

More to the point, ShinyHunters has become something of a franchise. Think the Dread Pirate Roberts character in the 1980s cult movie classic “The Princess Bride,” only succession by death is replaced with succession by arrest, and there can be multiple simultaneous Dread Pirate Robertses. Sources close to the investigation say the FBI is focusing on a remaining handful of cybercriminal freelancers or affiliates who have been feeding the group stolen credentials to various software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms used by major companies in exchange for a cut of any data ransoms later paid by victims.

In the days after the news broke of Van der Stap’s arrest, a cybercrime-focused chat server on Telegram that was allegedly operated by Rey erupted with hot takes, with most participants heaping ridicule on the teenage hacker after he publicly backed down from threats against the FBI and Cl0p, and again when the ShinyHunters’s darknet website suddenly went offline. Several commentators accused Rey of resurrecting the ShinyHunters brand after its core members were rounded up in France, and making a mockery of the group’s name and reputation ever since.

“He bought the old forum PGP key and used it to make new Breachforum websites and Telegram channels larping as ShinyHunters to ransom companies and then sell the used data or resell his forum when he goes broke,” one member recounted.

A relatively new Telegram channel called “The Battle” has been doxing and needling Rey and other alleged ShinyHunters members for several weeks, and it has gained a considerable readership among the cybercrime communities operating on Telegram. One of the coordinators of that harassment campaign repeatedly portrayed Rey as clueless greenhorn who sought to ride the coattails of a cybercriminal brand that has long enjoyed a reputation for ruthlessly selling or publishing data stolen from victim companies who refuse to give in to extortion demands.

“Rey (Saif Al-Din Khader) made a serious mistake when he started pretending to be a member of ShinyHunters,” wrote the administrators of The Battle server on Telegram. “That group had already been dismantled, with many of its members either arrested or imprisoned, yet Rey still chose to use its name while carrying out his crimes. We’re aware of claims that [Rey] caused over $200 million in damages and helped around 5–6 friend groups in the community make money by using Shiny Hunters group aliases to negotiate deals for a 25–30% cut over the past few months.”

In an interview with The Register, ShinyHunters claimed they hacked the FBI to counter the agency’s narrative in a May 2026 alert that advised victims against paying a ransom to the group, which came off looking unprofessional and capricious in the FBI’s advisory.

A flash notice on ShinyHunters released by the FBI on May 15, 2026.

The public notice warned the group has been known to pursue a number of different victim harassment strategies, from sending threatening text messages and phone calls to victims and their family members to in some cases swatting victims. The FBI warned ShinyHunters members “may also falsely claim to have sensitive or compromising information, including embarrassing photographs or videos of victims, which frequently do not exist.”

The hackers told The Register their attack on the FBI “demonstrated our technical capabilities and directly refuted the misinformation disseminated by the FBI, journalists, and industry researchers.” At the same time, the group’s leaders seemed to acknowledge that the FBI’s warning materially harmed their prospects for convincing victims to pay, saying “this was fundamentally a public relations and marketing initiative for our business.”

Many businesses still fear ransomware attacks. But is this threat still as relevant today? A few years ago, at the peak of ransomware’s popularity, the term “ransomware” was practically synonymous with malicious encryption of data. But in reality blocking access to information had long been little more than a symbolic gesture. In a May Securelist post on shifts in the ransomware threat landscape, our experts noted that in 2026, attackers are encrypting company data for ransom less and less frequently. Here’s a striking example: while investigating an incident, Kaspersky’s Global Emergency Response Team (GERT) uncovered the PAYLOAD extortion campaign, whose operators didn’t even bother using ransomware. They took a different route instead.

In this campaign, instead of using ransomware, the attackers seized control of the Active Directory environment, and created a malicious group policy object (GPO). They used it to deploy a ransom note, change wallpapers, and lock screens on workstations, and set up a banner to display at system login. Naturally, they also disabled local administrator accounts while they were at it. This move let the attackers demonstrate their presence in the compromised infrastructure and prove they’d accessed confidential information — just as effectively as encryption would have. Detailed information about this incident, along with indicators of compromise, can be found in the same Securelist post. What interests us more, though, is the trend of abandoning encryption.

Why data encryption has lost relevance

Let’s start with the fact that in a large company with thousands of infected computers, decrypting data is an extremely effort-intensive process. Restoring data from backups, which has become common practice largely thanks to mass ransomware attacks, is far easier than waiting for criminals to hand over a key, hoping it’s genuine, and trusting that the ransomware itself didn’t have bugs that made the data unrecoverable. As a result, cybercriminals found it harder and harder over time to actually collect a ransom for the decryption key.

Attackers tried to adapt to this shift. Alongside encryption, they increasingly began stealing confidential data and threatening to publish it. Publishing confidential information puts a company’s reputation, its security, and the safety of its business partners at risk. This is especially true if the data includes people’s personal information: more than 140 countries around the world have data protection laws, so a leak puts an organization at a fairly high risk of a hefty fine. Sometimes that’s far scarier than simply losing data, and no backup can help with that.

Data exfiltration has another advantage from the attackers’ perspective: it’s usually much harder to detect than malware activity. File encryption, for instance, triggers a spike in disk activity that endpoint protection tools pick up fairly quickly. By contrast, data exfiltration is easy to disguise as normal traffic. This is precisely what the ShinyHunters group exploits, building its attacks around the standard OAuth mechanism. On top of that, attackers can steal data much quicker if they don’t bother with encryption, which also makes it harder to catch the threat in time.

As a result, encryption has become a kind of calling card — proof that the attackers had access to the data. So cybercriminals finally decided to drop this optional step altogether.

What businesses should do

Standard cyberhygiene practices can help protect against a wide range of extortion schemes — regardless of whether or not they involve encryption:

• Run regular, automatic backups. By storing backups on two types of media — physical and cloud — a business need not fear serious disruption to its operations. After all, the downtime required to restore from backups is nothing compared with the consequences of losing all of its data.
• Install patches and updates promptly. For attackers, vulnerabilities remain one of the main entry points into infrastructure. To reduce the risk, we recommend setting up automated update management for operating systems, software, and drivers. It’s also important to scan systems regularly for security gaps, and triage the found vulnerabilities with a focus on critical flaws. Specialized vulnerability management solutions can help with this.
• Strengthen endpoint protection. Set up multi-factor authentication for every system in an infrastructure, and deploy a reliable workstation and server security solution. A SIEM or EDR solution can help security specialists gain full visibility into events, and respond to incidents quickly.
• Monitor external perimeter. Regularly check the company’s infrastructure (servers, databases, clouds, and legacy subdomains) for open ports and services exposed to the internet.
• Adhere to the principle of least privilege. This means giving users, systems, and processes only the access privileges they need to do their jobs. Revoke unused privileges, and fully disable access for former employees.
• Invest in staff training. Attackers still exploit the human element to break into a company’s infrastructure. Raising threat awareness among employees can keep them from falling victim to phishing.

Activity associated with Storm-2570, a ransomware affiliate linked to multiple ransomware payloads, illustrates how tracking and responding to ransomware attacks by payload alone can obscure the affiliates carrying out intrusions and the recurring behaviors that defenders can use to detect and disrupt them. Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed Storm-2570 using consistent post-compromise tools and techniques across deployments involving Qilin, DragonForce, Anubis, and BERT ransomware. Across multiple investigations, Storm-2570 has maintained largely uniform tradecraft, infrastructure overlaps, and repeated use of the same remote access and cloud exfiltration tooling despite operating across multiple ransomware ecosystems.

These findings reinforce the value of examining threat actor behavior across the attack chain rather than treating each ransomware payload as an isolated activity set. Recurring remote access, credential access, lateral movement, security tampering, and data exfiltration activity can help defenders connect related intrusions and respond before ransomware deployment, even when the final payload changes.

In this blog post, we delve into the attack techniques attributed to Storm-2570. While Storm-2570’s methodology aligns with the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of many tracked ransomware actors, analysis of their post-compromise tactics provides essential insights into how organizations can harden and defend against ransomware threat actors, informing opportunities to disrupt attackers even if they have gained initial access to a network. At the end of this blog, we also provide a comprehensive recommendation section with detection details.

Who is Storm-2570?

Storm-2570 is a ransomware affiliate that Microsoft Threat Intelligence has tracked since April 2025. We assess that Storm-2570 has operated across multiple ransomware as a service (RaaS) ecosystems, including Qilin, DragonForce, Anubis, and BERT.

To date, Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed Storm-2570 in multiple investigated intrusions affecting organizations in United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Spain, Netherlands, and Puerto Rico, including healthcare and public health, education, government agencies and services, financial services, energy, consumer retail, Information technology (IT), food and agriculture, consumer services, commercial facilities, non-government organization (NGO), chemicals, critical manufacturing, and transportation.

Unlike actors that consistently support a single ransomware operation, Storm-2570 appears to be a cross-ecosystem threat actor that works with multiple ransomware groups and shifts between operations as opportunities arise, giving the threat actor the flexibility to use and deploy multiple families and improve opportunities for payouts. As a result, organizations could encounter the same actor, tools, and intrusion methods despite different ransomware payloads being deployed.

Storm-2570 attack chain: From initial foothold to impact

While the method through which Storm-2570 gains initial access remains unconfirmed, observed intrusion chains indicate subsequent use of remote management tooling and hands-on-keyboard activity to progress toward credential access, lateral movement, exfiltration, and ransomware deployment.

Across incidents, Microsoft has observed the use of commodity tools in the pre-ransom attack stage even when the ransomware payload changed. These tools include:

• Remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools, including Atera, MeshAgent, ScreenConnect, Splashtop, Remotely_Agent, and NinjaRMM
• Discovery and lateral movement tools, including NetScan, Nmap, PsExec, Impacket, NetExec, and Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) batch scripts
• Data collection and exfiltration tools, including s5cmd and Rclone

These tools enable remote administration, command execution, persistence, and tunneling or proxy access.

Frequent use of remote management tooling across the attack chain

MeshAgent, a remote device management software, stands out as one of Storm-2570’s most frequently observed remote access and execution tools across multiple intrusions. Rather than appearing as a one-off utility, MeshAgent repeatedly shows up at key points in Storm-2570 attack chains, often after the actor has gained access and is preparing to expand control, run commands, deploy additional tooling, or move toward ransomware impact. In several cases, Storm-2570 used MeshAgent along with MeshCentral as an operational bridge between initial hands-on-keyboard activity and later-stage actions, such as account manipulation, discovery, credential access, security tampering, and ransomware deployment.

Many intrusions tracked by Microsoft have shown Storm-2570 tailoring MeshAgent deployments to the compromised environment. The actor renames MeshAgent-related binaries or services with victim-themed names, likely to make the tool appear more legitimate in the environment. For example, Storm-2570 renames the variant of the meshagent64 RMM tool to include the name of the compromised organization, such as meshagent64-[organization name].exe and uses Base64-encoding to obfuscate the commands being executed. In one such intrusion, MeshAgent was used alongside NinjaRMM before the activity progressed to ntdsutil for credential dumping, network scanning, and Qilin deployment.

Storm-2570 uses a diverse set of remote access tools rather than relying on a single capability. The threat actor rotates among commercially available RMM platforms, remote desktop components, and tunneling utilities, often deploying multiple tools during the same intrusion. For example, Storm-2570 uses Atera to install agents and execute interactive commands, while ngrok and Cloudflared.exe expose RDP services or establish persistent outbound tunnels. Storm-2570 uses AteraAgent to issue commands and to further download and install Splashtop Streamer in compromised environments. Splashtop appears to be the interactive remote control component delivered through Atera, giving the threat actor hands-on keyboard access. The actor also uses tools such as ScreenConnect for command execution and account or domain reconnaissance and installs Remotely_Agent as a persistent remote management service.

Use of tunneling utilities for persistent remote access

Storm-2570 also pairs remote access tooling with tunneling utilities such as Cloudflared.exe to create resilient outbound access paths. In one intrusion, Storm-2570 installed MeshAgent and later created a persistent Cloudflare Tunnel service on the victim host. The tunnel was configured to run automatically as a service under LocalSystem, allowing the threat actor to maintain an encrypted outbound channel from inside the network. This type of tunnel can help bypass inbound firewall restrictions and provide covert remote access for follow-on activity.

Discovery and credential access

Post-compromise, Storm-2570 routinely conducts internal network discovery using tools such as NetScan, SoftPerfect Network Scanner Portable, and Nmap, alongside native discovery commands and file-searching activity. These activities are used to identify reachable hosts and services, map internal networks and remote systems, and locate systems, network shares, and files that may facilitate data collection, credential access, or encryption operations.

For credential access and harvesting, Storm-2570 uses tools like Mimikatz, LaZagne, and pypykatz. Storm-2570 also uses ntdsutil in intrusions for NTDS.dit credential dumping, a credential theft technique against Active Directory domain credentials. The ntdsutil command usage pattern is consistent with creating an Install From Media (IFM) copy of Active Directory database material. In an intrusion context, attackers can use this to obtain NTDS.dit and related registry hives for offline extraction of password hashes and credential material.

The command uses the legitimate Windows ntdsutil.exe to activate the NTDS Active Directory instance and create a full IFM backup in C:\Windows\Temp\<XXXXXXXXX>.

Storm-2570 uses this command to dump or stage Active Directory database NTDS.dit and supporting registry hive material, then copy it off-host and potentially extract domain credential hashes offline, indicating that the actor has high-privilege access to a victim’s domain controller:

Defense evasion

After acquiring privileged credentials, Storm-2570 uses defense evasion tactics preceding ransomware deployment, including antivirus tampering and the modification of Microsoft Defender settings and Defender exclusions. In multiple observed intrusions, Storm-2570 disabled real-time monitoring, added Defender exclusions for C:\PerfLogs to weaken endpoint detections, and modified registry values under Microsoft Defender service keys to further impair protections.

These tactics are consistent across Storm-2570 ransomware intrusions involving Qilin, DragonForce, and Anubis deployment, including cases where the actor used registry changes to alter DisableAntiSpyware, DisableRealtimeMonitoring, and WinDefend service behavior.

Lateral movement and deployment preparation

Storm-2570 moves into lateral movement and deployment preparation phase typically by using a mix of legitimate administrative tooling, offensive frameworks, and remote execution utilities.

Across multiple investigated intrusions, Storm-2570 was observed leveraging PsExec, Impacket, NetExec, RDP batch scripts, and admin shares to reach additional systems, execute commands remotely, and stage tooling across the environment. The actor uses these capabilities to facilitate data exfiltration and prepare victim networks for ransomware deployment. These tools frequently appear alongside earlier discovery activity, credential access, and remote access tooling such as MeshAgent, and often precede the use of s5cmd for exfiltration or ransomware payload execution.

PsExec is one of the most consistent lateral movement and deployment tools used by Storm-2570. The actor frequently uses PsExec, sometimes with host lists such as @ip.txt, to move laterally and install renamed MeshAgent binaries across compromised environments. Storm-2570 utilizes MeshAgent during the lateral movement phase in several intrusions as a remote access tool deployed onto newly compromised systems.

The following are examples of PsExec commands with host lists @ip.txt:

Storm-2570 also uses RDP and RDP-enabling scripts as part of this phase. If RDP is not allowed in the environment, Storm-2570 needs admin privileges to modify the policy and enable it. In several intrusions, rdp.bat script appeared with PsExec, including cases where PsExec ran rdp.bat across hosts using @ip.txt.

The RDP batch script (rdp.bat) enables inbound Remote Desktop access by modifying Terminal Server settings and adding a firewall rule to allow TCP port 3389, as observed in the command below:

Additionally, the threat actor uses ngrok to expose TCP 3389 (default port for RDP), after which PsExec-related activity and security tampering appears. These examples show Storm-2570 combining RDP access, tunneling, and remote execution to sustain hands-on-keyboard control and reach additional systems.

Storm-2570’s use of Impacket and NetExec over Server Message Block (SMB) further supports their lateral movement pattern. Impacket is a collection of open-source Python classes designed for working with network protocols, and is popular with adversaries due to its ease of use and wide range of capabilities. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has a dedicated attack surface reduction rule to defend against lateral movement techniques used by Impacket; protecting lateral movement pathways can also mitigate Impacket.

The following NetExec SMB command is used to conduct credential theft and reconnaissance against internal Windows hosts:

Data collection and exfiltration

Storm-2570 frequently performs data theft using cloud and file-transfer utilities that are capable of moving large volumes of data quickly from compromised environments to a remote attacker-owned cloud resource. Microsoft has observed Storm-2570 using s5cmd or Rclone to stage and exfiltrate data, often after the actor has already completed discovery, credential access, lateral movement, and remote access setup. Tools like Rclone provide data synchronization capabilities, moving newly created or updated files to cloud resources in real-time to enable continuous exfiltration throughout all stages of the attack without needing attacker interaction.

Most commonly, Storm-2570 relies on s5cmd, a command-line utility designed for managing Amazon S3 and compatible object storage services, for S3-based exfiltration. In multiple intrusions, the actor staged s5cmd.exe alongside a credentials file and used it to copy documents, spreadsheets, images, databases, mail-related files, archives, and other business-relevant file types to S3 buckets. Storm-2570 identifies high-value drives and network shares, stages s5cmd.exe and a credentials file, and then executes run copy (cp) operations with extension filters to transfer selected data to attacker-controlled S3 buckets. To interact with the destination S3 bucket, s5cmd requires credentials for authentication and the credentials file stores the AWS access keys for authentication to the S3 bucket.

The following is an example of s5cmd data exfiltration command lines:

Overall, Storm-2570’s exfiltration tradecraft shows a strong preference for tools that blend into legitimate administrative or cloud-transfer workflows, allowing double-extortion operations: first collecting sensitive data through cloud-transfer tooling, then deploying ransomware.

What Storm-2570 activity means for defenders

Storm-2570 illustrates common human-operated ransomware attacks and how modern ransomware affiliates increasingly operate independently of a single ransomware brand. Ransomware affiliates’ use of common tools, intrusion methods, and operational patterns remain remarkably consistent. Although Storm-2570’s techniques are not novel, recognizing the patterns used by ransomware affiliates can be important for defenders to know to improve prevention, detection, and incident response.

