CosmicDuke S0050

Type: malware
Platform: Windows
Created: 31 May 2017
Last modified: 25 April 2025

CosmicDuke is malware that was used by APT29 from 2010 to 2015. [1]

TechniquesTop 23%

TacticsTop 20%

Threat groupunranked

CampaignsNone recorded

Enterprise ATT&CK only. Any Mobile or ICS rows on the same ATT&CK page are not carried.

CosmicDuke MITRE reference S0050

Security Account Manager T1003.002 ↗

CosmicDuke collects Windows account hashes.2

Credential Access36 detection rules

LSA Secrets T1003.004 ↗

CosmicDuke collects LSA secrets.3

Credential Access13 detection rules

Data from Local System T1005 ↗

CosmicDuke steals user files from local hard drives with file extensions that match a predefined list.4

Collection22 detection rules

Automated Exfiltration T1020 ↗

CosmicDuke exfiltrates collected files automatically over FTP to remote servers.5

Exfiltration13 detection rules

Data from Removable Media T1025 ↗

CosmicDuke steals user files from removable media with file extensions and keywords that match a predefined list.6

Collection3 detection rules

Data from Network Shared Drive T1039 ↗

CosmicDuke steals user files from network shared drives with file extensions and keywords that match a predefined list.7

Collection3 detection rules

Standing S0050

Reach is how much of ATT&CK this malware 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 825 ATT&CK software entries 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

Techniques19Top 23%

77th percentile · 77% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have this many Enterprise techniques or fewer.

Tactics8Top 20%

80th percentile · 80% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have this many tactics spanned or fewer.

Threat group161% tie · 22 values

61% of the population shares a single value across only 22 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.

Campaigns085% tie · 8 values

85% of the population shares a single value across only 8 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.

Coverage

Rules / technique13medBottom 25%

25th percentile · 75% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have more detection rules per technique.

Tests / technique5med

CosmicDuke detections S0050

477 distinct rules cover the 19 techniques recorded for this malware. 309 Sigma · 168 Splunk.

