malware

USBStealer S0136

Type: malware
Platform: Windows
Created: 31 May 2017
Last modified: 10 April 2024

USBStealer is malware that has been used by APT28 since at least 2005 to extract information from air-gapped networks. It does not have the capability to communicate over the Internet and has been used in conjunction with ADVSTORESHELL. [1] [2]

Techniques61st pct

TacticsTop 11%

Threat groupunranked

CampaignsNone recorded

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

Standing S0136

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.

Select	Description	Category	Status	Event	OS	Product	MITRE ATT&CK	CVEs	Severity	Author	Created	Updated	ID	Refs
	Detects the deletion of the "Zone.Identifier" ADS. (...)	Hunting	test	file_delete	windows	Sysmon	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	low	frack113	2023-09-04	—	7eac0a16-5832-4e81-865f-0268a6d19e4b
	Detects the deletion of the "Zone.Identifier" ADS by an uncommon process. (...)	Generic	test	file_delete	windows	Sysmon	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-09-04	2025-07-04	3109530e-ab47-4cc6-a953-cac5ebcc93ae
Splunk	The following analytic detects the execution of tools commonly exploited by cybercriminals, such as those used for unauthorized access, network scanning, privilege escalation, password dumping or data exfiltration. (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike · Cisco NVM · Cisco	Reconnaissance Active Scanning Stealth Masquerading Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location Credential Access OS Credential Dumping	-	medium	Bhavin Patel, Splunk, sventec, Github Community	2021-07-12	2026-09-22	a51bfe1a-94f0-48cc-b4e4-16a110145893	-
	Once established within a system or network, an adversary may use automated techniques for collecting internal data.	Generic	test	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Collection Automated Collection	-	medium	frack113	2021-07-28	2022-12-25	c1dda054-d638-4c16-afc8-53e007f3fbc5
	Once established within a system or network, an adversary may use automated techniques for collecting internal data.	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Collection Automated Collection Credential Access Unsecured Credentials Credentials In Files	-	medium	frack113	2021-07-28	2022-11-11	f576a613-2392-4067-9d1a-9345fb58d8d1
	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
Splunk	The following analytic identifies anomalous GetObject API activity in AWS, indicating potential data exfiltration attempts. (...)	Anomaly	stable	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Collection Automated Collection	-	medium	Bhavin Patel, Splunk	2023-04-10	2026-05-13	e4384bbf-5835-4831-8d85-694de6ad2cc6
Splunk	The following analytic identifies the creation of AWS Batch jobs that could potentially abuse the AWS Bucket Replication feature on S3 buckets. (...)	Generic	stable	scheduled_job	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Collection Automated Collection	-	medium	Bhavin Patel, Splunk	2023-04-24	2026-05-13	04455dd3-ced7-480f-b8e6-5469b99e98e2
Splunk	The following analytic detects the creation of an AWS DataSync task, which could indicate potential data exfiltration. (...)	Generic	stable	scheduled_job	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Collection Automated Collection	-	medium	Bhavin Patel, Splunk	2023-04-10	2026-05-13	05c4b09f-ea28-4c7c-a7aa-a246f665c8a2
	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 backup catalog deletions	Generic	test	-	windows	WinEventLog Application	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	medium	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Tom U. @c_APT_ure (collection)	2017-05-12	2022-12-25	9703792d-fd9a-456d-a672-ff92efe4806a
	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
	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
	See what files are being deleted from flash file systems	Generic	test	authentication	-	Cisco AAA · Cisco	Impact Disk Wipe Disk Content Wipe Disk Structure Wipe Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	medium	Austin Clark	2019-08-12	2023-01-04	71d65515-c436-43c0-841b-236b1f32c21e	-
	Detects modification of Windows Registry Classes keys used for persistence. (...)	Generic	test	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Persistence, Privilege Escalation Boot or Logon Autostart Execution Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder	-	medium	Victor Sergeev, Daniil Yugoslavskiy, Gleb Sukhodolskiy, Timur Zinniatullin, oscd.community, Tim Shelton, frack113 (split)	2019-10-25	2025-10-22	9df5f547-c86a-433e-b533-f2794357e242
Splunk	The following analytic detects the execution of `cipher.exe` with the `/w` flag to clear unallocated sectors on a disk. (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	medium	Teoderick Contreras, Splunk	2021-06-10	2026-05-13	cd80a6ac-c9d9-11eb-8839-acde48001122
	Detects modification of autostart extensibility point (ASEP) in registry.	Generic	test	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Persistence, Privilege Escalation Boot or Logon Autostart Execution Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder	-	medium	Victor Sergeev, Daniil Yugoslavskiy, Gleb Sukhodolskiy, Timur Zinniatullin, oscd.community, Tim Shelton, frack113 (split), wagga (name)	2019-10-25	2025-10-22	f59c3faf-50f3-464b-9f4c-1b67ab512d99
	Detects deployments of pods within the kube-system namespace, which could be intended to imitate system pods. (...)	Generic	test	-	-	Kubernetes Audit · Kubernetes	Stealth Masquerading Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location	-	medium	Leo Tsaousis (@laripping)	2024-03-26	—	a80d927d-ac6e-443f-a867-e8d6e3897318