Mitigation and protection guidance

To defend against Storm-2570 TTPs and similar activity, Microsoft recommends the following mitigation measures:

• Follow the defending against ransomware guidance in Microsoft’s ransomware as a service blog post which details how to build credential hygiene as well as how to limit lateral movement using the principle of least privilege.
• Turn on tenant-wide tamper protection features to prevent attackers from stopping security services or using antivirus exclusions. Without tamper protection, attackers could simply turn off Microsoft Defender Antivirus without the need to acquire higher privileges.
  • Customers running Intune or Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Security Configuration can enable DisableLocalAdminMerge to prevent modification of antivirus exclusions via GPO.
  • In addition to tamper protection, you can also enable and configure Microsoft Defender Antivirus always-on protection in Group Policy.
  • If there is an issue with a device during roll out of various antivirus features, the device can be placed in Troubleshooting mode to turn off Tamper Protection temporarily without impacting the wider organizational security policy.
• For approved RMM systems used in your environment, enforce security settings where possible to implement MFA. If an unapproved RMM installation is discovered in your network, reset passwords for accounts used to install the RMM services. If a System-level account was used to install the software, further investigation may be warranted.
• Configure automatic attack disruption in Microsoft Defender XDR. Automatic attack disruption is designed to contain attacks in progress, limit the impact on an organization’s assets, and provide more time for security teams to remediate the attack fully.
• Microsoft Defender XDR customers can turn on attack surface reduction rules to prevent common attack techniques used in ransomware attacks:
  • Block credential stealing from the Windows local security authority subsystem (lsass.exe)
  • Block execution of potentially obfuscated scripts
  • Block Webshell creation for Servers
  • Block process creations originating from PSExec and WMI commands (Some organizations might experience compatibility issues with this rule on certain server systems but should deploy it to other systems to prevent lateral movement originating from PsExec and WMI.)
  • Block use of copied or impersonated system tools
  • Use advanced protection against ransomware

Microsoft Defender detections

Microsoft Defender customers can refer to the list of applicable detections below. Microsoft Defender coordinates detection, prevention, investigation, and response across endpoints, identities, email, apps to provide integrated protection against attacks like the threat discussed in this blog.

Microsoft Security Copilot

Microsoft Security Copilot is embedded in Microsoft Defender and provides security teams with AI-powered capabilities to summarize incidents, analyze files and scripts, summarize identities, use guided responses, and generate device summaries, hunting queries, and incident reports.

Customers can also deploy AI agents, including the following Microsoft Security Copilot agents, to perform security tasks efficiently:

• Threat Intelligence Briefing agent
• Phishing Triage agent
• Threat Hunting agent
• Dynamic Threat Detection agent

Security Copilot is also available as a standalone experience where customers can perform specific security-related tasks, such as incident investigation, user analysis, and vulnerability impact assessment. In addition, Security Copilot offers developer scenarios that allow customers to build, test, publish, and integrate AI agents and plugins to meet unique security needs.

Threat intelligence reports

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can use the following threat analytics reports in the Defender portal (requires license for at least one Defender XDR product) to get the most up-to-date information about the threat actor, malicious activity, and techniques discussed in this blog. These reports provide the intelligence, protection information, and recommended actions to prevent, mitigate, or respond to associated threats found in customer environments.

• Actor Profile: Storm-2570
• Tool Profile: Qilin ransomware
• Tool Profile: Anubis ransomware
• Tool Profile: DragonForce ransomware

Microsoft Security Copilot customers can also use the Microsoft Security Copilot integration in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, either in the Security Copilot standalone portal or in the embedded experience in the Microsoft Defender portal to get more information about this threat actor.

Hunting queries

Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel customers can run the following advanced hunting queries to find related activity in their networks:

Hunt for PsExec-based remote execution and deployment

DeviceProcessEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(30d)
| where FileName in~ ("psexec.exe", "psexec64.exe")
    or ProcessCommandLine has_any ("psexec.exe", "psexec64.exe")
| where ProcessCommandLine has_any ("@ip.txt", "-accepteula", "\\")
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, AccountName, FileName, ProcessCommandLine,
          InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine,
          SHA256, DeviceId, ReportId
| order by Timestamp desc

Hunt for renamed MeshAgent binaries and services

let MeshAgentTerms = dynamic(["meshagent", "meshagent64", "meshcentral"]);
union isfuzzy=true
(
    DeviceProcessEvents
    | where Timestamp > ago(30d)
    | where FileName has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
        or ProcessCommandLine has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
        or InitiatingProcessCommandLine has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
    | project Timestamp, DeviceName, ActionType, FileName, FolderPath,
              ProcessCommandLine, InitiatingProcessFileName,
              InitiatingProcessCommandLine, SHA256,
              RegistryKey="", RegistryValueName="", SourceTable="DeviceProcessEvents"
),
(
    DeviceFileEvents
    | where Timestamp > ago(30d)
    | where FileName has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
        or FolderPath has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
        or InitiatingProcessCommandLine has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
    | project Timestamp, DeviceName, ActionType, FileName, FolderPath,
              ProcessCommandLine="", InitiatingProcessFileName,
              InitiatingProcessCommandLine, SHA256,
              RegistryKey="", RegistryValueName="", SourceTable="DeviceFileEvents"
),
(
    DeviceRegistryEvents
    | where Timestamp > ago(30d)
    | where RegistryKey has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
        or RegistryValueName has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
        or RegistryValueData has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
        or InitiatingProcessCommandLine has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
    | project Timestamp, DeviceName, ActionType, FileName="", FolderPath="",
              ProcessCommandLine="", InitiatingProcessFileName,
              InitiatingProcessCommandLine, SHA256="",
              RegistryKey, RegistryValueName, SourceTable="DeviceRegistryEvents"
)
| order by Timestamp desc

Learn more

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog.

To get notified about new publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), and Bluesky.

To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast.

The post Beyond the ransomware: Tracking Storm-2570’s consistent tradecraft across deployments appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

Hackers stole patient information from Clover Health Investments and AngMar Management Services in July.

The post 250,000 Impacted by Data Breaches at New Jersey, Texas Healthcare Firms appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Table Of Contents

Table of Contents

Under the Hood: How Flashpoint’s Patented Ransomware Vulnerability Model Works

Comprehensive Vulnerability Intelligence Integration

Protect Against Vulnerability and Ransomware Risk Using Flashpoint

Ransomware Risk FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

More

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Vulnerability and exposure management (VM) teams need critical metadata and context that clearly show which issues pose an immediate risk to their organization. While traditional VM frameworks tell defenders how severe a vulnerability may be, they do not provide visibility into how likely threat actors are to exploit it. This leaves security teams overwhelmed in patch backlogs without a clear strategy for prioritization.

Nowhere is this prioritization gap more dangerous than with ransomware. Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) groups no longer choose targets at random. They look for specific technical conditions that make vulnerability exploitation easy, fast, and repeatable. With RaaS attacks rising by 45% period-over-period in H1 2026, organizations need a way to identify the specific traits that make a vulnerability attractive to ransomware operators before an attack occurs.

Flashpoint built the Ransomware Risk score into Flashpoint Vulnerability Intelligence to solve exactly this problem. Since 2022, it has rated newly discovered vulnerabilities based on how closely they resemble those known to be used in ransomware attacks. With the grant of the U.S. Patent No. 12,705,360 on August 11, 2026, the methodology behind the score is now formally patented. This milestone formalizes Flashpoint’s ability to cut through the noise with a proven, threat-informed signal that gives defenders the clarity they need to act on Day Zero.

“As vulnerability disclosures surge, prioritization is more important than ever for security teams. A severity score alone can’t tell you which vulnerabilities pose the greatest real-world risk of exploitation by ransomware actors.

Our patented Ransomware Risk model applies years of threat intelligence to that problem, giving customers an earlier signal and helping them prioritize based on how attackers actually operate.”

josh lefkowitz, co-founder and ceo at flashpoint

Under the Hood: How Flashpoint’s Patented Ransomware Vulnerability Model Works

The patented system evaluates newly disclosed vulnerabilities against the patterns shared by vulnerabilities ransomware groups have exploited. Rather than trying to predict what threat actors will do next, the model learns what past ransomware-exploited vulnerabilities have in common and compares each new flaw against those patterns.

The Four Step Process

Multi-Factor Fingerprinting

Every vulnerability ingested into Flashpoint Vulnerability Intelligence is profiled against more than 60 distinct technical factors. This “fingerprinting” links the vulnerability to key inputs including whether the flaw is remotely exploitable without authentication, whether it affects SCADA or Operational Technology (OT) systems, and its potential impact on data availability, which is central to extortion schemes.

Coordinate Mapping

The model turns each multi-factor fingerprint into a set of values that place it as a single point on a map, so vulnerabilities with similar profiles land close together.

Identifying the Ransomware Neighborhood (Cluster Check)

Flashpoint overlays historical threat data onto the map to establish neighborhoods where vulnerabilities previously exploited in real-world ransomware attacks aggregate.

Similarity and Likelihood Rating

When a new vulnerability is ingested, its coordinates are checked against these neighborhoods. The scoring system calculates its spatial proximity to known ransomware vectors and assigns a clear rating: Low, Medium, High, or Critical.

This four-step method, developed by Flashpoint’s Ben Haynes and Jacob Kouns, is the basis of U.S. Patent No. 12,705,360.

What It Means for Vulnerability Management Teams

By translating complex structural attributes into a single risk score, the patented model delivers four key operational advantages:

1. Prioritize Beyond CVSS: Leveraging the Ransomware Risk model, security teams can confidently prioritize 1.0 to 6.9 CVSS issues if its structural profile lands it in a “High” or “Critical” ransomware cluster.
2. Act on Day Zero: Because the Flashpoint model rates all vulnerabilities on disclosure, security teams gain actionable guidance immediately, eliminating the need to wait weeks for external exploitation reports.
3. Effectively Communicate Risk: CISOs can present clear, business-centric risk statements rather than abstract numerical scores.
4. Adaptive Ratings: Scores update in near real time as vulnerability details change, and the model keeps adjusting as new vulnerabilities join the set it compares against.

Comprehensive Vulnerability Intelligence Integration

Flashpoint’s Ransomware Risk model is built to enhance, not replace the vulnerability management frameworks organizations already rely on. In fact, it provides even greater value for security teams as our Ransomware Risk model provides clarity for every vulnerability detailed by Flashpoint Vulnerability Intelligence, including over 105,000 issues missed by CVE and NVD.

Within Flashpoint Ignite, security teams have a complete view of vulnerability risk, seeing the score alongside CVSS (v3 and v4), EPSS, Social Risk, and exploit maturity.

Protect Against Vulnerability and Ransomware Risk Using Flashpoint

Vulnerability management requires more than cataloging. It demands threat-informed prioritization that aligns security operations with real-world business risk. Flashpoint’s patented Ransomware Risk model eliminates guesswork by surfacing the flaws that match the profile of known ransomware targets, allowing security teams to patch what matters most, first. 

By combining proprietary knowledge of vulnerability architecture and ransomware attacks, Flashpoint bridges the gap between theoretical and active exposure. Request a demo today to see how our Ransomware Risk model provides the definitive signal needed to stay ahead of extortion groups.

Ransomware Risk FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

What is the Ransomware Risk score? 

The Ransomware Risk score is a rating in Flashpoint Vulnerability Intelligence that shows how closely a vulnerability resembles those known to be used in ransomware attacks. Each vulnerability is rated Low, Medium, High, or Critical, so security teams can see which ones to patch first to reduce their ransomware exposure.

How is Ransomware Risk different from CVSS and EPSS?

CVSS measures how severe a vulnerability could be, and EPSS estimates how likely it is to be exploited in general. Ransomware Risk adds a ransomware-specific signal that works alongside both, showing how closely a vulnerability matches those ransomware groups have used. In Flashpoint Ignite, all three scores appear together.

What does Flashpoint’s ransomware patent cover?

U.S. Patent No. 12,705,360, granted August 11, 2026, covers Flashpoint’s method for rating how likely a vulnerability is to be used in a ransomware event. Each vulnerability is profiled on more than 60 factors, compared with vulnerabilities used in past ransomware attacks, and rated by similarity. The patent formalizes the model behind the Ransomware Risk score, live since 2022.

How often are Ransomware Risk scores updated?

Ransomware Risk scores update in near real time, so new vulnerabilities are rated as soon as they’re disclosed. The model also keeps adjusting as new vulnerabilities join the body it compares against, so ratings reflect the ransomware landscape as it stands today.

The post Ransomware Risk Model: Flashpoint’s Patented Scoring Method to Inform Vulnerability Prioritization appeared first on Flashpoint.

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Cybercrime at Machine Speed: Key Takeaways from Flashpoint’s 2026 Midyear Threat Intelligence Briefing

Threat actors are no longer just using automation to execute tasks, they are leveraging prepackaged, safeguard-free AI, weaponizing stolen session data, and directly targeting defenders’ security stacks.

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Flashpoint

September 1, 2026

Table Of Contents

Table of Contents

The Death of Signal: Threat Actors are Shifting to “Private AI”

Weaponizing the Defender’s Own Tooling

The Structural Failure of CVE/NVD and the Importance of KEV

Ransomware Evolution: From Encryption to Cloud Extortion

Protect Your Organization Using Flashpoint

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In our latest webinar, Flashpoint Vice President of Intelligence, Ian Gray, briefed security leaders on the evolving threat environment, providing critical insights from the Flashpoint Global Threat Intelligence Report (GTIR): 2026 Midyear Edition.

The threat landscape has developed at a striking pace with Flashpoint tracking over 22 million illicit AI discussions, 7.4 million compromised hosts yielding 1.7 billion stolen credentials, and over 21,600 disclosed vulnerabilities in just six months. Beyond these staggering numbers, the on-demand session detailed something even more alarming: a fundamental shift in adversary operational tradecraft.

Here are the five critical shifts every cyber threat intelligence (CTI), Vulnerability Management, and SOC team needs to know.

The Death of Signal: Threat Actors are Shifting to “Private AI”

The public discussion surrounding criminal artificial intelligence (AI) has reached a critical inflection point. Early in the AI boom, Flashpoint observed threat actors collaboratively experiment across underground forums, jailbreaking commercial frontier models or advertising surface-level tools like WormGPT and DarkGPT.

Today, adversaries are shifting from public forums to running fine-tuned, open-source models locally on private servers, which greatly hampers traditional signature-based detection. Flashpoint analysts are now seeing attackers generate unique, highly tailored malware variants, flawless phishing lures, and custom exploit scripts at extremely low costs—completely offline and shielded from public monitoring.

“A few months ago, a lot of this was collaborative… public outsourcing. Now what we’re seeing is scarier: pre-packaged cybercrime models run locally on private infrastructure. Malicious code, exploit scripts, and targeted phishing are all being generated inside closed environments.”

Ian Gray, VP of Intelligence, Flashpoint

Weaponizing the Defender’s Own Tooling

Another eye-opening tactical insight shared during the session was how threat actors are repurposing defender infrastructure for automated initial access and extortion. In the webinar, we pointed to recent campaigns where adversaries specifically targeted misconfigurations and zero-day vulnerabilities inside open-source vulnerability scanners, secrets-detection tools, Kubernetes clusters, and Infrastructure-as-Code(IaC) environments.

What this means for defenders is that the attack surface is no longer bounded by traditional enterprise network boundaries: it extends directly into CI/CD pipelines, security orchestration tooling, and third-party SaaS integrations. Security teams are finding themselves in a race against attackers who use automated scanning scripts to weaponize vulnerabilities in the security tools themselves.

The Global Infostealer Threat and Identity-First Attacks

Flashpoint tracked 7.4 million hosts compromised by infostealers in H1 2026—a 27% increase period-over-period—harvesting 1.7 billion credentials and identity information.

While the top infostealer strains remain familiar, law enforcement operations have created vacuums that competitors rapidly fill.

Threat actors are leveraging drive-by downloads, watering holes, and pirated software packages to plant stealers. Once a machine is compromised, the logs capture corporate SSO credentials, active browser cookies, VPN keys, and SaaS session tokens. This enables adversaries to simply log in without having to leverage complex technical exploits.

The Structural Failure of CVE/NVD and the Importance of KEV

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) and National Vulnerability Database (NVD) have failed to keep pace with the velocity of AI-assisted vulnerability discovery. As such, vulnerability management teams are facing significant operational delays.

Metric	Flashpoint GTIR Midyear H1 2026 Data	Operational Impact
Total Disclosures	21,667	Remediation volume exceeds defender bandwidth.
Exploit Availability	19% (4,015 CVEs)	Functional code is ready before patches are deployed.
Public Catalog Lag	Growing Backlog (NVD/KEV)	Delay in official scoring leaves teams blind to active risk.

Therefore, waiting for NVD enrichment before prioritizing a patch is a dangerous strategy. To compensate, security teams require Vulnerability Intelligence (VI) that provides primary-source confirmation of weaponization, exploit availability, and actionable mitigation guidance long before public databases update.

Ransomware Evolution: From Encryption to Cloud Extortion

Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) activity surged by 45% period-over-period, reaching 6,256 verified victim postings on data leak sites. However, total on-chain payout revenue dropped by 8% to $820 million, with victim pay-rates hitting a record low of 28%.

Faced with declining payouts and resilient enterprise backups, extortion syndicates are adapting. Rather than relying exclusively on technical file-encrypting malware, groups are executing pure data extortion campaigns—frequently targeting cloud platforms or extracting data through third-party vendor access.

Protect Your Organization Using Flashpoint

Defending against machine-speed attacks requires moving beyond reactive, post-incident telemetry. Flashpoint arms security, CTI, and vulnerability management teams with the primary-source intelligence required to preempt adversary operations:

• Unrivaled Deep & Dark Web Visibility: Flashpoint’s Primary Source Collection actively monitors closed criminal communities, illicit Telegram channels, and private forums, giving you early warning when threat actors build custom AI toolkits or trade credentials targeting your organization.
• Comprehensive Vulnerability Intelligence (VI): Flashpoint tracks zero-days and vulnerability disclosures independently, delivering immediate exploit availability data and threat-informed prioritization so you patch what actually matters.
• Continuous Compromised Credential Monitoring: Instantly surface exposed enterprise credentials, active session tokens, and stealer logs tied to your domain or third-party supply chain before they lead to an account takeover (ATO).