18 covered by at least one rule1 with no coverage477 distinct rules in total

Showing 1-50 of 400+ rules

Drag headers to reorder | Drag edges to resize

Select	Description	Category	Status	Event	OS	Product	MITRE ATT&CK	CVEs	Severity	Author	Created	Updated	ID
	Detects file access requests to browser credential stores by uncommon processes. (...)	Hunting	test	file_event	windows	WinEventLog Security	Credential Access Credentials from Password Stores Credentials from Web Browsers	-	low	Daniel Koifman (@Koifsec), Nasreddine Bencherchali	2024-10-21	—	4b60e527-ec73-4b47-8cb3-f02ad927ca65
	Adversaries may acquire credentials from web browsers by reading files specific to the target browser. (...)	Generic	test	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Credential Access Credentials from Password Stores Credentials from Web Browsers	-	medium	frack113	2022-01-30	—	fc028194-969d-4122-8abe-0470d5b8f12f
	Detects suspicious local connections via a named pipe to the AD FS configuration database (Windows Internal Database). (...)	Generic	test	pipe_created	windows	Sysmon	Collection Data from Local System	-	medium	Roberto Rodriguez @Cyb3rWard0g	2021-10-08	2023-11-30	1ea13e8c-03ea-409b-877d-ce5c3d2c1cb3
	Detects suspicious DACL modifications to allow access to a service from a suspicious trustee. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Persistence, Privilege Escalation Create or Modify System Process Windows Service	-	high	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-02-28	2025-10-22	6c8fbee5-dee8-49bc-851d-c3142d02aa47
	Detects a highly relevant Antivirus alert that reports password dumpers and stealers. (...)	Generic	stable	antivirus	-	-	Credential Access OS Credential Dumping LSASS Memory Security Account Manager Credential Access Steal or Forge Kerberos Tickets	-	critical	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Arnim Rupp	2018-09-09	2026-06-15	78cc2dd2-7d20-4d32-93ff-057084c38b93
	Detects suspicious user agent strings used in APT malware in proxy logs	Generic	test	proxy	-	-	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Markus Neis	2019-11-12	2024-02-15	6ec820f2-e963-4801-9127-d8b2dce4d31b
	This method detects malicious services mentioned in APT29 report by FireEye. (...)	Unsupported	unsupported	process_creation	windows	WinEventLog System	Persistence, Privilege Escalation Create or Modify System Process Windows Service	-	high	Thomas Patzke	2017-11-01	2022-03-21	c069f460-2b87-4010-8dcf-e45bab362624
	Detects suspicious user agent string of APT40 Dropbox tool	Emerging	test	proxy	-	-	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Exfiltration Exfiltration Over Web Service Exfiltration to Cloud Storage	-	high	Thomas Patzke	2019-11-12	2023-05-18	5ba715b6-71b7-44fd-8245-f66893e81b3d
	Detects events generated by user-mode applications when they call the CveEventWrite API when a known vulnerability is trying to be exploited. (...)	Generic	test	-	windows	WinEventLog Application	Impact Endpoint Denial of Service Application or System Exploitation Execution Exploitation for Client Execution Credential Access Exploitation for Credential Access Privilege Escalation Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Stealth Exploitation for Stealth Lateral Movement Exploitation of Remote Services	CVE-2020-0601	critical	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Zach Mathis	2020-01-15	2022-10-22	48d91a3a-2363-43ba-a456-ca71ac3da5c2
	Detects kernel auto-loading of the authencesn crypto module via modprobe This occurs when user-space (...)	Emerging	experimental	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Persistence, Privilege Escalation Boot or Logon Autostart Execution Kernel Modules and Extensions Privilege Escalation Exploitation for Privilege Escalation	CVE-2026-31431	high	Gene Kazimiarovich	2026-05-09	—	474b415a-d917-4f3b-8c62-9e1a0d5f7b48
	Detects automated lateral movement by Turla group	Unsupported	unsupported	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Discovery File and Directory Discovery Discovery Network Share Discovery Lateral Movement Remote Services SMB/Windows Admin Shares	-	medium	Markus Neis	2017-11-07	2023-02-24	75925535-ca97-4e0a-a850-00b5c00779dc
	Detects bulk downloading of User Data associated with AWS EC2 instances. (...)	Unsupported	unsupported	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Exfiltration Automated Exfiltration	-	medium	faloker	2020-02-11	2023-03-24	26ff4080-194e-47e7-9889-ef7602efed0c
	An attempt to export an AWS EC2 instance has been detected. (...)	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Collection Data from Local System Exfiltration Transfer Data to Cloud Account	-	low	Diogo Braz	2020-04-16	2022-10-05	54b9a76a-3c71-4673-b4b3-2edb4566ea7b
	Detects the change of database master password. (...)	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Exfiltration Automated Exfiltration	-	medium	faloker	2020-02-12	2022-10-05	8a63cdd4-6207-414a-85bc-7e032bd3c1a2
	Detects DNS queries for the malicious C2 domain associated with the plain-crypto-js/Axios npm package supply chain compromise. (...)	Emerging	experimental	dns	-	-	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Command and Control Dynamic Resolution	-	high	Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)	2026-04-01	—	73e5d24f-493f-4092-bd2f-c72cabda40ee
Splunk	The following analytic detects the assignment of the Privileged Authentication Administrator role to an Azure AD user. (...)	Generic	stable	account_management	-	Microsoft 365	Credential Access OS Credential Dumping Security Account Manager	-	medium	Mauricio Velazco, Gowthamaraj Rajendran, Splunk	2023-04-25	2026-05-13	a7da845d-6fae-41cf-b823-6c0b8c55814a
Splunk	The following analytic detects the assignment of high-risk Graph API permissions in Azure AD, specifically Application.ReadWrite.All, AppRoleAssignment.ReadWrite.All, and RoleManagement.ReadWrite.Directory. (...)	Generic	stable	service	-	Microsoft 365	Credential Access OS Credential Dumping Security Account Manager	-	medium	Mauricio Velazco, Splunk	2024-02-14	2026-05-13	5521f8c5-1aa3-473c-9eb7-853701924a06
