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MalwareRansomwareUsed by 5 actors

BloodHound

BloodHound is an open-source post-compromise reconnaissance and visualization tool used to map relationships and attack paths in Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID, and Azure environments. Its SharpHound ingestor collects directory and host data via LDAP, PowerShell, and .NET API calls, including domain users, domain administrator accounts, local accounts, local and domain groups, user sessions, domain computers including domain controllers, domain trust relationships, and Group Policy-derived local administrator information. BloodHound can also compress collected data into a ZIP archive written to disk, and AzureHound, part of the BloodHound suite, can collect Microsoft Graph and Azure REST API data for Entra ID and Azure enumeration.

The content shows BloodHound being used for Active Directory mapping, account discovery, remote system discovery, domain trust discovery, permission group discovery, and identification of privilege escalation paths. It is commonly used by penetration testers and internal security teams, but multiple threat actors and intrusion sets have also used it in real intrusions, including ransomware-related operations. Reported examples in the content include Russian state-sponsored actors targeting U.S. cleared defense contractors, attackers in the Capita 2023 intrusion, Play, and other operators using BloodHound alongside tools such as Cobalt Strike, Mimikatz, CrackMapExec, PowerView, and PsExec.

Observed execution patterns in the content include PowerShell-based download cradles and direct invocation of SharpHound.ps1 and Invoke-BloodHound. Detection-relevant details directly mentioned include SharpHound/BloodHound LDAP query patterns, anomalous SPN requests associated with Kerberoasting, large-scale Active Directory enumeration, and the use of the default AzureHound user-agent format "azurehound/<version>" in cloud audit logs.

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THREAT ACTORS

Groups observed using it

5 distinct threat actors attributed by public researchers. Open in Mallory to see the full evidence chain and overlapping campaigns.

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BlackBasta

"Additional Resources ... Bloodhound"

via bushidotoken blogblog.bushidotoken.net
Twelve

Prominent among the other tools used by Twelve are Cobalt Strike, Mimikatz, Chisel, BloodHound, PowerView, adPEAS, CrackMapExec, Advanced IP Scanner, and PsExec for credential theft, discovery, network mapping, and privilege escalation.

via the hacker newsthehackernews.com
WIZARD SPIDER

During an intrusion, tools such as Cobalt Strike, PowerShell Empire, Bloodhound, PSExec... are used for network discovery and traversal, privilege escalation, staging, and ransomware deployment.

via secureworks threat profilessecureworks.com
Ryuk actors

"SharpHound... for BloodHound (an open-source Active Directory analysis tool used to identify attack paths in AD environments)."

via sophos threat researchnews.sophos.com
UNC2447

...UNC2447 has been observed using the following tools: ADFIND, BLOODHOUND...

via mandiant threat intelligencecloud.google.com
MITRE ATT&CK

Techniques & procedures

21 distinct techniques documented for this family, organized by ATT&CK tactic.

Resource Development

1 technique
T1588.002ToolEvidence1

The content repeatedly states that threat actors 'obtained,' 'acquired,' or 'used' publicly available, open-source, legitimate, or modified tools such as Mimikatz, Cobalt Strike, PsExec, Empire, Impacket, and many others.

Execution

1 technique
T1059.001PowerShellEvidence1

The content repeatedly describes threat actors and malware using PowerShell scripts/commands for execution, download, staging, reconnaissance, persistence, credential access, lateral movement, and defense evasion; e.g., "Sandworm Team used PowerShell scripts to run a credential harvesting tool in memory to evade defenses."

Privilege Escalation

2 techniques
T1484.001Group Policy ModificationEvidence1

Zachary_Hunt had either GenericWrite or WriteProperty with all 0s on quite a few users... if we hold WriteProperty with GUID f3a64788–5306–11d1-a9c5–0000f80367c1 on a user account we can set a SPN on their account.

T1548Abuse Elevation Control MechanismEvidence2

In this scenario, our current domain user LAB.LOCAL\Black Wasp has Full Control, including both WriteOwner and WriteDacl rights over the template... the screenshot below shows that our user blwasp@lab.local has GenericAll rights over the ESC4 template.

Defense Impairment

1 technique
T1484.001Group Policy ModificationEvidence1

Zachary_Hunt had either GenericWrite or WriteProperty with all 0s on quite a few users... if we hold WriteProperty with GUID f3a64788–5306–11d1-a9c5–0000f80367c1 on a user account we can set a SPN on their account.