Request a demo, or watch the full on-demand webinar to explore the data shaping today’s risk landscape.

The post Cybercrime at Machine Speed: Key Takeaways from Flashpoint’s 2026 Midyear Threat Intelligence Briefing appeared first on Flashpoint.

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Navigating AI-Driven Cyber Threats: Insights from Flashpoint’s 2026 GTIR Midyear Edition

In this post, we preview the critical findings of Flashpoint’s Global Threat Intelligence Report: 2026 Midyear Edition.

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Flashpoint

August 13, 2026

Table Of Contents

Table of Contents

Flashpoint’s Global Threat Intelligence Report: 2026 Midyear Edition

The Four Driving Themes Shaping the 2026 Threat Landscape

Proactive Security in 2026 and Beyond

More

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In the first half of 2026, the global threat landscape reached a clear operational inflection point: threat operations have fundamentally transitioned from human-led campaigns to machine-speed, AI-driven exploitation. As threat actors gain commoditized access to open-source AI technologies and actively deploy automated, safeguard-free tooling locally on private infrastructure, organizations face an accelerating hybrid risk environment.

Flashpoint’s Global Threat Intelligence Report: 2026 Midyear Edition

The Flashpoint Global Threat Intelligence Report: 2026 Midyear Edition anchors security leaders—from threat intelligence, vulnerability management, to executive leadership—in the data required to navigate this evolving threat landscape. Covering the period from January 1 to June 30, 2026, the report delivers timely insights backed by Flashpoint’s proprietary primary-source collection from over 3.9 petabytes of continuously monitored illicit sources.

Our midyear findings reveal several key metrics that highlight the speed and scale of the H1 2026 threat landscape:

• 22M+ threat actor posts discussed, shared, or advertised artificial intelligence toolkits for criminal deployment.
• 1.7B credentials and identity data points extracted across more than 7.4M unique compromised hosts globally.
• Nearly one-in-five (19%) of all vulnerability disclosures dropped with ready-made, functional exploit code.
• 45% period-over-period surge in Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), with total victim volume reaching 6,256 even as victim payout rates dropped to a historic low of 28%.

Download the Flashpoint Global Threat Intelligence Report: 2026 Midyear Edition to gain:

1. A Clear Understanding of the Convergence Between AI and Cyber Threats
   From generating flawless phishing campaigns to automating vulnerability scanning and code obfuscation, discover how adversaries are optimizing for speed and cost-efficiency — utilizing AI as a force multiplier in their various illicit campaigns.
2. A Comprehensive Top-Down View of the Evolving Threat Landscape
   Gain full visibility of the threat landscape with Flashpoint’s primary-source collections and real-time threat intelligence.
3. Strategies for Proactive Defense and Risk Mitigation
   Move your organization beyond reactive incident response by leveraging Flashpoint’s comprehensive threat intelligence. Gain the foresight needed to strengthen defenses and optimize your security posture.

“AI is compressing the time between opportunity and exploitation. Capabilities that once took significant expertise, coordination, and time to develop are becoming faster to build, easier to scale, and harder to detect. Security teams are facing an adversary ecosystem that can use AI to iterate at unprecedented speed — the only way to keep pace is with primary-source intelligence that surfaces adversary behavior before attacks unfold.”

Josh Lefkowitz, Flashpoint Co-Founder & CEO

The Four Driving Themes Shaping the 2026 Threat Landscape

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Threats

During the first half of 2026, Flashpoint captured over 22M illicit posts discussing or advertising AI for criminal-related activities. By stripping ethical safeguards, custom malicious LLMs allow unsophisticated threat actors to automate complex phases of the attack lifecycle, including target profiling, malware evasion script creation, and zero-day exploit generation.

Information-Stealing Malware Threats

Infostealer malware harvested 1.7 billion credentials across 7.4 million compromised systems in H1 2026 alone, turning digital identity into the main entry point for enterprise intrusions.

Vulnerability Intelligence and Patching Management

19% (4,015) of all H1 2026 vulnerability disclosures arrived with ready-made exploit code. Adversaries deploy automated replication scripts almost immediately upon disclosure, eliminating manual remediation windows.

Ransomware Operations, Multi-Extortion Cartels, and Financial Risk

Despite a 45% surge in victim volume (6,256 overall), total on-chain revenue fell by 8% to $820M. Improved enterprise backups and incident response have driven payout rates down to 28%, prompting syndicates to demand larger sums from paying victims.

Proactive Security in 2026 and Beyond

The data shows that traditional enterprise security organizations are struggling to keep pace with modern threat cycles that are accelerated by illicit uses of AI. This continued convergence of AI engines and initial access vectors have further compressed attack timelines, making it nearly impossible for security teams to defend against them—especially if they are limited by traditional approaches to threat intelligence.

Equipping your team with primary-source threat intelligence is critical for protecting critical assets in 2026. Download the Flashpoint Global Threat Intelligence Report: 2026 Midyear Edition to gain the visibility and strategic clarity required to defend your organization.

The post Navigating AI-Driven Cyber Threats: Insights from Flashpoint’s 2026 GTIR Midyear Edition appeared first on Flashpoint.

The China-based hacking group has been exploiting SharePoint vulnerabilities since July 2025.

The post Warlock Expands SharePoint Exploitation in Critical Infrastructure Attacks appeared first on SecurityWeek.

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Ransomware Risk Model: Flashpoint’s Patented Scoring Method to Inform Vulnerability Prioritization

Flashpoint was awarded U.S. Patent No. 12,705,360 for its Ransomware Risk model, which rates how closely new vulnerabilities match those used in ransomware attacks.

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Flashpoint

October 1, 2026

Table Of Contents

Table of Contents

Under the Hood: How Flashpoint’s Patented Ransomware Vulnerability Model Works

Comprehensive Vulnerability Intelligence Integration

Protect Against Vulnerability and Ransomware Risk Using Flashpoint

Ransomware Risk FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

More

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Vulnerability and exposure management (VM) teams need critical metadata and context that clearly show which issues pose an immediate risk to their organization. While traditional VM frameworks tell defenders how severe a vulnerability may be, they do not provide visibility into how likely threat actors are to exploit it. This leaves security teams overwhelmed in patch backlogs without a clear strategy for prioritization.

Nowhere is this prioritization gap more dangerous than with ransomware. Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) groups no longer choose targets at random. They look for specific technical conditions that make vulnerability exploitation easy, fast, and repeatable. With RaaS attacks rising by 45% period-over-period in H1 2026, organizations need a way to identify the specific traits that make a vulnerability attractive to ransomware operators before an attack occurs.

Flashpoint built the Ransomware Risk score into Flashpoint Vulnerability Intelligence to solve exactly this problem. Since 2022, it has rated newly discovered vulnerabilities based on how closely they resemble those known to be used in ransomware attacks. With the grant of the U.S. Patent No. 12,705,360 on August 11, 2026, the methodology behind the score is now formally patented. This milestone formalizes Flashpoint’s ability to cut through the noise with a proven, threat-informed signal that gives defenders the clarity they need to act on Day Zero.

“As vulnerability disclosures surge, prioritization is more important than ever for security teams. A severity score alone can’t tell you which vulnerabilities pose the greatest real-world risk of exploitation by ransomware actors.

Our patented Ransomware Risk model applies years of threat intelligence to that problem, giving customers an earlier signal and helping them prioritize based on how attackers actually operate.”

josh lefkowitz, co-founder and ceo at flashpoint

Under the Hood: How Flashpoint’s Patented Ransomware Vulnerability Model Works

The patented system evaluates newly disclosed vulnerabilities against the patterns shared by vulnerabilities ransomware groups have exploited. Rather than trying to predict what threat actors will do next, the model learns what past ransomware-exploited vulnerabilities have in common and compares each new flaw against those patterns.

The Four Step Process

Multi-Factor Fingerprinting

Every vulnerability ingested into Flashpoint Vulnerability Intelligence is profiled against more than 60 distinct technical factors. This “fingerprinting” links the vulnerability to key inputs including whether the flaw is remotely exploitable without authentication, whether it affects SCADA or Operational Technology (OT) systems, and its potential impact on data availability, which is central to extortion schemes.

Coordinate Mapping

The model turns each multi-factor fingerprint into a set of values that place it as a single point on a map, so vulnerabilities with similar profiles land close together.

Identifying the Ransomware Neighborhood (Cluster Check)

Flashpoint overlays historical threat data onto the map to establish neighborhoods where vulnerabilities previously exploited in real-world ransomware attacks aggregate.

Similarity and Likelihood Rating

When a new vulnerability is ingested, its coordinates are checked against these neighborhoods. The scoring system calculates its spatial proximity to known ransomware vectors and assigns a clear rating: Low, Medium, High, or Critical.

This four-step method, developed by Flashpoint’s Ben Haynes and Jacob Kouns, is the basis of U.S. Patent No. 12,705,360.

What It Means for Vulnerability Management Teams

By translating complex structural attributes into a single risk score, the patented model delivers four key operational advantages:

1. Prioritize Beyond CVSS: Leveraging the Ransomware Risk model, security teams can confidently prioritize 1.0 to 6.9 CVSS issues if its structural profile lands it in a “High” or “Critical” ransomware cluster.
2. Act on Day Zero: Because the Flashpoint model rates all vulnerabilities on disclosure, security teams gain actionable guidance immediately, eliminating the need to wait weeks for external exploitation reports.
3. Effectively Communicate Risk: CISOs can present clear, business-centric risk statements rather than abstract numerical scores.
4. Adaptive Ratings: Scores update in near real time as vulnerability details change, and the model keeps adjusting as new vulnerabilities join the set it compares against.

Comprehensive Vulnerability Intelligence Integration

Flashpoint’s Ransomware Risk model is built to enhance, not replace the vulnerability management frameworks organizations already rely on. In fact, it provides even greater value for security teams as our Ransomware Risk model provides clarity for every vulnerability detailed by Flashpoint Vulnerability Intelligence, including over 105,000 issues missed by CVE and NVD.

Within Flashpoint Ignite, security teams have a complete view of vulnerability risk, seeing the score alongside CVSS (v3 and v4), EPSS, Social Risk, and exploit maturity.

Protect Against Vulnerability and Ransomware Risk Using Flashpoint

Vulnerability management requires more than cataloging. It demands threat-informed prioritization that aligns security operations with real-world business risk. Flashpoint’s patented Ransomware Risk model eliminates guesswork by surfacing the flaws that match the profile of known ransomware targets, allowing security teams to patch what matters most, first. 

By combining proprietary knowledge of vulnerability architecture and ransomware attacks, Flashpoint bridges the gap between theoretical and active exposure. Request a demo today to see how our Ransomware Risk model provides the definitive signal needed to stay ahead of extortion groups.

Ransomware Risk FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

What is the Ransomware Risk score? 

The Ransomware Risk score is a rating in Flashpoint Vulnerability Intelligence that shows how closely a vulnerability resembles those known to be used in ransomware attacks. Each vulnerability is rated Low, Medium, High, or Critical, so security teams can see which ones to patch first to reduce their ransomware exposure.

How is Ransomware Risk different from CVSS and EPSS?

CVSS measures how severe a vulnerability could be, and EPSS estimates how likely it is to be exploited in general. Ransomware Risk adds a ransomware-specific signal that works alongside both, showing how closely a vulnerability matches those ransomware groups have used. In Flashpoint Ignite, all three scores appear together.

What does Flashpoint’s ransomware patent cover?

U.S. Patent No. 12,705,360, granted August 11, 2026, covers Flashpoint’s method for rating how likely a vulnerability is to be used in a ransomware event. Each vulnerability is profiled on more than 60 factors, compared with vulnerabilities used in past ransomware attacks, and rated by similarity. The patent formalizes the model behind the Ransomware Risk score, live since 2022.

How often are Ransomware Risk scores updated?

Ransomware Risk scores update in near real time, so new vulnerabilities are rated as soon as they’re disclosed. The model also keeps adjusting as new vulnerabilities join the body it compares against, so ratings reflect the ransomware landscape as it stands today.

The post Ransomware Risk Model: Flashpoint’s Patented Scoring Method to Inform Vulnerability Prioritization appeared first on Flashpoint.

Executive summary

In April 2026, we at Kaspersky’s Global Emergency Response Team (GERT) responded to a security incident at a manufacturing organization in the Middle East. The threat actor obtained domain admin-equivalent control of the organization’s Active Directory environment and authored a malicious Group Policy Object (GPO) named PAYLOAD, linking it at the domain root. Through that single object, the actor delivered ransom notes, hijacked the desktop wallpaper and lock screen, enforced a logon banner, and disabled the local administrator account across every domain-joined Windows workstation — all without dropping a ransomware binary or encrypting any data. The only ransomware we found in this incident was PAYLOAD sample targeting ESXi on Linux servers. Besides that, data exfiltration was observed originating from the file servers and several additional systems, and was later published on the dark web.

This case is an example of two converging trends that define the 2026 ransomware landscape:

1. Living-off-the-land abuse of trusted AD infrastructure. Group Policy is a signed, allowlisted, SYSTEM-privileged distribution channel that the majority of endpoint detection and response tools is designed not to inspect. By delivering impact through GPO rather than through malware, the actor sidestepped the entire file- and process-based detection stack.
2. Encryptionless extortion. Industry telemetry shows extortion-only incidents grow significantly year-on-year. PAYLOAD fits this model; the leverage is operational disruption and the threat of escalation rather than cryptographic denial of data.

We confirmed that no files were encrypted on Windows machines, no malicious binaries were resident on disk, no endpoint persistence was established, and no malicious processes were running at the time of analysis. The entire attack lived inside Active Directory itself. The defensive implication is stark: an organization whose detection strategy depends on catching a ransomware executable would have seen nothing until the first endpoint rebooted and the ransom wallpaper appeared.

In this article, we will describe the GPO attack chain and provide operational advice on how to detect such threats, including detailed remediation recommendations.

Group Policy as an attack surface

Attacks through group policies are nothing new. They can inflict significant, domain-wide damage with multiple malicious capabilities. A Group Policy Object (GPO) is essentially a combination of a Group Policy Container (GPC) in Active Directory and a Group Policy Template (GPT) in SYSVOL. The Group Policy scope depends on whether the GPC is linked to the directory tree at the domain, site, or organization unit (OU) level. A link at the domain root means the policy applies to every computer and user object beneath it. Thus, a GPO compromised at the domain root can affect all in-scope domain users and computers, potentially granting an attacker complete control over the corporate network. What makes GPO abuse even more dangerous is that group policies are processed in a trusted, high-privilege environment, ensuring persistence because endpoint cleanup is not enough to remove them.

We have already discussed GPO architecture and ways it can be compromised in greater detail in an earlier blog post. Other public threat intelligence has also repeatedly documented this technique in ransomware operations. Microsoft observed Ryuk operators distributing ransomware through Group Policy, SYSVOL startup items, and PsExec. LockBit affiliates have been documented modifying SYSVOL Group Policy files, including ScheduledTasks.xml, to support ransomware execution and propagation. BlackCat/ALPHV operators have also abused GPOs to create scheduled tasks and deploy ransomware.

Another notable example of GPO abuse is PAYLOAD ransomware, which weaponizes GPO Preferences and policy settings for pure impact rather than as a launcher for an encryptor. Let’s take a closer look at this attack, which is detailed further below.

Attack timeline

During the April 2026 investigation, we managed to reconstruct the attack timeline as outlined below:

Next, we will discuss each of these stages in more detail and share the findings from our incident response activities.

Incident overview

Initial access

The entry vector was a compromised valid account (MITRE ATT&CK T1078) used to authenticate through the organization’s FortiGate SSL VPN — an external remote service (T1133). Insufficient logging on the FortiGate appliance prevented us from reconstructing how the credential was originally compromised.

Three hypotheses were considered plausible in the context of the attack, in no particular order:

• Password spraying or credential stuffing against the SSL VPN portal.
• Phishing-led credential harvesting.
• Purchase of pre-compromised credentials from an initial access broker (IAB).

Once on the internal network, the actor operated with the compromised security principal’s privileges. Because the account was able to create and link a GPO at the domain root, it held either domain admin privileges or a delegated equivalent (e.g., membership of Group Policy Creator Owners combined with link rights on the domain object).

FortiGate SSL VPN authentication logs and ESXi/virtualization privilege escalation logs were insufficient to reconstruct the lateral movement and privilege escalation chain between initial VPN access and the GPO write privilege level. The most common real-world routes to GPO control — DCSync, Kerberoasting of privileged service accounts, and Pass-the-Hash/Pass-the-Ticket — could not be confirmed or ruled out.

Execution

Rather than deploying an encryptor, the actor abused the victim’s Active Directory policy infrastructure, resulting in malicious GPOs being configured and linked at the domain root to deliver the observed impact across domain-joined systems. The two GPOs below constitute the entire offensive toolkit observed.

The PAYLOAD GPO

We performed a Resultant Set of Policy (RSOP) analysis, which helped us list all policy settings on the affected workstations. From these results, we reconstructed the following changes delivered by PAYLOAD:

The PAYLOAD GPO enabled the following actions:

1. Drop SYSVOL\hello.txt to the desktop and root directories C:\ and D:\ as a read-only README-payload.txt by tampering with the “Group Policy Files” client-side extension (CSE).
2. Modify the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\ registry key, changing the legalnoticecaption value to "Welcome to Payload!" and the legalnoticetext to the ransom note text through the “Group Policy Registry” CSE.
3. Set payload.jpg located in the targeted domain controller’s SYSVOL as the lock screen image by altering the personalization policy, and as the wallpaper by altering the desktop policy at the user level.
4. Revoke administrator rights for the administrator account (locking the account) by editing the Security Settings CSE in the GptTmpl.inf file.

This activity was enabled entirely through a legitimate group policy mechanism, meaning there is no malware code for security solutions to look for because the malicious logic is contained within the policy configuration.

The win Firewall Off GPO

A second domain-root-linked GPO, named “win Firewall Off”, disabled Windows Firewall across the domain, private and public profiles on all endpoints (T1562.004). Deployed independently of PAYLOAD, this object degraded host defenses and ensured the actor retained unimpeded network reach to endpoints for any follow-on activity.