	Detects Bitsadmin connections to IP addresses instead of FQDN names	Generic	test	proxy	-	-	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Execution, Persistence, Stealth BITS Jobs	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2022-06-10	2022-08-24	8ccd35a2-1c7c-468b-b568-ac6cdf80eec3
	Detects Bitsadmin connections to domains with uncommon TLDs	Generic	test	proxy	-	-	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Execution, Persistence, Stealth BITS Jobs	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Tim Shelton	2019-03-07	2026-09-30	9eb68894-7476-4cd6-8752-23b51f5883a7
	Detects buffer overflow attempts in Unix system log files	Generic	test	-	linux	-	Privilege Escalation Exploitation for Privilege Escalation	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2017-03-01	2025-03-17	18b042f0-2ecd-4b6e-9f8d-aa7a7e7de781
	Detects usage of "getcap" binary. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Discovery File and Directory Discovery	-	low	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2022-12-28	2026-01-24	d8d97d51-122d-4cdd-9e2f-01b4b4933530
	Detects HTTP request used by Chafer malware to receive data from its C2.	Emerging	test	proxy	-	-	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2019-01-31	2024-02-15	fb502828-2db0-438e-93e6-801c7548686d
	Adversaries may communicate using application layer protocols associated with web traffic to avoid detection/network filtering by blending in with existing traffic. (...)	Generic	test	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols	-	medium	frack113	2022-01-23	2025-07-18	d4488827-73af-4f8d-9244-7b7662ef046e
	Detects execution of ChromeLoader malware via a registered scheduled task	Emerging	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Execution, Persistence, Privilege Escalation Scheduled Task/Job Scheduled Task Persistence Software Extensions	-	high	@kostastsale	2022-01-10	—	0a74c5a9-1b71-4475-9af2-7829d320d5c2
Splunk	This analytic detects file copy activity on Cisco ASA devices via CLI or ASDM. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Collection Data from Cloud Storage Collection Data from Local System	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-11-21	2026-05-13	4d7e8f3a-9c2b-4e6f-8a1d-5b9c7e2f4a8c
Splunk	This analytic detects file copy operations to remote locations on Cisco ASA devices via CLI or ASDM. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Collection Data from Local System Exfiltration Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol Exfiltration Over Unencrypted Non-C2 Protocol Exfiltration Exfiltration Over C2 Channel	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-11-21	2026-05-13	8a9e5f2b-6d4c-4e7f-9b3a-1c8d7f5e2a9b
	Collect pertinent data from the configuration files	Generic	test	authentication	-	Cisco AAA · Cisco	Discovery Account Discovery Local Account Collection Data from Local System Credential Access Unsecured Credentials Credentials In Files	-	low	Austin Clark	2019-08-11	2023-01-04	cd072b25-a418-4f98-8ebc-5093fb38fe1a
	Find information about network devices that is not stored in config files	Generic	test	authentication	-	Cisco AAA · Cisco	Discovery File and Directory Discovery Discovery Password Policy Discovery Discovery Process Discovery Discovery Remote System Discovery Discovery System Information Discovery Discovery System Network Configuration Discovery Discovery System Network Connections Discovery Discovery System Owner/User Discovery Discovery System Time Discovery	-	low	Austin Clark	2019-08-12	2023-01-04	9705a6a1-6db6-4a16-a987-15b7151e299b
Splunk	This analytic detects excessive kernel probe (kprobe) events in a Kubernetes cluster over a short period of time. (...)	Hunting	stable	network_device	-	Cisco	Privilege Escalation Exploitation for Privilege Escalation	-	medium	Bhavin Patel, Splunk	2026-01-05	2026-05-13	3df0e9a8-7d5e-4b2f-bcd7-bf93e671d1f2
Splunk	This analytic detects the usage of the Utility osascript on a macOS device initiated a network connection lasting longer than 10 minutes (600 seconds). (...)	Anomaly	stable	network_connection	-	Cisco NVM · Cisco	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter AppleScript	-	medium	Radka Viskova, Splunk	2026-09-18	2026-09-22	6bc88a9d-f7de-4257-b526-acf15bc5a517
Splunk	The following analytic detects the use of known suspicious SSL certificates in any observed event where the SSL_CertFingerprint field is present. (...)	Generic	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Resource Development Develop Capabilities Code Signing Certificates Command and Control Encrypted Channel Asymmetric Cryptography Resource Development Obtain Capabilities Digital Certificates	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-03	2026-09-22	c43f7b49-2dab-4e76-892e-7f971c2f20f1
Splunk	The following analytic detects outbound connections to commonly abused file sharing and pastebin-style hosting domains. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Exfiltration Exfiltration Over Web Service Exfiltration to Cloud Storage Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Resource Development Obtain Capabilities Tool Command and Control Proxy External Proxy	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-03	2026-05-13	f7e5e792-d907-46c1-a58e-4ff974dc462a
Splunk	The following analytic detects connections with a high Encrypted Visibility Engine (EVE) threat confidence score, indicating potentially malicious behavior within encrypted traffic. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Command and Control Encrypted Channel Asymmetric Cryptography Exfiltration Exfiltration Over C2 Channel Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-03	2026-05-13	8c15183e-2e70-4db4-86c3-88f8d9129b66
