SILENTTRINITY

Moreover, exploitation of a public-facing application was the root cause in 42.37% of cases investigated by the Kaspersky Global Emergency Response Team (GERT) in 2023. During the investigation of one case, we identified that the web server was patched a month after the attacker infiltrated the network.

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

The content repeatedly describes threat actors and malware using PowerShell to execute payloads, run commands, download additional malware, perform lateral movement, evade defenses, and execute scripts in memory. | Examples include: 'APT28 downloads and executes PowerShell scripts and performs PowerShell commands'; 'APT3 has used PowerShell on victim systems to download and run payloads after exploitation'; 'TA505 has used PowerShell to download and execute malware and reconnaissance scripts.'

During the 2016 Ukraine Electric Power Attack, Sandworm Team used the xp_cmdshell command in MS-SQL. During the 2025 Poland Wiper Attacks, the adversaries leveraged PsExec to run cmd.exe commands on multiple victim machines. Numerous malware families and groups are described as using cmd.exe, cmd /c, Windows command shell, or command-line interfaces to execute commands, payloads, reconnaissance, persistence, cleanup, and ransomware actions.

Bazar has manually loaded ntdll from disk in order to identity and remove API hooks set by security products. Donut can patch AMSI, WLDP, as well as exit-related Native API functions... Turla has used a AMSI bypass, which patches the in-memory amsi.dll.

During the 2015 Ukraine Electric Power Attack, Sandworm Team modified in-registry Internet settings to lower internet security before launching rundll32.exe ... AADInternals can modify registry keys ... ADVSTORESHELL is capable of setting and deleting Registry values ... [many additional examples].

During the 2016 Ukraine Electric Power Attack, Sandworm Team used an arbitrary system service to load at system boot for persistence for Industroyer. They also replaced the ImagePath registry value of a Windows service with a new backdoor binary.

MITRE ATT&CK: Change Default File Association ... It is possible to hijacking a default file association to execute a malicious program.

Numerous malware families and threat groups are described as achieving persistence by adding values under Run/RunOnce/Policies\Explorer\Run Registry keys or by placing shortcuts/files in the Windows Startup folder.

Many entries describe creating .lnk shortcut files in the Startup folder, such as DarkGate creating a shortcut to itself as an LNK object in the victim startup folder and Operation Dream Job placing LNK files into victims' startup folders.

The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors injecting shellcode, DLLs, or payloads into legitimate processes such as svchost.exe, explorer.exe, iexplore.exe, cmd.exe, lsass.exe, and browser processes.

During the 2016 Ukraine Electric Power Attack, Sandworm Team used an arbitrary system service to load at system boot for persistence for Industroyer. They also replaced the ImagePath registry value of a Windows service with a new backdoor binary.

MITRE ATT&CK: Change Default File Association ... It is possible to hijacking a default file association to execute a malicious program.

Numerous malware families and threat groups are described as achieving persistence by adding values under Run/RunOnce/Policies\Explorer\Run Registry keys or by placing shortcuts/files in the Windows Startup folder.

Many entries describe creating .lnk shortcut files in the Startup folder, such as DarkGate creating a shortcut to itself as an LNK object in the victim startup folder and Operation Dream Job placing LNK files into victims' startup folders.

The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors that 'bypass UAC,' 'perform UAC bypass,' or use specific Windows components such as fodhelper.exe, eventvwr.exe, sdclt.exe, CMSTPLUA COM interface, SilentCleanup, and registry hijacks to gain elevated privileges.

The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors injecting shellcode, DLLs, or payloads into legitimate processes such as svchost.exe, explorer.exe, iexplore.exe, cmd.exe, lsass.exe, and browser processes.

APT5 has used the THINBLOOD utility to clear SSL VPN log files located at /home/runtime/logs.

The content repeatedly describes threat actors and malware deleting files, tools, scripts, logs, droppers, staged data, and artifacts from compromised systems to cover tracks, remove evidence, or self-delete.

CSPY Downloader has the ability to remove values it writes to the Registry.

Agent Tesla has used ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden to hide windows. APT-C-36 has set the ShowWindow property of the Win32_ProcessStartup object to zero to hide PowerShell execution. APT19 used -W Hidden to conceal PowerShell windows by setting the WindowStyle parameter to hidden.

Bazar has manually loaded ntdll from disk in order to identity and remove API hooks set by security products. Donut can patch AMSI, WLDP, as well as exit-related Native API functions... Turla has used a AMSI bypass, which patches the in-memory amsi.dll.

During the 2015 Ukraine Electric Power Attack, Sandworm Team modified in-registry Internet settings to lower internet security before launching rundll32.exe ... AADInternals can modify registry keys ... ADVSTORESHELL is capable of setting and deleting Registry values ... [many additional examples].

Agent Tesla can gather credentials from a number of browsers... APT3 has used tools to dump passwords from browsers... APT41 used BrowserGhost, a tool designed to obtain credentials from browsers, to retrieve information from password stores... TrickBot can obtain passwords stored in files from web browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge

The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors querying, enumerating, opening, and reading Windows Registry keys and values, e.g., "APT41 queried registry values to determine items such as configured RDP ports and network configurations" and "Reg may be used to gather details from the Windows Registry of a local or remote system at the command-line interface."

The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors collecting the username, identifying the current user, enumerating logged-on users, or running commands such as whoami, query user, and quser to determine user context on compromised systems.

Tasklist can be used to discover processes running on a system. Numerous malware families and threat groups are described as listing running processes, enumerating PIDs, checking for specific process names, or using APIs such as CreateToolhelp32Snapshot and commands such as tasklist and ps.

The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors collecting host details such as hostname, OS version, architecture, CPU, memory, BIOS, language, and other machine characteristics; e.g., "Action RAT has the ability to collect the hostname, OS version, and OS architecture of an infected host."

Examples include: "Babuk can enumerate disk volumes," "Confucius has used a file stealer that can examine system drives," and "XAgentOSX contains the getInstalledAPP function to run ls -la /Applications to gather what applications are installed."

AdFind can enumerate domain users. APT41 used built-in net commands to enumerate domain administrator users. BloodHound can collect information about domain users, including identification of domain admin accounts.

APT1 listed connected network shares. APT32 used the net view command to show all shares available, including the administrative shares such as C$ and ADMIN$. APT41 used the net share command as part of network reconnaissance.

Adversaries may attempt to get a listing of security software, configurations, defensive tools, and sensors that are installed on a system or in a cloud environment.

The content states 'SILENTTRINITY can use cmd.exe to enable lateral movement using DCOM.'

Aquatic Panda modified the victim registry to enable the RestrictedAdmin mode feature, allowing for pass the hash behaviors to function via RDP. SILENTTRINITY can modify registry keys, including to enable or disable Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). SMOKEDHAM has modified registry keys for persistence, to enable credential caching for credential access, and to facilitate lateral movement via RDP.

Examples include 'Aquatic Panda used WMI for lateral movement in victim environments,' 'Deep Panda group is known to utilize WMI for lateral movement,' and 'Cinnamon Tempest has used Impacket for lateral movement via WMI.'

Agent Tesla can steal data from the victim’s clipboard. APT38 used a Trojan called KEYLIME to collect data from the clipboard. APT39 has used tools capable of stealing contents of the clipboard.

ADVSTORESHELL exfiltrates data over the same channel used for C2... Agrius exfiltrated staged data using tools such as Putty and WinSCP, communicating with command and control servers... numerous malware and groups sent victim data, files, credentials, or host information over existing C2 channels.

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