Settings changed by win Firewall Off GPO

The one-day delay detonation

The most forensically instructive detail is the one-day gap between GPO creation (13 April) and visible impact (14 April). Analysis of Master File Table (MFT) timestamps and the Group Policy History registry key confirmed the policy was written to SYSVOL and cached on endpoints on 13 April. However, computer configuration settings (wallpaper and lock screen machine policy, security settings, firewall disabling) only apply upon reboot or policy refresh — and no endpoint had rebooted in the interim. The attack therefore remained dormant in the GPO cache for one day before detonating en masse when machines were restarted in accordance with standard procedures.

We have to point out here that this delayed policy application is characteristic of GPO-based operations and has two potential consequences for defenders. Firstly, it may grant the actor a quiet window for exfiltration, persistence, or further staging between weaponization and impact. Secondly, it can be used to sever the temporal link between the cause (a GPO-creation event in the directory log) and the effect (mass user-visible disruption occurring at a later time), complicating timeline reconstruction unless directory service auditing is in place.

Forensic findings

Initial incident response engagement revealed a number of findings associated with the attack that we share below.

1. No file encryption
   A full review of the MFT on affected workstations found no files bearing a .payload extension characteristic to PAYLOAD ransomware and no evidence of bulk renaming or encryption I/O patterns. The attackers’ objectives were operational disruption and extortion via visual impact and access denial.
2. No endpoint persistence
   All standard persistence locations were clean:
   • Scheduled tasks — no malicious tasks
   • Run/RunOnce keys — clean
   • Startup folders (user and system) — clean
   • Services — no malicious service installed
   • WMI event subscriptions — none
   • Boot sector/MBR — unmodified

   The attack’s persistence mechanism is the GPO link itself on the domain controller, with no endpoint-resident component.

3. No active malicious processes
   Live process and memory analysis revealed no injected threads, process hollowing or anomalous outbound connections.
4. Registry timeline analysis
   Group Policy History, Shadow and State registry keys on the workstation recorded the application of PAYLOAD on 13 April:
   HKLM\…\Group Policy\History\{35378EAC-683F-11D2-A89A-00C04FBBCFA2}\1
   HKLM\…\Group Policy\Shadow\{827D319E-6EAC-11D2-A4EA-00C04F79F83A}\0
   HKLM\…\Group Policy\State\Machine\GPO-List\7
   HKCU\…\Group Policy\History\{7150F9BF-48AD-4da4-A49C-29EF4A8369BA}\1
   HKCU\…\Group Policy\State\S-1-5-21-…\Loopback-GPO-List\5
   The presence of the “Loopback-GPO-List” entry indicates the GPO was processed in loopback mode, ensuring the user configuration (wallpaper) applied regardless of which user logged on to the machine.
5. SYSVOL artifacts
   Two files were staged on the domain controller’s SYSVOL share and served to endpoints through the Files Group Policy Preference CSE:
   • payload.jpg — the ransom image used for both wallpaper and lock screen.
   • hello.txt — the ransom note, distributed to desktops and drive roots as README-payload.txt.

Detection engineering

Because no malicious binary or process exists, the detection logic should focus on the directory service and SYSVOL indicators. Below are the highest-value telemetry sources for identifying the described malicious activity.

• Directory service change auditing (DS Access)
  Enable Advanced Audit Policy → DS Access → Audit Directory Service Changes on all domain controllers and set up alerts for the following events:

  Event ID	Meaning	Hunt focus
  5137	A directory service object was created	The account that created new groupPolicyContainer objects must be an authorized GPO administrator
  5136	A directory service object was modified	Changes to gPLink on the domain root or sensitive organizational units; changes to gPCMachineExtensionNames/gPCUserExtensionNames/gPCFileSysPath/versionNumber for all GPOs
  5141	A directory service object was deleted	GPO deletions (relevant for tamper detection and remediation assessment)

  A gPLink modification at the domain root by a non-standard account is one of the most telling indicators of this attack class.

• SYSVOL file integrity monitoring
  Monitor \\DC.THECOMPANY.local\sysvol\THECOMPANY.local\Policies\ for unexpected files, particularly image files, text files, scripts, ScheduledTasks.xml, and modified registry.pol/GptTmpl.inf files that were created by sources other than legitimate replication.
• Endpoint policy application telemetry
  On endpoints, GPO application is logged in the Group Policy Operational log (Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy/Operational) and reflected in the History and Shadow registry keys shown above. A sudden domain-wide change to the applied policy set is a strong post-detonation signal.
• Missing 5136 events
  If the contents of a GPO’s SYSVOL change without a corresponding 5136 event, this can indicate direct SYSVOL/template editing (e.g., via open-source tools such as PowerView or SharpGPOAbuse) that bypasses the normal Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) modification path. While we recommend treating the absence of expected audit events as suspicious, it should be noted that this can be caused by misconfigured auditing.

Anti-forensics and recovery-inhibition capabilities

Confirmed PAYLOAD family capabilities

The Windows endpoint attack described in this report was implemented through malicious Group Policy Objects and did not involve a recovered ransomware executable, resident endpoint malware, confirmed file encryption or active malicious processes at the time of the forensic examination. However, PAYLOAD cryptomalware for Windows does exist, and other sources, including public analysis of its samples, reveal further malicious capabilities of this ransomware that could be used by security teams to enrich detection logic and security policies.

The behaviors documented in this section must therefore be interpreted as family-level capabilities identified through the public reverse engineering of PAYLOAD ransomware samples. They were not confirmed as having executed during the GPO-based incident unless corresponding evidence was identified in the host, memory, process, event-log, or hypervisor.

Windows Event Log clearing

Public reverse engineering of the PAYLOAD Windows variant reveals an optional event log clearing capability (T1685.005, formerly T1070.001). The ransomware dynamically resolves Windows Event Log APIs, enumerates available event log channels, and clears individual channels.

Implementation artifacts include:

• Runtime loading of wevtapi.dll
• EvtOpenChannelEnum
• EvtNextChannelPath
• EvtClearLog
• Enumeration of Security, System, Application, and PowerShell logs, and operational channels
• A command-line option controlling whether log clearing is performed

Clearing event logs reduces the availability of records related to process execution, authentication, PowerShell, service control, and system changes. However, it does not necessarily remove events that were already forwarded to a SIEM, Windows Event Collector, EDR backend, or protected log archive.

Forensic indicators

• Windows Security Event ID 1102
• Event logging shutdown or failure events
• Sudden reductions in event record identifiers
• Multiple event channels restarting from low record numbers
• Gaps between endpoint and centrally forwarded telemetry
• Execution of utilities or APIs associated with log management
• Direct access to EVTX files (Windows Event Log files) under the Windows event log directory

We should note that these indicators can’t be interpreted on their own. For instance, Event ID 1102 should be correlated with a number of aggravating factors, such as:

• Event ID 4688 or Sysmon Event ID 1 for process creation
• Event ID 4624 for the associated administrative logon
• EDR process trees
• PowerShell operational logging
• Windows Event Forwarding records
• Privileged access management activity

At the same time, the absence of Event ID 1102 does not prove that log clearing did not occur. Direct deletion, truncation, service impairment, or an incomplete audit configuration may produce different evidence.

Security process and service termination

PAYLOAD analysis reveals that the Windows ransomware variant contains logic that targets security processes and services (T1685 and T1489). This capability is intended to stop security products, backup software, database services, and applications that may lock files targeted for encryption.
Process and service termination serves several objectives:

1. Reduce endpoint detection and response visibility.
2. Release file handles so data can be modified.
3. Interrupt backup and recovery services.
4. Prevent databases and enterprise applications from protecting active data.
5. Reduce interference with encryption operations.

Forensic indicators

• Security agent services changing from running to stopped
• Event ID 7036 service state changes
• Event ID 7040 service start type changes
• Event ID 4688 or Sysmon Event ID 1 for service control utilities
• Sysmon Event ID 5 for terminated processes
• EDR health degradation affecting many endpoints
• Repeated termination attempts against security or backup processes
• Execution of dedicated process killing utilities

VSS deletion, backup and recovery suppression

Public PAYLOAD sample analysis reports the deletion of Windows Volume Shadow Copies before encryption (T1490). This behavior removes local restore points and reduces the victim’s ability to recover files without external backups.

Recovery inhibition is broader than VSS deletion and may include multiple other malicious techniques, including the following:

• Deleting shadow copies, backup catalogs, and hypervisor snapshots
• Disabling recovery services
• Modifying boot recovery settings
• Compromising backup management platforms
• Deleting or encrypting backup repositories

In the PAYLOAD Windows sample that is proven to perform encryption, VSS deletion is confirmed to have taken place before encryption. A broader compromise of the backup platform was not established in the investigated incident.

Forensic indicators

• Execution of shadow copy management utilities
• Backup catalog deletion attempts
• Recovery configuration changes
• Backup service termination
• Mass snapshot deletions
• Backup administrator logons outside normal maintenance windows
• Backup retention or immutability changes
• Backup jobs failing immediately before disruptive activity

Ecosystem-relevant ransomware techniques

Above, we discussed the techniques specific to PAYLOAD ransomware. In this section, we’ll review other common ransomware techniques, such as BYOVD abuse and ESXi policy weakening, that remain relevant risks in the ransomware ecosystem. However, these techniques should not be attributed to this incident without supporting driver load, process, memory, ESXi, vCenter, or backup platform telemetry. We describe these techniques below as they may prove useful in other ransomware-related forensic investigations.

The examples used in this section are therefore ecosystem-relevant: they are commonly observed in ransomware operations but not conclusively attributed to the analyzed PAYLOAD samples.

ETW suppression and in-memory patching

Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) is a kernel-supported tracing architecture used by Windows components, diagnostic utilities, security products, and endpoint monitoring systems.

Although we didn’t encounter this technique in our case, some ransomware families can patch ETW-related functions inside the ransomware process (T1685, formerly T1562.001). The reported routine changes the memory protection of code pages, overwrites the beginning of selected ETW functions so they return without producing events, restores the original protection, and refreshes the instruction cache.

Reported target functions include EtwEventWrite, EtwEventWriteFull, EtwEventWriteTransfer, and EtwRegister.

This modification applies to the process-local mapping of ntdll.dll. It does not disable ETW globally across Windows, but it can reduce the telemetry generated by the modified process.

Forensic indicators

• Writable or recently modified executable pages within ntdll.dll
• Memory protection changes affecting ETW function addresses
• In-memory code differing from the corresponding clean DLL on disk
• EDR memory tampering alerts
• Unexpected calls to memory protection APIs followed by telemetry silence
• Process execution visible in network or filesystem telemetry but absent from expected ETW-derived sources
• Inconsistent telemetry between EDR, Sysmon, Windows Event Logs, and network monitoring

It should be noted that telemetry gaps are not conclusive evidence of ETW patching. Other factors include agent upgrades, network outages, endpoint shutdowns, SIEM ingestion failures, collector backpressure, and filtering or licensing changes.

Memory acquisition is the strongest validation source when process-local ETW patching is suspected.

Vulnerable signed driver abuse, BYOVD

Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) involves introducing or abusing a legitimately signed but vulnerable kernel driver (T1068 and T1685). The attacker exploits the driver’s exposed functionality to gain kernel-level capabilities, modify protected memory, terminate security processes, remove security callbacks, or bypass operating system security controls.

BYOVD is highly relevant to contemporary ransomware operations. However, the reviewed public PAYLOAD analyses do not provide sufficient evidence to conclude that BYOVD is an intrinsic PAYLOAD capability.

It should therefore be presented as an ecosystem-relevant technique rather than a confirmed PAYLOAD feature.

Forensic indicators

• Unexpected .sys files written to user-writable or temporary directories
• New kernel driver services
• Sysmon Event ID 6
• Driver hashes matching Microsoft or community vulnerable driver blocklists
• Invalid, revoked, expired, or unusual driver signatures
• Driver load followed by EDR termination
• New privileged processes immediately following driver loading
• Code Integrity or Defender alerts
• Service creation events referencing driver files

ESXi security policy weakening

Ransomware operators are increasingly targeting ESXi and vCenter because compromising the virtualization layer provides access to many business-critical virtual machines.

Public research typically describes operators performing the following activities (T1685, T1490 and T1489):

• Enabling SSH on ESXi hosts
• Changing root passwords
• Disabling execInstalledOnly
• Modifying lockdown mode exceptions
• Stopping virtual machines
• Deleting snapshots and backups
• Changing host firewall policies
• Copying custom ransomware binaries to hypervisors

On the target organization’s Linux servers we saw an ESXi PAYLOAD variant, which makes this behavior operationally relevant. Nevertheless, the reviewed evidence does not indicate that PAYLOAD operators used any of these policy-weakening actions in the investigated incident.

Forensic indicators

• Unexpected ESXi SSH enablement
• Changes to execInstalledOnly
• Secure Boot enforcement changes
• Lockdown mode configuration changes
• Root password changes
• New or unusual administrator accounts
• Bulk VM shutdown activity
• Bulk snapshot deletion
• New binaries in datastore or temporary paths
• vCenter tasks originating from unexpected accounts or systems
• Missing or disabled remote syslog forwarding

Remediation

To contain the described threat and limit possible damage, several remediation steps should be taken. Below, we recommend a four-phase remediation approach for containing this threat and restoring the affected environment.

Phase 1 — domain controller actions (to be performed first)

When dealing with PAYLOAD GPO, the first priority of the remediation plan should be to remove the source GPOs. Until this is done, endpoint cleanup is ineffective because the next policy refresh re-infects cleaned machines.

The immediate domain controller actions to be taken are:

1. Delete PAYLOAD GPO. Remove {C897F2C7-C2AC-4E6F-BF48-58036FF29E79} via GPMC.
2. Delete or revert win Firewall Off GPO. Remove {22099AD2-E062-4F56-B574-5099BBA4E7A6}.
3. Clean SYSVOL. Delete jpg and hello.txt from \\DC.THECOMPANY.local\sysvol\THECOMPANY.local\.
4. Rotate credentials. Reset the compromised account; audit all privileged accounts and group memberships for unauthorized changes; rotate krbtgt twice if domain admin compromise is confirmed.
5. Force refresh. Perform gpupdate /force across endpoints after deletion; re-enable local administrator and firewall via clean policy.

Phase 2 — Active Directory and GPO hardening

• Adopt the AD tiered administration model and confine domain admins to Tier 0 with no interactive logon to workstations and member servers.
• Separate GPO creation from GPO linking rights, and grant both only to a dedicated, audited administrator role.
• Enable GPO change auditing (Event IDs 5136, 5137, 5141) and forward to a SIEM.
• Monitor SYSVOL with file integrity tooling.

Phase 3 — credential and access hardening

• Enforce phishing-resistant MFA on all VPN and remote access entry points.
• Deploy Windows LAPS to generate unique, rotated local administrator passwords.
• Enable Credential Guard to protect LSASS-resident secrets.
• Adopt Privileged Access Workstations (PAW) for all administration.
• Implement just-in-time elevation through Privileged Identity Management (PIM) for domain admin.

Phase 4 — detection and monitoring

• SIEM rule: GPO creation or domain-root gPLink change by a non-standard account.
• SIEM rule: file creation events under SYSVOL from non-replication sources.
• Implement enhanced, centrally collected FortiGate SSL VPN logging (auth events, session detail, source IP geolocation, impossible travel check) and detailed perimeter monitoring.
• Deploy a canary GPO whose application anywhere signals attacker GPO write access.

Conclusion

PAYLOAD demonstrates a maturing tactic of turning the victim’s own trusted infrastructure into a weapon. By weaponizing Group Policy, the actor achieved a domain-wide impact without a single malicious binary on any endpoint, evaded file- and process-based detection entirely, and caused organization-wide disruption within seconds of the first reboot.

The absence of encryption is the most strategically significant finding and is consistent with the 2026 trend toward encryptionless extortion. At Kaspersky GERT, we assess with moderate confidence that the missing encryption reflects one of two scenarios: (1) a deliberate decision to stay below the irreversible data destruction threshold while preserving the option of a follow-on encryption phase, or (2) an operation interrupted before full execution.

The absence of encrypted files must not be mistaken for the absence of a serious compromise — the most critical impact lies in the actor gaining domain admin-level control. This incident proves that a threat actor with domain admin access and a working knowledge of group policy internals can inflict domain-wide disruption equivalent to a ransomware attack without writing a single malicious file to any endpoint.

Detection strategies anchored solely in file- or process-based indicators are blind to this attack class. Effective controls include directory service change auditing, SYSVOL integrity monitoring, and privileged access governance, which allow for GPO protection.

Detection by Kaspersky solutions

Kaspersky security solutions effectively detect the described malicious activity at various stages of the attack. Possible detection scenarios are listed below.
To protect organizations that use our Kaspersky SIEM system, we have prepared a package of correlation rules designed to help detect this type of malicious activity. The rules are now available for customers to download from the SIEM repository; the package name is: [OOTB] Group policy hijacked: PAYLOAD ransomware – ENG.

The “Group policy hijacked: PAYLOAD ransomware” package contains rules that detect suspicious file creation or modification in the SYSVOL shared folder on a domain controller, as well as changes to critical attributes and settings of domain group policies. Some rules may require adjustment if they trigger in response to legitimate activity, such as synchronization between domain controllers or the configuration of a new group policy.

To ensure the detection rules function correctly, verify that events from Windows systems are being received in full, including events with the following identifiers: Sysmon: 11, Security — 4663, 5136, 4657.

We also recommend applying the following rules available in the repository to detect all attack stages.

• Detection of Windows Event Log clearing to cover up traces of an attack: R050_03_Windows Event Log was cleared
• Detection of suspicious access to the LSASS process, which may indicate attempts to dump credentials: R262_Suspicious access to the LSASS process
• Detection of the Volume Shadow Copy service being started, which is used to create shadow copies before deleting them: R231_20_Running the Volume Shadow Copy service
• Detection of shadow copy deletion: R321_Shadow copy deletion
• Detection of Windows Defender disablement: R076_01_Windows Defender Antivirus was disabled
• Detection of attempts to disable or modify the system firewall: R240_03_Disabling system firewall via the registry
• Detection of a service installation from a non-system folder, which may indicate malware persistence techniques: R281_01_Installation of a service from a non-system folder

For the rules in this list to function correctly, it is necessary to configure Security event auditing for event IDs 4663, 5136, 4657, 7036, and 1102.