Splunk	The following analytic detects potentially suspicious large volumes of data sent by the connection initiator on flows from internal to external networks. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Exfiltration Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol Exfiltration Over Unencrypted Non-C2 Protocol Exfiltration Exfiltration Over C2 Channel Exfiltration Exfiltration Over Web Service Exfiltration to Cloud Storage	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-03	2026-05-13	3d8536b6-52b4-4c3e-b695-3f2e90bb22be
Splunk	The following analytic detects outbound connections initiated by command-line tools such as curl or wget. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Execution, Persistence, Privilege Escalation Scheduled Task/Job Cron	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-03	2026-05-13	173a1cb9-1814-4128-a9dc-f29dade89957
Splunk	This analytic detects the configuration of TFTP services on Cisco IOS devices that could be used to exfiltrate sensitive configuration files. (...)	Generic	stable	configuration_change	-	Cisco IOS · Cisco	Collection Data from Local System Exfiltration Exfiltration Over Web Service	CVE-2018-0171	medium	Bhavin Patel, Michael Haag, Splunk	2025-08-21	2026-05-13	1abce487-f480-4d5f-a551-01de0bece0bd
	Detects access to clipboard content via osascript, which may be used for data collection but also oc (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	macos	-	Collection Clipboard Data Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter AppleScript	-	medium	Sohan G (D4rkCiph3r)	2023-01-31	2026-05-22	7794fa3c-edea-4cff-bec7-267dd4770fd7
	Detects attempts to collect image data stored in the clipboard from users with the usage of xclip tool. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Linux Auditd	Collection Clipboard Data	-	low	Pawel Mazur	2021-10-01	2022-10-09	f200dc3f-b219-425d-a17e-c38467364816
	Detects attempts to collect data stored in the clipboard from users with the usage of xclip tool. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Collection Clipboard Data	-	low	Pawel Mazur, Roberto Rodriguez (Cyb3rWard0g), OTR (Open Threat Research), MSTIC	2021-10-15	2022-09-15	ec127035-a636-4b9a-8555-0efd4e59f316
	Detects attempts to collect data stored in the clipboard from users with the usage of xclip tool. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Linux Auditd	Collection Clipboard Data	-	low	Pawel Mazur	2021-09-24	2022-11-26	214e7e6c-f21b-47ff-bb6f-551b2d143fcf
	Detects execution of the "pbpaste" utility, which retrieves the contents of the clipboard (a.k.a. (...)	Hunting	test	process_creation	macos	-	Collection Clipboard Data	-	medium	Daniel Cortez	2024-07-30	—	d8af0da1-2959-40f9-a3e4-37a6aa1228b7
	Detects DNS requests to Cloudflared tunnels domains. (...)	Generic	test	dns	windows	Sysmon	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Command and Control Protocol Tunneling	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-12-20	—	a1d9eec5-33b2-4177-8d24-27fe754d0812
Splunk	The following analytic identifies the use of named-pipe impersonation for privilege escalation, commonly associated with Cobalt Strike and similar frameworks. (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Windows Command Shell Persistence, Privilege Escalation Create or Modify System Process Windows Service	-	medium	Michael Haag, Splunk	2021-05-27	2026-05-13	eb277ba0-b96b-11eb-b00e-acde48001122
	Detects known malicious service installs that appear in cases in which a Cobalt Strike beacon elevat (...)	Generic	test	service	windows	WinEventLog Security	Persistence, Privilege Escalation Create or Modify System Process Windows Service Lateral Movement Remote Services SMB/Windows Admin Shares Execution System Services Service Execution	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Wojciech Lesicki	2021-05-26	2022-11-27	d7a95147-145f-4678-b85d-d1ff4a3bb3f6
	Detects known malicious service installs that appear in cases in which a Cobalt Strike beacon elevat (...)	Generic	test	service	windows	WinEventLog System	Persistence, Privilege Escalation Create or Modify System Process Windows Service Lateral Movement Remote Services SMB/Windows Admin Shares Execution System Services Service Execution	-	critical	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Wojciech Lesicki	2021-05-26	2022-11-27	5a105d34-05fc-401e-8553-272b45c1522d
	Detects Turla ComRAT network communication.	Emerging	test	proxy	-	-	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2020-05-26	2024-02-26	7857f021-007f-4928-8b2c-7aedbe64bb82
	Detects a copy command or a copy utility execution to or from an Admin share or remote	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Collection Data from Network Shared Drive Exfiltration Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol Lateral Movement Remote Services SMB/Windows Admin Shares	-	medium	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), oscd.community, Teymur Kheirkhabarov @HeirhabarovT, Zach Stanford @svch0st, Nasreddine Bencherchali	2019-12-30	2025-10-22	855bc8b5-2ae8-402e-a9ed-b889e6df1900
	Files with well-known filenames (sensitive files with credential data) copying	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Credential Access OS Credential Dumping Security Account Manager NTDS	-	high	Teymur Kheirkhabarov, Daniil Yugoslavskiy, oscd.community	2019-10-22	2024-06-04	e7be6119-fc37-43f0-ad4f-1f3f99be2f9f
	Detects the installation of a service named "javamtsup" on the system. (...)	Emerging	test	service	windows	WinEventLog Security	Persistence, Privilege Escalation Create or Modify System Process Windows Service Execution System Services Service Execution	-	critical	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Daniil Yugoslavskiy, oscd.community (update)	2017-03-27	2022-10-09	cb062102-587e-4414-8efa-dbe3c7bf19c6
	Detects "BugCheck" errors indicating the system rebooted due to a crash, capturing the bugcheck code, dump file path, and report ID.	Generic	experimental	-	windows	WinEventLog System	Collection Data from Local System Credential Access OS Credential Dumping Security Account Manager	-	medium	Jason Mull	2025-05-12	—	882fbe50-d8d7-4e29-ae80-0648a8556866

...