Windshift is a threat group that has been active since at least 2017, targeting specific individuals for surveillance in government departments and critical infrastructure across the Middle East.[1][2][3]
19
Techniques52nd pct
7
Tactics39th pct
1
Tool or malwareBottom 23%
0
CampaignsNone recorded
Enterprise ATT&CK only. Any Mobile or ICS rows on the same ATT&CK page are not carried.
Windshift has used icons mimicking MS Office files to mask malicious executables.6Windshift has also attempted to hide executables by changing the file extension to ".scr" to mimic Windows screensavers.7
Windshift has used malware to enumerate active processes.11
Discovery10 detection rules
Standing G0112
Reach is how much of ATT&CK this group touches. Coverage is how well defended each thing it does is, as a median per technique rather than a total — a total would just restate the reach. Each figure is ranked against all 176 ATT&CK groups only where that population actually spreads. Where most of the population shares one value, a percentile would rank the tie instead of the entity, so the raw value is shown and no rank is claimed.
Reach
Techniques1952nd pct
52nd percentile · 52% of 176 ATT&CK groups have this many Enterprise techniques or fewer.
Tactics739th pct
39th percentile · 61% of 176 ATT&CK groups have more tactics spanned.
Tool or malware1Bottom 23%
23rd percentile · 77% of 176 ATT&CK groups have more tools and malware.
Campaigns089% tie · 4 values
89% of the population shares a single value across only 4 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
Coverage
Rules / technique46medTop 10%
90th percentile · 90% of 176 ATT&CK groups have this many detection rules per technique or fewer.
Tests / technique6medTop 16%
84th percentile · 84% of 176 ATT&CK groups have this many atomic tests per technique or fewer.
Data comps / technique4med65% tie · 12 values
65% of the population shares a single value across only 12 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
Mitigations / technique3med43% tie · 11 values
43% of the population shares a single value across only 11 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
5 of 8 axes carry an honest rank on this page. Coverage medians are taken across this group’s 19 Enterprise techniques.
Range
Technique Campaign use over its cumulative rule count.
Detects when AppLocker "Audit only" enforcement mode reports that an Application, DLL, Script, MSI, or Packaged-App would have been blocked if AppLocker "Enforce rules" enforcement mode was enabled.
Detects the Linux-specific execution chain of the plain-crypto-js malicious npm dependency by Axios NPM package, including payload download via curl and detached execution using nohup and python3. (...)
Detects the macOS-specific execution chain of the plain-crypto-js malicious npm dependency in Axios NPM Package, including AppleScript execution via osascript, payload download, permission modification, execution, and cleanup.
The following analytic detects the creation of a batch file (.bat) within the Windows system directory tree, specifically in the System32 or SysWOW64 folders. (...)
Adversaries may communicate using application layer protocols associated with web traffic to avoid detection/network filtering by blending in with existing traffic. (...)
The following analytic identifies the execution of the "whoami" command with the "/group" flag, where the results are passed to the "find" command in order to look for a the string "12288". (...)
This analytic detects potential reconnaissance activities on Cisco ASA devices by identifying execution of multiple information-gathering "show" commands within a short timeframe. (...)
This analytic detects the usage of the Utility osascript on a macOS device initiated a network connection lasting longer than 10 minutes (600 seconds). (...)
This analytic detects unexpected outbound network connections initiated by known webserver processes such as `httpd.exe`, `nginx.exe`, or `tomcat.exe` to common file sharing or public content hosting services like GitHub, Discord CDN, Transfer.sh, or Pastebin. (...)
The following analytic detects the use of known suspicious SSL certificates in any observed event where the SSL_CertFingerprint field is present. (...)
The following analytic detects potential reverse shell activity by identifying connections involving ports commonly associated with remote access tools, shell listeners, or tunneling utilities. (...)
The following analytic detects connections with a high Encrypted Visibility Engine (EVE) threat confidence score, indicating potentially malicious behavior within encrypted traffic. (...)