In addition to the SIEM system, when audit settings are configured correctly, the process of creating, modifying, and deleting GPOs generates a large number of characteristic artifacts on the domain controller, enabling Kaspersky Endpoint Detection and Response Expert to promptly alert the user to anomalies in the infrastructure.

The creation of a new GPO is covered by the gpo_creation rule, which triggers in response to the corresponding event in the infrastructure. Changes to existing policies are detected by the following rules:

• The setting_the_gpcmachineextensionname_attribute rule detects changes to the gPCMachineExtensionNames attribute.
• The setting_the_gpcfilesyspath_attribute rule detects the use of the gPCFileSysPath attribute of a Group Policy Object, which specifies the path to the GPO’s contents in SYSVOL.
• The broader rule setting_the_grouppolicycontainer_class detects a change to the groupPolicyContainer class.

GPO deletion is covered by the gpo_deletion rule.

In the next major version update of Kaspersky EDR Expert, a new event type, GPO, will be introduced, allowing users to track changes to Group Policy Objects.

For information security officers, GPO events will serve as an additional source of context when investigating activity in Active Directory and will help detect changes that could affect the configuration, access rights, and security of endpoints before a potentially malicious policy is deployed.

MITRE ATT&CK mapping

Indicators of compromise

GPOs
PAYLOAD ransomware GPO: {C897F2C7-C2AC-4E6F-BF48-58036FF29E79}
win Firewall Off GPO: {22099AD2-E062-4F56-B574-5099BBA4E7A6}

File names and MD5 hashes
payload.jpg: Ransom wallpaper and lock screen image (SYSVOL)
hello.txt: Ransom note source (SYSVOL)
README-payload.txt: Ransom note dropped to desktops and drive roots
killer.exe (0108656A3E1ADE6CA4F21B084F5E1208): process killer tool
kill.exe (BEA5E267F24D7DA59F6821BFFDBFF293): process killer tool

IP addresses
37.19.210[.]12
146.70.117[.]239
149.102.229[.]154
104.164.55[.]46
104.28.162[.]228
104.28.163[.]162
64.190.76[.]14
192.42.116[.]50
192.42.116[.]12
192.42.116[.]56
192.42.116[.]97
192.42.116[.]52

Registry keys
HKLM\...\Policies\System\legalnoticecaption = Welcome to Payload!

SYSVOL path
\\DC.THECOMPANY.local\sysvol\THECOMPANY.local\payload.jpg

Event IDs
5137: GPO object creation on DC — review creator account
5136: GPO attribute modification — watch gPLink at domain root

Authorities in the Netherlands have arrested a 24-year-old convicted cybercriminal on suspicion of aiding in data thefts and extortions by the prolific hacker group ShinyHunters. In the days immediately following the suspect’s arrest, remaining ShinyHunters members dramatically escalated their attacks, stealing highly sensitive data from the FBI and extorting the Russian ransomware group Cl0p.

According to three sources familiar with the matter, the Dutch man arrested by authorities this month is Pepijn van der Stap, a convicted cybercriminal from Almere and Lelystad in the Netherlands. Van der Stap was previously convicted in 2023 in connection with a string of data thefts and extortions that prosecutors said earned between €1.5 million and €2.7 million.

At his trial in late 2023, van der Stap admitted that he lived a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde existence, secretly using the hacker handle “Umbreon” to extort victims and post their data on English language hacking communities like the now-defunct RaidForums and Breached. By day, however, van der Stap was working as a software engineer at the Amsterdam-based cybersecurity startup Hadrian, while volunteering at the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure (DIVD), a nonprofit security research group.

Pepijn van der Stap’s alter ego “Umbreon” selling a database on RaidForums, offering information on 2.3 million people from The Netherlands in September 2021. This user’s avatar is a depiction of the Pokemon character Umbreon. Image: KELA.

Van der Stap confessed to his data theft and extortion activity, and was sentenced to four years in prison (one of which was suspended). During his trial, van der Stap opted to remain in custody for a time rather than at home, saying he could not find better treatment on the outside for his ongoing psychological issues, which he claimed included PTSD related to childhood trauma. He was released from prison in December 2025.

In an interview with KrebsOnSecurity on September 9, 2026, Van der Stap cast himself as a reformed hacker who was trying to turn his life around and make a positive contribution to society. Van der Stap is currently employed as offensive security lead at the Dutch company Neo Security, which did not respond to requests for comment.

Van der Stap said he was still dealing with civil lawsuits and restitution related to his previous cybercrime victims, and that he was trying his best to make amends. But not long after that interview, the Dutch hacker abruptly stopped replying to messages. Efforts by others close to him also repeatedly failed to elicit a response for the past two weeks.

The LinkedIn profile for Pepijn van der Stap.

According to two sources with knowledge of the matter, Van der Stap was arrested by Dutch authorities on or around September 16, and has been held in custody for questioning since. One source said a colleague of theirs personally witnessed Dutch authorities carting items out of Van der Stap’s residence.

Authorities in the Netherlands have been asking the public for help in identifying the voice in a recorded telephone call from February 2026 in which a native Dutch-speaking ShinyHunters member social engineered their way into Odido, the nation’s largest mobile telecommunications provider. In that intrusion, ShinyHunters tricked an Odido employee into logging in at a spoofed website, and then used that access to steal data on more than 6.2 million Dutch people.

Responding to Dutch news media, ShinyHunters confirmed that the suspect in the audio clip is indeed a member of the hacker collective.

“Our team member has our full support – emotionally, mentally, and financially,” the hackers said. “Everything has been arranged, including a criminal defense lawyer. We do not look down on our staff and members; we take excellent care of them,” reads a statement ShinyHunters shared with NL Times. It remains unclear if the Dutch police have matched the Odido caller to a confirmed real-life identity. The Dutch police unit handling the Odido incident did not respond to requests for comment.

The group also lashed out at the authorities in the Netherlands. “The Dutch police will need all the luck in the world – and everyone’s prayers – if they want to catch him before we carry out another large-scale data theft in the Netherlands,” the ShinyHunters statement said. “Frankly, the Dutch police are a big joke; they are incapable of doing anything. Incompetent. Irrelevant. Unimportant. Useless.”

FBI, CL0P HACKS

Just days after sources say Van der Stap was detained by Dutch authorities, ShinyHunters claimed credit for an unusually brazen breach at the FBI’s job application site apply.fbijobs.gov. According to reporting from 404 Media, the data stolen from the FBI site includes Social Security numbers and personal information on more than 5,000 officials.

404 Media and Reuters reported the FBI data included each person’s job title or team, such as special agent, threat intake examiner, major cybercrimes unit, and those investigating cyber threats from foreign state-backed actors. Reuters examined documents shared by ShinyHunters and found they included sensitive psychiatric and medical files of FBI staff. The FBI issued a brief statement confirming the hack.

ShinyHunters said it gained access to the FBI site and other victims by exploiting a recently patched vulnerability (CVE-2026-35273) in PeopleSoft, a software-as-a-service platform from the software giant Oracle that is broadly used by companies to manage hiring and human resources, benefits and payroll. Oracle quickly issued a fix for the Peoplesoft vulnerability that ShinyHunters reportedly began exploiting as a zero-day in June, and at the time Mandiant released web application firewall rules intended for organizations who couldn’t apply the security update quickly enough.

But on Friday, BleepingComputer reported that ShinyHunters used a URL-encoding trick to bypass Mandiant’s suggested web application firewall rules designed to mitigate the threat from the PeopleSoft flaw. In a report released Sept. 25, security experts at Mandiant and the Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) confirmed that ShinyHunters had mass-exploited the PeopleSoft vulnerability to steal data from dozens of systems across a range of industries, including higher education, technology, healthcare, agriculture, transportation and government.

Van der Stap’s former hacker alias Umbreon was hidden in plain sight throughout the imagery ShinyHunters used to spread news about the FBI hack: The defacement image that ShinyHunters left behind on the hacked FBI jobs site included an ASCII art design featuring the Pokemon character Umbreon. The message at the top read, “This site has been seized by ShinyHunters. rooting your systems since ’19 ;)” The image appears identical to a defacement message ShinyHunters used in their 2020 hack of the English-language cybercrime community Hackforums.

The defacement message left by ShinyHunters on the FBI jobs site included an ASCII art rendition of the Pokemon character Umbreon. Image: Bleeping Computer.

Multiple sources close to the ShinyHunters investigation said the group’s recent risky attacks against the FBI and one of Russia’s most venerated ransomware groups amounted to a major pivot away from the more measured tenor of the hacking gang’s operations. Those sources said the sudden shift came about after ShinyHunters was taken over by a teenage cybercriminal from Amman, Jordan who goes by the nickname Rey and operates as part of a cybercrime group called ScatteredLapsussHunters (SLSH), which experts say is an amalgamation of three hacking groups — Scattered Spider, LAPSUS$ and ShinyHunters.

Those sources said Rey had an ongoing beef with the Dutch hacker over control of the ShinyHunters brand and data, and that the inclusion of the oversized Umbreon Pokemon image in the FBI jobs site defacement was likely an attempt by Rey to pin the hack on the Dutchman.

Rey was first publicly identified by the cybersecurity firm KELA in March 2025. In advance of our November 2025 profile of Rey, KrebsOnSecurity messaged Rey’s father and asked for permission to interview his teenage son. Rey’s dad merely forwarded the message to his son, who admitted to participating in ransomware attacks and said he was trying to extricate himself from the SLSH hacker group.

BLAMING UMBREON

Immediately after news of the FBI jobs site hack was picked up in the media, Rey’s main account on Twitter/X (Ryan Moran/@rmoskovy) was taunting the Cl0p ransomware group and the FBI, crudely depicting them as the twin towers in New York being struck by planes labeled “cl0p drama” and “fbi breach claim.” In the foreground of the city is the giant Pokemon figure of Umbreon.

A taunting meme uploaded to Twitter/X by Rey’s now-defunct account on Sept. 22. A giant float-sized version of the Pokemon character Umbreon can be seen in the bottom left.

On Sept. 24, KrebsOnSecurity again contacted Rey’s dad, asking to interview him and his son for a story on Rey’s apparent ascendency as the head of ShinyHunters. Just hours after that request, Rey deleted his longtime Twitter/X account. Meanwhile, Rey’s dad, who works for the Royal Jordanian Airlines, has failed to respond to a half-dozen emailed requests for comment about his son’s alleged activities.

Where does the bad blood between SLSH and ShinyHunters come from? According to a story in Wired this month, ShinyHunters and SLSH members briefly partnered earlier this year to help better monetize important stolen credentials collected by TeamPCP, an upstart group that was having great success compromising global code supply chains with malicious software but hadn’t been able to profit much from their stolen data (two alleged leaders of TeamPCP were arrested last month in Australia, and in an interview the TeamPCP leader claimed they made just $20,000).

The Wired story noted how Mandiant had infiltrated TeamPCP and was secretly responsible for having the crime group’s stolen credentials burned so quickly: Mandiant was secretly feeding those credentials to the major cloud providers like Amazon and Microsoft, who quickly invalidated the stolen keys. Meanwhile, the formerly cooperating hacker groups began to blame one another for causing the credentials to become worthless.

Wired’s Andy Greenberg reported that a few weeks after partnering with TeamPCP, “ShinyHunters went rogue, carrying out its own extortions with TeamPCP’s credentials but without giving the supply-chain hackers their cut.”

Mandiant researcher Austin Larsen told KrebsOnSecurity earlier this month that ShinyHunters has been enjoying a successful extortion spree so far this year, and is on track to pull in nearly $100 million in extortion payments from cybercrime victims in 2026.

Van der Stap claims he was never motivated by money and that his earlier hacker activity was driven by a desire to have the world’s most complete collection of stolen databases. Speaking with reporters from Bloomberg in 2024, Van der Stap said that singular focus in turn fueled his desire to carry out cyberattacks.

“The hacking was very easy for me, and it wasn’t a compulsion,” he told Bloomberg. “My habit was collecting. Collecting data, organizing data, downloading data, creating folders.”

DIVD, the nonprofit security research group where Van der Stap previously served as a volunteer, disclosed on LinkedIn last week that the organization was dealing with an internal cybersecurity incident that appears to have involved the malicious use of artificial intelligence. DIVD has released few details about that incident, but a spokesperson for the nonprofit told KrebsOnSecurity it does not appear related to ShinyHunters, nor are there any signs the matter involves the work of a previous volunteer.

Update: 3:44 p.m. ET: Corrected Van der Stap’s age, which is 24 (not 23).

Update, 4:54 p.m. ET: The Dutch police have confirmed the arrest of a 24-year-old in connection with the ShinyHunters investigation. In a statement on Twitter/X, the Dutch police said the man will appear on Tuesday, September 29 before the chambers of the Rotterdam District Court, and that it will provide more information tomorrow.

Sept. 29, 9:42 a.m. ET: The Dutch news outlet RTL reports that investigators suspect Van der Stap tried to orchestrate at least two murders. RTL reported the two murders were allegedly to be committed abroad, and that there are indications the suspect gave the order for this.

The FBI released a short video message on the ShinyHunters investigation from Brett Leatherman, assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division, who thanked Dutch law enforcement partners for their assistance and urged remaining ShinyHunters members to turn themselves in.

“Arrests have a way of changing who is willing to talk, and seized infrastructure has a way of showing us who’s left,” Leatherman said. “The longer you stay in this, the more we learn about you. You know how to find us, and we know how to find you. I suggest you reach out to us while the choice is still yours.”

A U.S. Army soldier who pleaded guilty to hacking into multiple telecommunications companies and stealing mobile call and text metadata for more than 100 million AT&T customers in 2024 was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison today and ordered to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution to victims.

One of several selfies from the Facebook page of Cameron Wagenius.

Cameron John Wagenius, 22, was stationed at a U.S. Army base in South Korea when he adopted the cybercriminal persona “Kiberphant0m.” Working with three alleged co-conspirators, Kiberphant0m downloaded data from several large customers of the cloud data storage service Snowflake that had exposed credentials and did not enforce multi-factor authentication (Snowflake has since mandated MFA on all accounts).

In October 2024, Kiberphant0m bragged on the cybercrime forums that he’d stolen the call and text metadata (e.g. source and destination number, timestamp, duration, etc.) for tens of millions of AT&T customers. Kiberphant0m claimed to have hacked into more than dozen telecommunications companies worldwide, including Verizon’s Push-to-Talk business, and publicly extorted these companies in exchange for a promise not to publish the stolen data.

In late November 2025, KrebsOnSecurity warned that Kiberphant0m was likely a U.S. soldier stationed in South Korea. Less than a month later, Wagenius was arrested and charged in two separate federal indictments, and soon pleaded guilty to all counts in both cases.

At his sentencing hearing in Seattle today, Wagenius was sentenced to nearly six years in federal prison, and ordered to pay $294,978 in restitution.

Federal prosecutors said Wagenius was assisted in his efforts to extort victim companies by Kenneth Schuchman, a 28-year old man from Vancouver, Washington who has a lengthy cybercriminal history. In 2019, Schuchman pleaded guilty to operating the Satori botnet, a vast collection of hacked Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices that was used for large-scale distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

Two other alleged co-conspirators of Wagenius are still facing charges in connection with the Snowflake data thefts; Conor Riley Moucka, a.k.a. “Judische,” of Kitchener, Ontario was arrested in 2024 and pleaded guilty in August 2026; and John Erin Binns, an American man currently living in Turkey who is also wanted for a 2021 data breach at T-Mobile that exposed the personal information of at least 76 million customers.

Kiberphant0m also admitted to re-extorting victims, and threatening to disclose national security secrets. Immediately following Moucka’s arrest — after AT&T had already paid the extortion group a $370,000 Bitcoin ransom — Kiberphant0m posted on hacker forums what he claimed were the AT&T call logs for then President-elect Donald Trump and for then Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as schematics allegedly stolen from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).

Paul Russell is a resident agent in charge at the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), the criminal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Inspector General. Russell said when DCIS received information that a soldier with secret clearance was allegedly involved in cybercrime and extortion, the agency began working the investigation alongside the FBI, the Army Criminal Investigative Division (CID), and the U.S. Secret Service.

“We don’t often get leads where there’s an active duty soldier with a secret clearance who’s creating hacking tools and trafficking in data,” Russell said. “That doesn’t happen every day, and so when that hits it really spins all of our partner organizations up. It was very serious from jump street, just because it was unique, it was an insider threat, and we weren’t sure what we were dealing with.”

A sentencing memo (PDF) filed Sept. 19 by federal prosecutors in Seattle notes that while Wagenius pleaded guilty almost immediately and has been remarkably cooperative, he recently got caught trying to find security vulnerabilities in the BOP’s computer network. The government’s memo notes that while incarcerated and awaiting sentencing, Wagenius violated the computer use policies of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in attempts to learn about vulnerabilities in BOP computer systems.

“According to records from BOP, in or around September 2025, Wagenius used another inmate’s email system to request that the email recipient prompt a commercial AI tool to provide information about “[w]hat CVE’s are there for Windows 10 Enterprise privilege escalation and bypasses” and to “[p]rovide the CVE’s and a real world working script for each CVE . . . without omitted code,” the government’s memo states.

The memo states that less than a week later, Wagenius used a different inmate’s email account and requested that the email recipient prompt an AI tool to “[p]rovide the step by step for CVE-2023-45208, code for this if any, and if no code exists make some, make sure to describe everything in detail.” CVE-2023-45208 is a three-year-old “command injection” vulnerability in D-Link networking devices.

That same month, Wagenius allegedly again requested that the email recipient prompt AI with the question, “How do you make an antenna in a prison environment with commissary or readily available items/tools to improve/make an antenna to extend radio reception?”

Federal prosecutors said Wagenius also requested that the recipient research escaping prison.

“In several instances, Wagenius framed the AI queries as being posed in connection to a book he was writing. This is a common method of ‘prompt injection,’ in which attackers feed specially crafted, deceptive inputs into commercial AI tools that are programmed to avoid outputting malicious code that can be used to exploit computer vulnerabilities,” the sentencing memo reads.