Credential Access

3 techniques
T1003.006DCSyncEvidence1

По классификации MITRE ATT&CK - подтехника T1003.006 (DCSync). ... ты прикидываешься вторым контроллером домена и запрашиваешь у настоящего DC репликацию учётных данных через протокол MS-DRSR.

T1558Steal or Forge Kerberos TicketsEvidence1

Background This was a nifty little room that stressed basic enumeration, eleciting NTLMv2 authentication attempts, enumeration with BloodHound, and abusing msds-AllowedToDelegateTo... BloodHound immediately found a path from svc.scanner to the DC

T1558.003KerberoastingEvidence1

They can also use BloodHound/SharpHound to enumerate Active Directory, abuse Kerberoastable service accounts, or exploit trust relationships between VMware-hosted systems and the broader domain.

Discovery

13 techniques
T1016System Network Configuration DiscoveryEvidence1

In BOFHound output mode, all attributes for every object are parsed and outputted to BOFHound format... Computers collection

T1018Remote System DiscoveryEvidence10

LDAP is commonly used by criminals for lateral movement and critical assets enumeration in on-premises cyberattacks. | Threat actors often use LDAP for network enumeration during the discovery phase of an attack. Attackers query directories to extract sensitive information such as user accounts, group memberships and permissions, which they then use to escalate privileges and target critical assets.

T1033System Owner/User DiscoveryEvidence2

The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors collecting usernames, identifying logged-in users, running whoami/query user/quser, checking whether the current user is an administrator, enumerating user sessions, and gathering account details from compromised hosts.

T1046Network Service DiscoveryEvidence1

For four days – March 24-28 – they conducted network reconnaissance using Cobalt Strike and Bloodhound before Capita detected three compromised staff devices and contained them.

T1049System Network Connections DiscoveryEvidence1

System Networks Connections Discovery [T1049]: A common tool used for this network enumeration tactic is Bloodhound.

T1069Permission Groups DiscoveryEvidence3

We’ll use BloodHound to find users we have these rights over. Our current user is blwasp, so we’ll look for “Outbound Object Control” permissions in BloodHound.

T1069.002Domain GroupsEvidence3

Impacket Active Directory user enumeration identifying SQL service users, Citrix administrators and CyberArk vault operators from AD logs; GPP XML privilege mapping.

T1069.003Cloud GroupsEvidence1

T1069.003: Permission Groups Discovery: Cloud Groups Once threat actors know the identities within the target environment, they need to understand the relationships between the identities by discovering permission structures... For Permissions Groups Discovery: Cloud Accounts, AzureHound has the following capabilities: list groups list roles list group-members list group-owners list role-assignments list app-role-assignments list key-vault-access-policies list management-group-role-assignments list resource-group-role-assignments list subscription-role-assignments list virtual-machine-role-assignments

T1082System Information DiscoveryEvidence1

GeminiDuke focuses primarily on gathering details about the victim’s computer’s configuration.

T1087Account DiscoveryEvidence5

In Active Directory environments, attackers search for accounts that are unjustifiably members of privileged groups, service accounts with unnecessary administrative rights, or delegation settings that allow them to impersonate other users. Tools like BloodHound automatically map these relationships, revealing the shortest path from their compromised account to domain administrator privileges.

T1087.002Domain AccountEvidence2

PasswordLastSet and LastLogon attribute correlation to reconstruct the IT hierarchy; SAP BAPI_USER_GET_DETAIL role and profile enumeration.

T1482Domain Trust DiscoveryEvidence10

We also know the DC’s name is Deaddrop-DC and the domain is deaddrop.loc. Let’s try collecting all the domain information to feed into BloodHound

T1580Cloud Infrastructure DiscoveryEvidence1

T1580: Cloud Infrastructure Discovery To fully grasp the architecture of the target environment, a threat actor must discover the foundational infrastructure components... For Cloud Infrastructure Discovery, AzureHound has the following capabilities: list tenants list subscriptions list resource-groups list management-groups list virtual-machines list key-vaults

Exfiltration

1 technique
T1041Exfiltration Over C2 ChannelEvidence1

Oracle CSV spooling to /tmp followed by exfiltration; TFTP pull-based retrieval of network-device configurations; compressed 407 MB BloodHound Active Directory dataset exfiltration.

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IOC matching

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Threat actor attribution5

Named campaigns wielding this family, with evidence pinned to each claim.

Exploited vulnerabilities

CVEs this family uses for access and lateral movement.

Detection signatures

YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.

MITRE ATT&CK mapping21

Every documented technique, ranked by evidence weight.

Researcher chatter

Reddit, Mastodon, and CTI community discussion around this family.