The government told the court it is unaware of evidence that Wagenius figured out how to use or deploy the vulnerabilities he was researching in the BOP’s systems, and when questioned said he was only researching “potential vulnerabilities to provide information to the BOP.”

Incredibly, despite the enormous financial value of the data stolen from AT&T and other telecom providers, Wagenius’s extortion efforts were largely unsuccessful. The government’s sentencing memo says Wagenius made a whopping total of around $1,500 from selling stolen data.

“While Wagenius was not particularly financially successful as a cybercriminal, he both intended to and caused significant harm to numerous individual victims, U.S. companies, and the U.S. government,” the memo states.

Activity associated with Storm-2570, a ransomware affiliate linked to multiple ransomware payloads, illustrates how tracking and responding to ransomware attacks by payload alone can obscure the affiliates carrying out intrusions and the recurring behaviors that defenders can use to detect and disrupt them. Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed Storm-2570 using consistent post-compromise tools and techniques across deployments involving Qilin, DragonForce, Anubis, and BERT ransomware. Across multiple investigations, Storm-2570 has maintained largely uniform tradecraft, infrastructure overlaps, and repeated use of the same remote access and cloud exfiltration tooling despite operating across multiple ransomware ecosystems.

These findings reinforce the value of examining threat actor behavior across the attack chain rather than treating each ransomware payload as an isolated activity set. Recurring remote access, credential access, lateral movement, security tampering, and data exfiltration activity can help defenders connect related intrusions and respond before ransomware deployment, even when the final payload changes.

In this blog post, we delve into the attack techniques attributed to Storm-2570. While Storm-2570’s methodology aligns with the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of many tracked ransomware actors, analysis of their post-compromise tactics provides essential insights into how organizations can harden and defend against ransomware threat actors, informing opportunities to disrupt attackers even if they have gained initial access to a network. At the end of this blog, we also provide a comprehensive recommendation section with detection details.

Who is Storm-2570?

Storm-2570 is a ransomware affiliate that Microsoft Threat Intelligence has tracked since April 2025. We assess that Storm-2570 has operated across multiple ransomware as a service (RaaS) ecosystems, including Qilin, DragonForce, Anubis, and BERT.

To date, Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed Storm-2570 in multiple investigated intrusions affecting organizations in United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Spain, Netherlands, and Puerto Rico, including healthcare and public health, education, government agencies and services, financial services, energy, consumer retail, Information technology (IT), food and agriculture, consumer services, commercial facilities, non-government organization (NGO), chemicals, critical manufacturing, and transportation.

Unlike actors that consistently support a single ransomware operation, Storm-2570 appears to be a cross-ecosystem threat actor that works with multiple ransomware groups and shifts between operations as opportunities arise, giving the threat actor the flexibility to use and deploy multiple families and improve opportunities for payouts. As a result, organizations could encounter the same actor, tools, and intrusion methods despite different ransomware payloads being deployed.

Storm-2570 attack chain: From initial foothold to impact

While the method through which Storm-2570 gains initial access remains unconfirmed, observed intrusion chains indicate subsequent use of remote management tooling and hands-on-keyboard activity to progress toward credential access, lateral movement, exfiltration, and ransomware deployment.

Across incidents, Microsoft has observed the use of commodity tools in the pre-ransom attack stage even when the ransomware payload changed. These tools include:

• Remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools, including Atera, MeshAgent, ScreenConnect, Splashtop, Remotely_Agent, and NinjaRMM
• Discovery and lateral movement tools, including NetScan, Nmap, PsExec, Impacket, NetExec, and Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) batch scripts
• Data collection and exfiltration tools, including s5cmd and Rclone

These tools enable remote administration, command execution, persistence, and tunneling or proxy access.

Frequent use of remote management tooling across the attack chain

MeshAgent, a remote device management software, stands out as one of Storm-2570’s most frequently observed remote access and execution tools across multiple intrusions. Rather than appearing as a one-off utility, MeshAgent repeatedly shows up at key points in Storm-2570 attack chains, often after the actor has gained access and is preparing to expand control, run commands, deploy additional tooling, or move toward ransomware impact. In several cases, Storm-2570 used MeshAgent along with MeshCentral as an operational bridge between initial hands-on-keyboard activity and later-stage actions, such as account manipulation, discovery, credential access, security tampering, and ransomware deployment.

Many intrusions tracked by Microsoft have shown Storm-2570 tailoring MeshAgent deployments to the compromised environment. The actor renames MeshAgent-related binaries or services with victim-themed names, likely to make the tool appear more legitimate in the environment. For example, Storm-2570 renames the variant of the meshagent64 RMM tool to include the name of the compromised organization, such as meshagent64-[organization name].exe and uses Base64-encoding to obfuscate the commands being executed. In one such intrusion, MeshAgent was used alongside NinjaRMM before the activity progressed to ntdsutil for credential dumping, network scanning, and Qilin deployment.

Storm-2570 uses a diverse set of remote access tools rather than relying on a single capability. The threat actor rotates among commercially available RMM platforms, remote desktop components, and tunneling utilities, often deploying multiple tools during the same intrusion. For example, Storm-2570 uses Atera to install agents and execute interactive commands, while ngrok and Cloudflared.exe expose RDP services or establish persistent outbound tunnels. Storm-2570 uses AteraAgent to issue commands and to further download and install Splashtop Streamer in compromised environments. Splashtop appears to be the interactive remote control component delivered through Atera, giving the threat actor hands-on keyboard access. The actor also uses tools such as ScreenConnect for command execution and account or domain reconnaissance and installs Remotely_Agent as a persistent remote management service.

Use of tunneling utilities for persistent remote access

Storm-2570 also pairs remote access tooling with tunneling utilities such as Cloudflared.exe to create resilient outbound access paths. In one intrusion, Storm-2570 installed MeshAgent and later created a persistent Cloudflare Tunnel service on the victim host. The tunnel was configured to run automatically as a service under LocalSystem, allowing the threat actor to maintain an encrypted outbound channel from inside the network. This type of tunnel can help bypass inbound firewall restrictions and provide covert remote access for follow-on activity.

Discovery and credential access

Post-compromise, Storm-2570 routinely conducts internal network discovery using tools such as NetScan, SoftPerfect Network Scanner Portable, and Nmap, alongside native discovery commands and file-searching activity. These activities are used to identify reachable hosts and services, map internal networks and remote systems, and locate systems, network shares, and files that may facilitate data collection, credential access, or encryption operations.

For credential access and harvesting, Storm-2570 uses tools like Mimikatz, LaZagne, and pypykatz. Storm-2570 also uses ntdsutil in intrusions for NTDS.dit credential dumping, a credential theft technique against Active Directory domain credentials. The ntdsutil command usage pattern is consistent with creating an Install From Media (IFM) copy of Active Directory database material. In an intrusion context, attackers can use this to obtain NTDS.dit and related registry hives for offline extraction of password hashes and credential material.

The command uses the legitimate Windows ntdsutil.exe to activate the NTDS Active Directory instance and create a full IFM backup in C:\Windows\Temp\<XXXXXXXXX>.

Storm-2570 uses this command to dump or stage Active Directory database NTDS.dit and supporting registry hive material, then copy it off-host and potentially extract domain credential hashes offline, indicating that the actor has high-privilege access to a victim’s domain controller:

Defense evasion

After acquiring privileged credentials, Storm-2570 uses defense evasion tactics preceding ransomware deployment, including antivirus tampering and the modification of Microsoft Defender settings and Defender exclusions. In multiple observed intrusions, Storm-2570 disabled real-time monitoring, added Defender exclusions for C:\PerfLogs to weaken endpoint detections, and modified registry values under Microsoft Defender service keys to further impair protections.

These tactics are consistent across Storm-2570 ransomware intrusions involving Qilin, DragonForce, and Anubis deployment, including cases where the actor used registry changes to alter DisableAntiSpyware, DisableRealtimeMonitoring, and WinDefend service behavior.

Lateral movement and deployment preparation

Storm-2570 moves into lateral movement and deployment preparation phase typically by using a mix of legitimate administrative tooling, offensive frameworks, and remote execution utilities.

Across multiple investigated intrusions, Storm-2570 was observed leveraging PsExec, Impacket, NetExec, RDP batch scripts, and admin shares to reach additional systems, execute commands remotely, and stage tooling across the environment. The actor uses these capabilities to facilitate data exfiltration and prepare victim networks for ransomware deployment. These tools frequently appear alongside earlier discovery activity, credential access, and remote access tooling such as MeshAgent, and often precede the use of s5cmd for exfiltration or ransomware payload execution.

PsExec is one of the most consistent lateral movement and deployment tools used by Storm-2570. The actor frequently uses PsExec, sometimes with host lists such as @ip.txt, to move laterally and install renamed MeshAgent binaries across compromised environments. Storm-2570 utilizes MeshAgent during the lateral movement phase in several intrusions as a remote access tool deployed onto newly compromised systems.

The following are examples of PsExec commands with host lists @ip.txt:

Storm-2570 also uses RDP and RDP-enabling scripts as part of this phase. If RDP is not allowed in the environment, Storm-2570 needs admin privileges to modify the policy and enable it. In several intrusions, rdp.bat script appeared with PsExec, including cases where PsExec ran rdp.bat across hosts using @ip.txt.

The RDP batch script (rdp.bat) enables inbound Remote Desktop access by modifying Terminal Server settings and adding a firewall rule to allow TCP port 3389, as observed in the command below:

Additionally, the threat actor uses ngrok to expose TCP 3389 (default port for RDP), after which PsExec-related activity and security tampering appears. These examples show Storm-2570 combining RDP access, tunneling, and remote execution to sustain hands-on-keyboard control and reach additional systems.

Storm-2570’s use of Impacket and NetExec over Server Message Block (SMB) further supports their lateral movement pattern. Impacket is a collection of open-source Python classes designed for working with network protocols, and is popular with adversaries due to its ease of use and wide range of capabilities. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has a dedicated attack surface reduction rule to defend against lateral movement techniques used by Impacket; protecting lateral movement pathways can also mitigate Impacket.

The following NetExec SMB command is used to conduct credential theft and reconnaissance against internal Windows hosts:

Data collection and exfiltration

Storm-2570 frequently performs data theft using cloud and file-transfer utilities that are capable of moving large volumes of data quickly from compromised environments to a remote attacker-owned cloud resource. Microsoft has observed Storm-2570 using s5cmd or Rclone to stage and exfiltrate data, often after the actor has already completed discovery, credential access, lateral movement, and remote access setup. Tools like Rclone provide data synchronization capabilities, moving newly created or updated files to cloud resources in real-time to enable continuous exfiltration throughout all stages of the attack without needing attacker interaction.

Most commonly, Storm-2570 relies on s5cmd, a command-line utility designed for managing Amazon S3 and compatible object storage services, for S3-based exfiltration. In multiple intrusions, the actor staged s5cmd.exe alongside a credentials file and used it to copy documents, spreadsheets, images, databases, mail-related files, archives, and other business-relevant file types to S3 buckets. Storm-2570 identifies high-value drives and network shares, stages s5cmd.exe and a credentials file, and then executes run copy (cp) operations with extension filters to transfer selected data to attacker-controlled S3 buckets. To interact with the destination S3 bucket, s5cmd requires credentials for authentication and the credentials file stores the AWS access keys for authentication to the S3 bucket.

The following is an example of s5cmd data exfiltration command lines:

Overall, Storm-2570’s exfiltration tradecraft shows a strong preference for tools that blend into legitimate administrative or cloud-transfer workflows, allowing double-extortion operations: first collecting sensitive data through cloud-transfer tooling, then deploying ransomware.

What Storm-2570 activity means for defenders

Storm-2570 illustrates common human-operated ransomware attacks and how modern ransomware affiliates increasingly operate independently of a single ransomware brand. Ransomware affiliates’ use of common tools, intrusion methods, and operational patterns remain remarkably consistent. Although Storm-2570’s techniques are not novel, recognizing the patterns used by ransomware affiliates can be important for defenders to know to improve prevention, detection, and incident response.

Mitigation and protection guidance

To defend against Storm-2570 TTPs and similar activity, Microsoft recommends the following mitigation measures:

• Follow the defending against ransomware guidance in Microsoft’s ransomware as a service blog post which details how to build credential hygiene as well as how to limit lateral movement using the principle of least privilege.
• Turn on tenant-wide tamper protection features to prevent attackers from stopping security services or using antivirus exclusions. Without tamper protection, attackers could simply turn off Microsoft Defender Antivirus without the need to acquire higher privileges.
  • Customers running Intune or Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Security Configuration can enable DisableLocalAdminMerge to prevent modification of antivirus exclusions via GPO.
  • In addition to tamper protection, you can also enable and configure Microsoft Defender Antivirus always-on protection in Group Policy.
  • If there is an issue with a device during roll out of various antivirus features, the device can be placed in Troubleshooting mode to turn off Tamper Protection temporarily without impacting the wider organizational security policy.
• For approved RMM systems used in your environment, enforce security settings where possible to implement MFA. If an unapproved RMM installation is discovered in your network, reset passwords for accounts used to install the RMM services. If a System-level account was used to install the software, further investigation may be warranted.
• Configure automatic attack disruption in Microsoft Defender XDR. Automatic attack disruption is designed to contain attacks in progress, limit the impact on an organization’s assets, and provide more time for security teams to remediate the attack fully.
• Microsoft Defender XDR customers can turn on attack surface reduction rules to prevent common attack techniques used in ransomware attacks:
  • Block credential stealing from the Windows local security authority subsystem (lsass.exe)
  • Block execution of potentially obfuscated scripts
  • Block Webshell creation for Servers
  • Block process creations originating from PSExec and WMI commands (Some organizations might experience compatibility issues with this rule on certain server systems but should deploy it to other systems to prevent lateral movement originating from PsExec and WMI.)
  • Block use of copied or impersonated system tools
  • Use advanced protection against ransomware

Microsoft Defender detections

Microsoft Defender customers can refer to the list of applicable detections below. Microsoft Defender coordinates detection, prevention, investigation, and response across endpoints, identities, email, apps to provide integrated protection against attacks like the threat discussed in this blog.

Microsoft Security Copilot

Microsoft Security Copilot is embedded in Microsoft Defender and provides security teams with AI-powered capabilities to summarize incidents, analyze files and scripts, summarize identities, use guided responses, and generate device summaries, hunting queries, and incident reports.

Customers can also deploy AI agents, including the following Microsoft Security Copilot agents, to perform security tasks efficiently:

• Threat Intelligence Briefing agent
• Phishing Triage agent
• Threat Hunting agent
• Dynamic Threat Detection agent

Security Copilot is also available as a standalone experience where customers can perform specific security-related tasks, such as incident investigation, user analysis, and vulnerability impact assessment. In addition, Security Copilot offers developer scenarios that allow customers to build, test, publish, and integrate AI agents and plugins to meet unique security needs.

Threat intelligence reports

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can use the following threat analytics reports in the Defender portal (requires license for at least one Defender XDR product) to get the most up-to-date information about the threat actor, malicious activity, and techniques discussed in this blog. These reports provide the intelligence, protection information, and recommended actions to prevent, mitigate, or respond to associated threats found in customer environments.

• Actor Profile: Storm-2570
• Tool Profile: Qilin ransomware
• Tool Profile: Anubis ransomware
• Tool Profile: DragonForce ransomware

Microsoft Security Copilot customers can also use the Microsoft Security Copilot integration in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, either in the Security Copilot standalone portal or in the embedded experience in the Microsoft Defender portal to get more information about this threat actor.

Hunting queries

Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel customers can run the following advanced hunting queries to find related activity in their networks:

Hunt for PsExec-based remote execution and deployment

DeviceProcessEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(30d)
| where FileName in~ ("psexec.exe", "psexec64.exe")
    or ProcessCommandLine has_any ("psexec.exe", "psexec64.exe")
| where ProcessCommandLine has_any ("@ip.txt", "-accepteula", "\\")
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, AccountName, FileName, ProcessCommandLine,
          InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine,
          SHA256, DeviceId, ReportId
| order by Timestamp desc

Hunt for renamed MeshAgent binaries and services

let MeshAgentTerms = dynamic(["meshagent", "meshagent64", "meshcentral"]);
union isfuzzy=true
(
    DeviceProcessEvents
    | where Timestamp > ago(30d)
    | where FileName has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
        or ProcessCommandLine has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
        or InitiatingProcessCommandLine has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
    | project Timestamp, DeviceName, ActionType, FileName, FolderPath,
              ProcessCommandLine, InitiatingProcessFileName,
              InitiatingProcessCommandLine, SHA256,
              RegistryKey="", RegistryValueName="", SourceTable="DeviceProcessEvents"
),
(
    DeviceFileEvents
    | where Timestamp > ago(30d)
    | where FileName has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
        or FolderPath has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
        or InitiatingProcessCommandLine has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
    | project Timestamp, DeviceName, ActionType, FileName, FolderPath,
              ProcessCommandLine="", InitiatingProcessFileName,
              InitiatingProcessCommandLine, SHA256,
              RegistryKey="", RegistryValueName="", SourceTable="DeviceFileEvents"
),
(
    DeviceRegistryEvents
    | where Timestamp > ago(30d)
    | where RegistryKey has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
        or RegistryValueName has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
        or RegistryValueData has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
        or InitiatingProcessCommandLine has_any (MeshAgentTerms)
    | project Timestamp, DeviceName, ActionType, FileName="", FolderPath="",
              ProcessCommandLine="", InitiatingProcessFileName,
              InitiatingProcessCommandLine, SHA256="",
              RegistryKey, RegistryValueName, SourceTable="DeviceRegistryEvents"
)
| order by Timestamp desc

Learn more

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The post Beyond the ransomware: Tracking Storm-2570’s consistent tradecraft across deployments appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

Executive summary

In April 2026, we at Kaspersky’s Global Emergency Response Team (GERT) responded to a security incident at a manufacturing organization in the Middle East. The threat actor obtained domain admin-equivalent control of the organization’s Active Directory environment and authored a malicious Group Policy Object (GPO) named PAYLOAD, linking it at the domain root. Through that single object, the actor delivered ransom notes, hijacked the desktop wallpaper and lock screen, enforced a logon banner, and disabled the local administrator account across every domain-joined Windows workstation — all without dropping a ransomware binary or encrypting any data. The only ransomware we found in this incident was PAYLOAD sample targeting ESXi on Linux servers. Besides that, data exfiltration was observed originating from the file servers and several additional systems, and was later published on the dark web.

This case is an example of two converging trends that define the 2026 ransomware landscape:

1. Living-off-the-land abuse of trusted AD infrastructure. Group Policy is a signed, allowlisted, SYSTEM-privileged distribution channel that the majority of endpoint detection and response tools is designed not to inspect. By delivering impact through GPO rather than through malware, the actor sidestepped the entire file- and process-based detection stack.
2. Encryptionless extortion. Industry telemetry shows extortion-only incidents grow significantly year-on-year. PAYLOAD fits this model; the leverage is operational disruption and the threat of escalation rather than cryptographic denial of data.

We confirmed that no files were encrypted on Windows machines, no malicious binaries were resident on disk, no endpoint persistence was established, and no malicious processes were running at the time of analysis. The entire attack lived inside Active Directory itself. The defensive implication is stark: an organization whose detection strategy depends on catching a ransomware executable would have seen nothing until the first endpoint rebooted and the ransom wallpaper appeared.

In this article, we will describe the GPO attack chain and provide operational advice on how to detect such threats, including detailed remediation recommendations.

Group Policy as an attack surface

Attacks through group policies are nothing new. They can inflict significant, domain-wide damage with multiple malicious capabilities. A Group Policy Object (GPO) is essentially a combination of a Group Policy Container (GPC) in Active Directory and a Group Policy Template (GPT) in SYSVOL. The Group Policy scope depends on whether the GPC is linked to the directory tree at the domain, site, or organization unit (OU) level. A link at the domain root means the policy applies to every computer and user object beneath it. Thus, a GPO compromised at the domain root can affect all in-scope domain users and computers, potentially granting an attacker complete control over the corporate network. What makes GPO abuse even more dangerous is that group policies are processed in a trusted, high-privilege environment, ensuring persistence because endpoint cleanup is not enough to remove them.

We have already discussed GPO architecture and ways it can be compromised in greater detail in an earlier blog post. Other public threat intelligence has also repeatedly documented this technique in ransomware operations. Microsoft observed Ryuk operators distributing ransomware through Group Policy, SYSVOL startup items, and PsExec. LockBit affiliates have been documented modifying SYSVOL Group Policy files, including ScheduledTasks.xml, to support ransomware execution and propagation. BlackCat/ALPHV operators have also abused GPOs to create scheduled tasks and deploy ransomware.

Another notable example of GPO abuse is PAYLOAD ransomware, which weaponizes GPO Preferences and policy settings for pure impact rather than as a launcher for an encryptor. Let’s take a closer look at this attack, which is detailed further below.

Attack timeline

During the April 2026 investigation, we managed to reconstruct the attack timeline as outlined below:

Next, we will discuss each of these stages in more detail and share the findings from our incident response activities.

Incident overview

Initial access

The entry vector was a compromised valid account (MITRE ATT&CK T1078) used to authenticate through the organization’s FortiGate SSL VPN — an external remote service (T1133). Insufficient logging on the FortiGate appliance prevented us from reconstructing how the credential was originally compromised.

Three hypotheses were considered plausible in the context of the attack, in no particular order:

• Password spraying or credential stuffing against the SSL VPN portal.
• Phishing-led credential harvesting.
• Purchase of pre-compromised credentials from an initial access broker (IAB).

Once on the internal network, the actor operated with the compromised security principal’s privileges. Because the account was able to create and link a GPO at the domain root, it held either domain admin privileges or a delegated equivalent (e.g., membership of Group Policy Creator Owners combined with link rights on the domain object).

FortiGate SSL VPN authentication logs and ESXi/virtualization privilege escalation logs were insufficient to reconstruct the lateral movement and privilege escalation chain between initial VPN access and the GPO write privilege level. The most common real-world routes to GPO control — DCSync, Kerberoasting of privileged service accounts, and Pass-the-Hash/Pass-the-Ticket — could not be confirmed or ruled out.

Execution

Rather than deploying an encryptor, the actor abused the victim’s Active Directory policy infrastructure, resulting in malicious GPOs being configured and linked at the domain root to deliver the observed impact across domain-joined systems. The two GPOs below constitute the entire offensive toolkit observed.

The PAYLOAD GPO

We performed a Resultant Set of Policy (RSOP) analysis, which helped us list all policy settings on the affected workstations. From these results, we reconstructed the following changes delivered by PAYLOAD:

The PAYLOAD GPO enabled the following actions:

1. Drop SYSVOL\hello.txt to the desktop and root directories C:\ and D:\ as a read-only README-payload.txt by tampering with the “Group Policy Files” client-side extension (CSE).
2. Modify the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\ registry key, changing the legalnoticecaption value to "Welcome to Payload!" and the legalnoticetext to the ransom note text through the “Group Policy Registry” CSE.
3. Set payload.jpg located in the targeted domain controller’s SYSVOL as the lock screen image by altering the personalization policy, and as the wallpaper by altering the desktop policy at the user level.
4. Revoke administrator rights for the administrator account (locking the account) by editing the Security Settings CSE in the GptTmpl.inf file.

This activity was enabled entirely through a legitimate group policy mechanism, meaning there is no malware code for security solutions to look for because the malicious logic is contained within the policy configuration.

The win Firewall Off GPO

A second domain-root-linked GPO, named “win Firewall Off”, disabled Windows Firewall across the domain, private and public profiles on all endpoints (T1562.004). Deployed independently of PAYLOAD, this object degraded host defenses and ensured the actor retained unimpeded network reach to endpoints for any follow-on activity.

Settings changed by win Firewall Off GPO

The one-day delay detonation

The most forensically instructive detail is the one-day gap between GPO creation (13 April) and visible impact (14 April). Analysis of Master File Table (MFT) timestamps and the Group Policy History registry key confirmed the policy was written to SYSVOL and cached on endpoints on 13 April. However, computer configuration settings (wallpaper and lock screen machine policy, security settings, firewall disabling) only apply upon reboot or policy refresh — and no endpoint had rebooted in the interim. The attack therefore remained dormant in the GPO cache for one day before detonating en masse when machines were restarted in accordance with standard procedures.

We have to point out here that this delayed policy application is characteristic of GPO-based operations and has two potential consequences for defenders. Firstly, it may grant the actor a quiet window for exfiltration, persistence, or further staging between weaponization and impact. Secondly, it can be used to sever the temporal link between the cause (a GPO-creation event in the directory log) and the effect (mass user-visible disruption occurring at a later time), complicating timeline reconstruction unless directory service auditing is in place.

Forensic findings

Initial incident response engagement revealed a number of findings associated with the attack that we share below.

1. No file encryption
   A full review of the MFT on affected workstations found no files bearing a .payload extension characteristic to PAYLOAD ransomware and no evidence of bulk renaming or encryption I/O patterns. The attackers’ objectives were operational disruption and extortion via visual impact and access denial.
2. No endpoint persistence
   All standard persistence locations were clean:
   • Scheduled tasks — no malicious tasks
   • Run/RunOnce keys — clean
   • Startup folders (user and system) — clean
   • Services — no malicious service installed
   • WMI event subscriptions — none
   • Boot sector/MBR — unmodified

   The attack’s persistence mechanism is the GPO link itself on the domain controller, with no endpoint-resident component.

3. No active malicious processes
   Live process and memory analysis revealed no injected threads, process hollowing or anomalous outbound connections.
4. Registry timeline analysis
   Group Policy History, Shadow and State registry keys on the workstation recorded the application of PAYLOAD on 13 April:
   HKLM\…\Group Policy\History\{35378EAC-683F-11D2-A89A-00C04FBBCFA2}\1
   HKLM\…\Group Policy\Shadow\{827D319E-6EAC-11D2-A4EA-00C04F79F83A}\0
   HKLM\…\Group Policy\State\Machine\GPO-List\7
   HKCU\…\Group Policy\History\{7150F9BF-48AD-4da4-A49C-29EF4A8369BA}\1
   HKCU\…\Group Policy\State\S-1-5-21-…\Loopback-GPO-List\5
   The presence of the “Loopback-GPO-List” entry indicates the GPO was processed in loopback mode, ensuring the user configuration (wallpaper) applied regardless of which user logged on to the machine.
5. SYSVOL artifacts
   Two files were staged on the domain controller’s SYSVOL share and served to endpoints through the Files Group Policy Preference CSE:
   • payload.jpg — the ransom image used for both wallpaper and lock screen.
   • hello.txt — the ransom note, distributed to desktops and drive roots as README-payload.txt.

Detection engineering

Because no malicious binary or process exists, the detection logic should focus on the directory service and SYSVOL indicators. Below are the highest-value telemetry sources for identifying the described malicious activity.

• Directory service change auditing (DS Access)
  Enable Advanced Audit Policy → DS Access → Audit Directory Service Changes on all domain controllers and set up alerts for the following events:

  Event ID	Meaning	Hunt focus
  5137	A directory service object was created	The account that created new groupPolicyContainer objects must be an authorized GPO administrator
  5136	A directory service object was modified	Changes to gPLink on the domain root or sensitive organizational units; changes to gPCMachineExtensionNames/gPCUserExtensionNames/gPCFileSysPath/versionNumber for all GPOs
  5141	A directory service object was deleted	GPO deletions (relevant for tamper detection and remediation assessment)

  A gPLink modification at the domain root by a non-standard account is one of the most telling indicators of this attack class.

• SYSVOL file integrity monitoring
  Monitor \\DC.THECOMPANY.local\sysvol\THECOMPANY.local\Policies\ for unexpected files, particularly image files, text files, scripts, ScheduledTasks.xml, and modified registry.pol/GptTmpl.inf files that were created by sources other than legitimate replication.
• Endpoint policy application telemetry
  On endpoints, GPO application is logged in the Group Policy Operational log (Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy/Operational) and reflected in the History and Shadow registry keys shown above. A sudden domain-wide change to the applied policy set is a strong post-detonation signal.
• Missing 5136 events
  If the contents of a GPO’s SYSVOL change without a corresponding 5136 event, this can indicate direct SYSVOL/template editing (e.g., via open-source tools such as PowerView or SharpGPOAbuse) that bypasses the normal Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) modification path. While we recommend treating the absence of expected audit events as suspicious, it should be noted that this can be caused by misconfigured auditing.

Anti-forensics and recovery-inhibition capabilities

Confirmed PAYLOAD family capabilities

The Windows endpoint attack described in this report was implemented through malicious Group Policy Objects and did not involve a recovered ransomware executable, resident endpoint malware, confirmed file encryption or active malicious processes at the time of the forensic examination. However, PAYLOAD cryptomalware for Windows does exist, and other sources, including public analysis of its samples, reveal further malicious capabilities of this ransomware that could be used by security teams to enrich detection logic and security policies.

The behaviors documented in this section must therefore be interpreted as family-level capabilities identified through the public reverse engineering of PAYLOAD ransomware samples. They were not confirmed as having executed during the GPO-based incident unless corresponding evidence was identified in the host, memory, process, event-log, or hypervisor.

Windows Event Log clearing

Public reverse engineering of the PAYLOAD Windows variant reveals an optional event log clearing capability (T1685.005, formerly T1070.001). The ransomware dynamically resolves Windows Event Log APIs, enumerates available event log channels, and clears individual channels.

Implementation artifacts include:

• Runtime loading of wevtapi.dll
• EvtOpenChannelEnum
• EvtNextChannelPath
• EvtClearLog
• Enumeration of Security, System, Application, and PowerShell logs, and operational channels
• A command-line option controlling whether log clearing is performed

Clearing event logs reduces the availability of records related to process execution, authentication, PowerShell, service control, and system changes. However, it does not necessarily remove events that were already forwarded to a SIEM, Windows Event Collector, EDR backend, or protected log archive.

Forensic indicators

• Windows Security Event ID 1102
• Event logging shutdown or failure events
• Sudden reductions in event record identifiers
• Multiple event channels restarting from low record numbers
• Gaps between endpoint and centrally forwarded telemetry
• Execution of utilities or APIs associated with log management
• Direct access to EVTX files (Windows Event Log files) under the Windows event log directory

We should note that these indicators can’t be interpreted on their own. For instance, Event ID 1102 should be correlated with a number of aggravating factors, such as:

• Event ID 4688 or Sysmon Event ID 1 for process creation
• Event ID 4624 for the associated administrative logon
• EDR process trees
• PowerShell operational logging
• Windows Event Forwarding records
• Privileged access management activity

At the same time, the absence of Event ID 1102 does not prove that log clearing did not occur. Direct deletion, truncation, service impairment, or an incomplete audit configuration may produce different evidence.

Security process and service termination

PAYLOAD analysis reveals that the Windows ransomware variant contains logic that targets security processes and services (T1685 and T1489). This capability is intended to stop security products, backup software, database services, and applications that may lock files targeted for encryption.
Process and service termination serves several objectives:

1. Reduce endpoint detection and response visibility.
2. Release file handles so data can be modified.
3. Interrupt backup and recovery services.
4. Prevent databases and enterprise applications from protecting active data.
5. Reduce interference with encryption operations.

Forensic indicators

• Security agent services changing from running to stopped
• Event ID 7036 service state changes
• Event ID 7040 service start type changes
• Event ID 4688 or Sysmon Event ID 1 for service control utilities
• Sysmon Event ID 5 for terminated processes
• EDR health degradation affecting many endpoints
• Repeated termination attempts against security or backup processes
• Execution of dedicated process killing utilities

VSS deletion, backup and recovery suppression

Public PAYLOAD sample analysis reports the deletion of Windows Volume Shadow Copies before encryption (T1490). This behavior removes local restore points and reduces the victim’s ability to recover files without external backups.

Recovery inhibition is broader than VSS deletion and may include multiple other malicious techniques, including the following:

• Deleting shadow copies, backup catalogs, and hypervisor snapshots
• Disabling recovery services
• Modifying boot recovery settings
• Compromising backup management platforms
• Deleting or encrypting backup repositories

In the PAYLOAD Windows sample that is proven to perform encryption, VSS deletion is confirmed to have taken place before encryption. A broader compromise of the backup platform was not established in the investigated incident.

Forensic indicators

• Execution of shadow copy management utilities
• Backup catalog deletion attempts
• Recovery configuration changes
• Backup service termination
• Mass snapshot deletions
• Backup administrator logons outside normal maintenance windows
• Backup retention or immutability changes
• Backup jobs failing immediately before disruptive activity

Ecosystem-relevant ransomware techniques

Above, we discussed the techniques specific to PAYLOAD ransomware. In this section, we’ll review other common ransomware techniques, such as BYOVD abuse and ESXi policy weakening, that remain relevant risks in the ransomware ecosystem. However, these techniques should not be attributed to this incident without supporting driver load, process, memory, ESXi, vCenter, or backup platform telemetry. We describe these techniques below as they may prove useful in other ransomware-related forensic investigations.

The examples used in this section are therefore ecosystem-relevant: they are commonly observed in ransomware operations but not conclusively attributed to the analyzed PAYLOAD samples.

ETW suppression and in-memory patching

Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) is a kernel-supported tracing architecture used by Windows components, diagnostic utilities, security products, and endpoint monitoring systems.

Although we didn’t encounter this technique in our case, some ransomware families can patch ETW-related functions inside the ransomware process (T1685, formerly T1562.001). The reported routine changes the memory protection of code pages, overwrites the beginning of selected ETW functions so they return without producing events, restores the original protection, and refreshes the instruction cache.

Reported target functions include EtwEventWrite, EtwEventWriteFull, EtwEventWriteTransfer, and EtwRegister.

This modification applies to the process-local mapping of ntdll.dll. It does not disable ETW globally across Windows, but it can reduce the telemetry generated by the modified process.

Forensic indicators

• Writable or recently modified executable pages within ntdll.dll
• Memory protection changes affecting ETW function addresses
• In-memory code differing from the corresponding clean DLL on disk
• EDR memory tampering alerts
• Unexpected calls to memory protection APIs followed by telemetry silence
• Process execution visible in network or filesystem telemetry but absent from expected ETW-derived sources
• Inconsistent telemetry between EDR, Sysmon, Windows Event Logs, and network monitoring

It should be noted that telemetry gaps are not conclusive evidence of ETW patching. Other factors include agent upgrades, network outages, endpoint shutdowns, SIEM ingestion failures, collector backpressure, and filtering or licensing changes.

Memory acquisition is the strongest validation source when process-local ETW patching is suspected.

Vulnerable signed driver abuse, BYOVD

Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) involves introducing or abusing a legitimately signed but vulnerable kernel driver (T1068 and T1685). The attacker exploits the driver’s exposed functionality to gain kernel-level capabilities, modify protected memory, terminate security processes, remove security callbacks, or bypass operating system security controls.

BYOVD is highly relevant to contemporary ransomware operations. However, the reviewed public PAYLOAD analyses do not provide sufficient evidence to conclude that BYOVD is an intrinsic PAYLOAD capability.

It should therefore be presented as an ecosystem-relevant technique rather than a confirmed PAYLOAD feature.

Forensic indicators

• Unexpected .sys files written to user-writable or temporary directories
• New kernel driver services
• Sysmon Event ID 6
• Driver hashes matching Microsoft or community vulnerable driver blocklists
• Invalid, revoked, expired, or unusual driver signatures
• Driver load followed by EDR termination
• New privileged processes immediately following driver loading
• Code Integrity or Defender alerts
• Service creation events referencing driver files

ESXi security policy weakening

Ransomware operators are increasingly targeting ESXi and vCenter because compromising the virtualization layer provides access to many business-critical virtual machines.

Public research typically describes operators performing the following activities (T1685, T1490 and T1489):

• Enabling SSH on ESXi hosts
• Changing root passwords
• Disabling execInstalledOnly
• Modifying lockdown mode exceptions
• Stopping virtual machines
• Deleting snapshots and backups
• Changing host firewall policies
• Copying custom ransomware binaries to hypervisors

On the target organization’s Linux servers we saw an ESXi PAYLOAD variant, which makes this behavior operationally relevant. Nevertheless, the reviewed evidence does not indicate that PAYLOAD operators used any of these policy-weakening actions in the investigated incident.

Forensic indicators

• Unexpected ESXi SSH enablement
• Changes to execInstalledOnly
• Secure Boot enforcement changes
• Lockdown mode configuration changes
• Root password changes
• New or unusual administrator accounts
• Bulk VM shutdown activity
• Bulk snapshot deletion
• New binaries in datastore or temporary paths
• vCenter tasks originating from unexpected accounts or systems
• Missing or disabled remote syslog forwarding

Remediation

To contain the described threat and limit possible damage, several remediation steps should be taken. Below, we recommend a four-phase remediation approach for containing this threat and restoring the affected environment.

Phase 1 — domain controller actions (to be performed first)

When dealing with PAYLOAD GPO, the first priority of the remediation plan should be to remove the source GPOs. Until this is done, endpoint cleanup is ineffective because the next policy refresh re-infects cleaned machines.

The immediate domain controller actions to be taken are:

1. Delete PAYLOAD GPO. Remove {C897F2C7-C2AC-4E6F-BF48-58036FF29E79} via GPMC.
2. Delete or revert win Firewall Off GPO. Remove {22099AD2-E062-4F56-B574-5099BBA4E7A6}.
3. Clean SYSVOL. Delete jpg and hello.txt from \\DC.THECOMPANY.local\sysvol\THECOMPANY.local\.
4. Rotate credentials. Reset the compromised account; audit all privileged accounts and group memberships for unauthorized changes; rotate krbtgt twice if domain admin compromise is confirmed.
5. Force refresh. Perform gpupdate /force across endpoints after deletion; re-enable local administrator and firewall via clean policy.

Phase 2 — Active Directory and GPO hardening

• Adopt the AD tiered administration model and confine domain admins to Tier 0 with no interactive logon to workstations and member servers.
• Separate GPO creation from GPO linking rights, and grant both only to a dedicated, audited administrator role.
• Enable GPO change auditing (Event IDs 5136, 5137, 5141) and forward to a SIEM.
• Monitor SYSVOL with file integrity tooling.

Phase 3 — credential and access hardening

• Enforce phishing-resistant MFA on all VPN and remote access entry points.
• Deploy Windows LAPS to generate unique, rotated local administrator passwords.
• Enable Credential Guard to protect LSASS-resident secrets.
• Adopt Privileged Access Workstations (PAW) for all administration.
• Implement just-in-time elevation through Privileged Identity Management (PIM) for domain admin.

Phase 4 — detection and monitoring

• SIEM rule: GPO creation or domain-root gPLink change by a non-standard account.
• SIEM rule: file creation events under SYSVOL from non-replication sources.
• Implement enhanced, centrally collected FortiGate SSL VPN logging (auth events, session detail, source IP geolocation, impossible travel check) and detailed perimeter monitoring.
• Deploy a canary GPO whose application anywhere signals attacker GPO write access.

Conclusion

PAYLOAD demonstrates a maturing tactic of turning the victim’s own trusted infrastructure into a weapon. By weaponizing Group Policy, the actor achieved a domain-wide impact without a single malicious binary on any endpoint, evaded file- and process-based detection entirely, and caused organization-wide disruption within seconds of the first reboot.

The absence of encryption is the most strategically significant finding and is consistent with the 2026 trend toward encryptionless extortion. At Kaspersky GERT, we assess with moderate confidence that the missing encryption reflects one of two scenarios: (1) a deliberate decision to stay below the irreversible data destruction threshold while preserving the option of a follow-on encryption phase, or (2) an operation interrupted before full execution.

The absence of encrypted files must not be mistaken for the absence of a serious compromise — the most critical impact lies in the actor gaining domain admin-level control. This incident proves that a threat actor with domain admin access and a working knowledge of group policy internals can inflict domain-wide disruption equivalent to a ransomware attack without writing a single malicious file to any endpoint.

Detection strategies anchored solely in file- or process-based indicators are blind to this attack class. Effective controls include directory service change auditing, SYSVOL integrity monitoring, and privileged access governance, which allow for GPO protection.

Detection by Kaspersky solutions

Kaspersky security solutions effectively detect the described malicious activity at various stages of the attack. Possible detection scenarios are listed below.
To protect organizations that use our Kaspersky SIEM system, we have prepared a package of correlation rules designed to help detect this type of malicious activity. The rules are now available for customers to download from the SIEM repository; the package name is: [OOTB] Group policy hijacked: PAYLOAD ransomware – ENG.

The “Group policy hijacked: PAYLOAD ransomware” package contains rules that detect suspicious file creation or modification in the SYSVOL shared folder on a domain controller, as well as changes to critical attributes and settings of domain group policies. Some rules may require adjustment if they trigger in response to legitimate activity, such as synchronization between domain controllers or the configuration of a new group policy.

To ensure the detection rules function correctly, verify that events from Windows systems are being received in full, including events with the following identifiers: Sysmon: 11, Security — 4663, 5136, 4657.

We also recommend applying the following rules available in the repository to detect all attack stages.

• Detection of Windows Event Log clearing to cover up traces of an attack: R050_03_Windows Event Log was cleared
• Detection of suspicious access to the LSASS process, which may indicate attempts to dump credentials: R262_Suspicious access to the LSASS process
• Detection of the Volume Shadow Copy service being started, which is used to create shadow copies before deleting them: R231_20_Running the Volume Shadow Copy service
• Detection of shadow copy deletion: R321_Shadow copy deletion
• Detection of Windows Defender disablement: R076_01_Windows Defender Antivirus was disabled
• Detection of attempts to disable or modify the system firewall: R240_03_Disabling system firewall via the registry
• Detection of a service installation from a non-system folder, which may indicate malware persistence techniques: R281_01_Installation of a service from a non-system folder

For the rules in this list to function correctly, it is necessary to configure Security event auditing for event IDs 4663, 5136, 4657, 7036, and 1102.

In addition to the SIEM system, when audit settings are configured correctly, the process of creating, modifying, and deleting GPOs generates a large number of characteristic artifacts on the domain controller, enabling Kaspersky Endpoint Detection and Response Expert to promptly alert the user to anomalies in the infrastructure.

The creation of a new GPO is covered by the gpo_creation rule, which triggers in response to the corresponding event in the infrastructure. Changes to existing policies are detected by the following rules:

• The setting_the_gpcmachineextensionname_attribute rule detects changes to the gPCMachineExtensionNames attribute.
• The setting_the_gpcfilesyspath_attribute rule detects the use of the gPCFileSysPath attribute of a Group Policy Object, which specifies the path to the GPO’s contents in SYSVOL.
• The broader rule setting_the_grouppolicycontainer_class detects a change to the groupPolicyContainer class.

GPO deletion is covered by the gpo_deletion rule.

In the next major version update of Kaspersky EDR Expert, a new event type, GPO, will be introduced, allowing users to track changes to Group Policy Objects.

For information security officers, GPO events will serve as an additional source of context when investigating activity in Active Directory and will help detect changes that could affect the configuration, access rights, and security of endpoints before a potentially malicious policy is deployed.

MITRE ATT&CK mapping

Indicators of compromise

GPOs
PAYLOAD ransomware GPO: {C897F2C7-C2AC-4E6F-BF48-58036FF29E79}
win Firewall Off GPO: {22099AD2-E062-4F56-B574-5099BBA4E7A6}

File names and MD5 hashes
payload.jpg: Ransom wallpaper and lock screen image (SYSVOL)
hello.txt: Ransom note source (SYSVOL)
README-payload.txt: Ransom note dropped to desktops and drive roots
killer.exe (0108656A3E1ADE6CA4F21B084F5E1208): process killer tool
kill.exe (BEA5E267F24D7DA59F6821BFFDBFF293): process killer tool

IP addresses
37.19.210[.]12
146.70.117[.]239
149.102.229[.]154
104.164.55[.]46
104.28.162[.]228
104.28.163[.]162
64.190.76[.]14
192.42.116[.]50
192.42.116[.]12
192.42.116[.]56
192.42.116[.]97
192.42.116[.]52

Registry keys
HKLM\...\Policies\System\legalnoticecaption = Welcome to Payload!

SYSVOL path
\\DC.THECOMPANY.local\sysvol\THECOMPANY.local\payload.jpg

Event IDs
5137: GPO object creation on DC — review creator account
5136: GPO attribute modification — watch gPLink at domain root

All threats

In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects were blocked continued to decrease, falling to 19.15%, its lowest level since 2022.

Percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects were blocked, Q3 2023–Q2 2026

Regionally, the percentages ranged from 8.1% in Northern Europe to 27.9% in Africa.

Regions ranked by percentage of attacked ICS computers

The figures increased in five regions over the quarter, most notably in East Asia (by 2.0 pp) and Africa (by 0.5 pp).

East Asia saw increases in percentages for all threats except miners. The region ranked first in terms of growth for malicious scripts and phishing pages, spyware, and viruses. East Asia also led in terms of growth in threats from the internet. The percentage of ICS computers on which email threats were blocked also increased.

Selected industries

The biometrics sector (26.44%) has traditionally led the rankings of industries and OT infrastructures surveyed in this report in terms of the percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects were blocked. Biometric systems are characterized by the availability of internet access, extensive email use for data exchange and approvals (e.g. access granting), and, in many cases, minimal cybersecurity controls within the organizations that use them.

Industries ranked by percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects were blocked

The biometrics sector ranked first among industries in terms of the following threat categories: malicious scripts and phishing pages, malicious documents, spyware, ransomware, and worms. The sector is also leading among industries in terms of email threats. At the same time, unlike other industries, the percentage of affected ICS computers for email threats in biometrics exceeds that for internet threats.

In all selected industries, the global average follows a downward trend.

Threat categories

In Q2 2026, Kaspersky security solutions blocked malware from 10,904 different malware families of various categories on industrial automation systems.

Over the quarter, the percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects of the following categories were blocked increased: denylisted internet resources, malicious documents, worms, ransomware, and malware for AutoCAD.

Percentage of ICS computers on which the activity of malicious objects from various categories was blocked

Malicious scripts and phishing pages (JS and HTML)

Malicious scripts and phishing pages remained in first place in the threat category rankings based on the percentage of ICS computers on which the respective threats were blocked. In Q2 2026, the global average dropped to 5.42%.

Over the quarter, the figure for this category only increased in East Asia, rising by 0.93 pp to 4.86%. This is the second-highest figure in the region in the last three years.

In East Asia, the percentage of ICS computers affected by malicious scripts and phishing pages increased in all the industries surveyed, except construction. The highest figures were recorded for biometrics (9.01%) and building automation (6.49%).

Denylisted internet resources

In Q2 2026, denylisted internet resources rose in the threat category rankings from third to second place, displacing spyware. Globally, the percentage of ICS computers on which denylisted internet resources were blocked has been increasing for two quarters in row and reached 4.31%.

The figures increased in all regions over the quarter, most notably in Russia (by 1.33 pp). Moreover, Russia ranked first (5.17%) among the regions in terms of denylisted internet resources. Since 2022, the region has topped these rankings twice before, both times in Q2: in 2022 and 2024.

Among the selected industries in Russia, the highest figures for the denylisted internet resources were in the electric power (6.61%) and engineering and ICS integration (5.62%) industries.

Malicious documents (MSOffice + PDF)

Malicious documents ranked fourth in the threat category rankings by the percentage of ICS computers on which they were blocked. The percentage for this category decreased over the previous three quarters, reaching its lowest level in three years. However, in Q2 2026, it increased to 1.77%.

Over the quarter, the figures for malicious documents increased in seven regions, most notably in South America (by 1.35 pp) and Southern Europe (by 0.48 pp). These two regions are among the top three in terms of malicious documents, malicious scripts and phishing pages, as well as threats from email clients.

South America ranked second in the rankings of regions in terms of malicious documents. In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers in the region on which this threat was blocked was 3.56%, which was the fourth highest in three years.

Among the selected industries in South America, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which malicious documents were blocked was in biometrics (6.67%).

Southern Europe ranked first in the rankings of regions in terms of malicious documents. In the previous quarter, the percentage of ICS computers in the region on which this threat was blocked was the lowest in three years, but in Q2 2026 it increased to 3.63%.

Among the selected industries in Southern Europe, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which malicious documents were blocked was once again in biometrics (11.48%).

Spyware

Spyware ranked third in the threat category rankings based on the percentage of ICS computers on which it was blocked. The percentage for this category (3.30%) is the lowest since 2022.

Over the quarter, the figures increased in three regions, most notably in East Asia (by 0.53 pp) and Southeast Asia (by 0.42 pp).

East Asia ranked third based on the figures for spyware (4.77%), behind Africa and Southeast Asia. This is the region’s highest rate since Q2 2025. Among the countries and territories in the region, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which spyware was blocked was in mainland China (6.61%). Among the selected industries in East Asia, the highest figures for spyware were in the electric power (11.75%) and manufacturing (5.87%) industries. In all the industries surveyed, the figures are higher than the regional average.

Southeast Asia ranked second after Africa in the ranking of regions in terms of spyware, with 5.32%. Among the selected industries in Southeast Asia, the highest figures for spyware were in biometrics (8.93%) and manufacturing (7.32%). The figures increased in all industries over the quarter.

Ransomware

The percentage of ICS computers on which ransomware was blocked decreased in the previous three quarters but increased to 0.16% in Q2 2026.

During the quarter, the percentage increased in all regions, except Western and Southern Europe and North America (Canada). Africa led the ranking in terms of growth for this metric.

In Q2 2026, Africa ranked first among the regions in terms of the percentage of ICS computers on which ransomware was blocked (0.29%). The only time the figure in the region was higher in the past three years was Q2 2025 (0.31%).

Among the selected industries in Africa, the highest figures for ransomware were in the electric power industry (0.72%) and biometrics (0.52%). Over the quarter, the figures increased in all industries, except manufacturing and construction. The biggest increase was recorded in the electric power industry.

In Russia, the percentage of ICS computers on which ransomware was blocked in biometric systems has increased for three consecutive quarters, reaching 1.22%. This is the highest level of ransomware across all industries in all regions.

Miners

In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers on which miners were blocked was the lowest since 2021, for both miners in the form of executable files for Windows (0.48%) and web miners running in browsers (0.14%).

The figures for both categories decreased in all regions, except for Africa where figures for miners in the form of executable files for Windows increased slightly.

On average, the oil and gas industry led the rankings among the selected industries both in terms of miners in the form of executable files for the Windows OS (0.66%) and in terms of web miners (0.34%).

Worms

In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers on which worms were blocked increased to 1.43%.

In Q2 2026, the Middle East (2.11%) was second (after Africa) in the rankings of regions in terms of worms, displacing Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

Among the selected industries in the Middle East, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which worms were blocked was in building automation (2.90%). Over the quarter, the figures increased in all industries.

Australia and New Zealand ranked 12th among the regions in terms of the percentage of ICS computers on which worms were blocked (0.41%). Over the past three years, the figure in this region was only higher in Q2 2024 (0.42%). The figures increased in all the surveyed industries in the region, most notably in manufacturing and electric power. As a result, for these industries they exceeded the regional average by 2.9 and 2.3 times, respectively.

Viruses

In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers on which viruses were blocked decreased to 1.29%.

The top three regions for this metric remain unchanged: Southeast Asia (6.03%), Africa (4.22%), and East Asia (3.14%). These same regions lead the rankings in terms of malware for AutoCAD.

The figures increased in three regions: East Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and Africa, where it has been growing for four consecutive quarters and reached its highest value since 2022.

Among the selected industries in Africa, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which viruses were blocked was in construction (5.47%).

East Asia ranked third among the regions in terms of viruses, reaching the highest level in the region for the past three years. Among the countries and administrative regions of East Asia, mainland China is the clear leader in terms of viruses (5.07%).

Among the selected industries in East Asia, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which viruses were blocked was in construction (5.93%).

In Australia and New Zealand, the increase in the percentage of ICS computers on which viruses were blocked was primarily due to a 4.3-fold increase in the figure for the electric power industry: from 0.29% to 1.24%. For a region where the percentage of attacked ICS computers for all threats is 0.12%, this is a very high value.

Malware for AutoCAD

In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers on which malware for AutoCAD was blocked increased to 0.31%.

The most notable increase over the quarter was observed in Africa. After more than doubling in the previous quarter, the figure for the region continued to rise (although not so dramatically), reaching 1.02%.

Among the selected industries across all regions, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which malware for AutoCAD was blocked was in construction in East Asia (6.38%) and in Southeast Asia (4.05%).

Main threat sources

In Q2 2026, of all the threat sources, the percentage increased only for email.

Percentage of ICS computers on which malicious objects from various sources were blocked

Internet

The percentage of ICS computers on which threats from the internet were blocked decreased to 7.61%, reaching its lowest level since 2021.

Over the quarter, the percentage increased in three regions: East Asia by 0.8 pp (to 6.3%), South Asia by 0.3 pp (to 10.4%), and Russia by 0.3 pp (to 6.4%).

Among the selected industries across all regions, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which threats from the internet were blocked was in biometrics (13.03%) and engineering and ICS integration (12.16%) in South Asia.

Email

The percentage of ICS computers on which email threats were blocked increased to 2.84%.

In Q2 2026, the percentage of ICS computers on which email threats were blocked increased in South America by 1.0 pp (to 5.2%) and in Africa by 0.7 pp (to 4.3%).

Among the selected industries across all regions, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which email threats were blocked was in biometrics (19.14%) and building automation (12.49%) in Southern Europe.

Removable media

The percentage of ICS computers on which threats from removable media were blocked continued to decrease, reaching 0.24%, the lowest value for the period under review.

Among the selected industries across all regions, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which threats from removable media were blocked was in the electric power industry in East Asia (1.34%) and biometrics in Africa (1.29%).

Network folders

The percentage of ICS computers on which threats from network folders were blocked continued to decrease. In Q2 2026, it was the lowest for the period under review, at 0.023%.

The only region to see an increase in the percentage of ICS computers on which threats from network folders were blocked during the quarter was Africa. This was mainly due to an increase in the building automation figure to 0.05%.

Among the selected industries across all regions, the highest percentage of ICS computers on which threats from network folders were blocked was in biometrics (0.23%), building automation (0.17%), and engineering and ICS integration (0.13%) in East Asia.

For more information on industrial threats see the full version of the report.