	Detects modification of autostart extensibility point (ASEP) in registry.	Generic	test	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Persistence, Privilege Escalation Boot or Logon Autostart Execution Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder	-	medium	Victor Sergeev, Daniil Yugoslavskiy, Gleb Sukhodolskiy, Timur Zinniatullin, oscd.community, Tim Shelton, frack113 (split)	2019-10-25	2023-08-17	f674e36a-4b91-431e-8aef-f8a96c2aca35
	Detects modification of autostart extensibility point (ASEP) in registry.	Generic	test	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Persistence, Privilege Escalation Boot or Logon Autostart Execution Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder	-	medium	Victor Sergeev, Daniil Yugoslavskiy, Gleb Sukhodolskiy, Timur Zinniatullin, oscd.community, Tim Shelton, frack113 (split)	2019-10-25	2025-10-22	20f0ee37-5942-4e45-b7d5-c5b5db9df5cd
	Detects modification of autostart extensibility point (ASEP) in registry.	Generic	test	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Persistence, Privilege Escalation Boot or Logon Autostart Execution Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder	-	medium	Victor Sergeev, Daniil Yugoslavskiy, Gleb Sukhodolskiy, Timur Zinniatullin, oscd.community, Tim Shelton, frack113 (split)	2019-10-25	2025-10-22	cbf93e5d-ca6c-4722-8bea-e9119007c248
Splunk	The following analytic detects the usage of `rclone.exe` with specific command-line arguments indicative of file transfer activities. (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike · Cisco NVM · Cisco	Exfiltration Automated Exfiltration	-	medium	Michael Haag, Splunk	2021-05-13	2026-07-14	32e0baea-b3f1-11eb-a2ce-acde48001122
	Detects direct modification of autostart extensibility point (ASEP) in registry using reg.exe.	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Persistence, Privilege Escalation Boot or Logon Autostart Execution Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder	-	medium	Victor Sergeev, Daniil Yugoslavskiy, oscd.community, Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)	2019-10-25	2026-01-05	24357373-078f-44ed-9ac4-6d334a668a11
	Detects execution of the builtin "rmdir" command in order to delete directories. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	low	frack113	2022-01-15	2023-03-07	41ca393d-538c-408a-ac27-cf1e038be80c
	Detect the usage of "DirLister.exe" a utility for quickly listing folder or drive contents. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery File and Directory Discovery	-	low	frack113	2022-08-20	2023-02-04	b4dc61f5-6cce-468e-a608-b48b469feaa2
Splunk	This detection identifies a significant change to the system clock on an ESXi host, which may indica (...)	Generic	stable	-	esxi	VMware ESXi · VMware	Stealth Indicator Removal Timestomp	-	medium	Raven Tait, Splunk	2025-07-11	2026-05-13	910df401-b215-4675-88c5-2ad7b06d82a5	-
	Detects Winword starting uncommon sub process MicroScMgmt.exe as used in exploits for CVE-2015-1641	Emerging	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Stealth Masquerading Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location	CVE-2015-1641	critical	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2018-02-22	2021-11-27	7993792c-5ce2-4475-a3db-a3a5539827ef
	Detects external disk drives or plugged-in USB devices.	Generic	test	-	windows	WinEventLog Security	Initial Access Hardware Additions Initial Access, Lateral Movement Replication Through Removable Media	-	low	Keith Wright	2019-11-20	2024-02-09	f69a87ea-955e-4fb4-adb2-bb9fd6685632
	Detects usage of system utilities such as "find", "tree", "findmnt", etc, to discover files, directories and network shares.	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Discovery File and Directory Discovery	-	informational	Daniil Yugoslavskiy, oscd.community, CheraghiMilad	2020-10-19	2024-12-01	d3feb4ee-ff1d-4d3d-bd10-5b28a238cc72
	Detects usage of system utilities to discover files and directories	Generic	test	process_creation	macos	-	Discovery File and Directory Discovery	-	informational	Daniil Yugoslavskiy, oscd.community	2020-10-19	2022-11-25	089dbdf6-b960-4bcc-90e3-ffc3480c20f6
	Detects when the file creation time is changed to a year before 2020. (...)	Hunting	test	file_change	windows	Sysmon	Stealth Indicator Removal Timestomp	-	low	frack113, Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2022-08-12	2026-01-20	558eebe5-f2ba-4104-b339-36f7902bcc1a
	Detects msdt.exe creating files in suspicious directories which could be a sign of exploitation of e (...)	Generic	test	file_event	windows	Sysmon	Persistence, Privilege Escalation Boot or Logon Autostart Execution Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder	CVE-2022-30190	high	Vadim Varganov, Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2022-08-24	2023-02-23	318557a5-150c-4c8d-b70e-a9910e199857
	Detects the deletion of files by the Sysinternals SDelete utility. (...)	Generic	test	file_delete	windows	Sysmon	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	medium	Roberto Rodriguez (Cyb3rWard0g), OTR (Open Threat Research)	2020-05-02	2023-02-15	6ddab845-b1b8-49c2-bbf7-1a11967f64bc
	Detects file deletion using "rm", "shred" or "unlink" commands which are used often by adversaries t (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	informational	Ömer Günal, oscd.community	2020-10-07	2022-09-15	30aed7b6-d2c1-4eaf-9382-b6bc43e50c57
	Detects execution of the builtin "del"/"erase" commands in order to delete files. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	low	frack113	2022-01-15	2024-03-05	379fa130-190e-4c3f-b7bc-6c8e834485f3
	Detect file time attribute change to hide new or changes to existing files	Generic	test	process_creation	macos	-	Stealth Indicator Removal Timestomp	-	medium	Igor Fits, Mikhail Larin, oscd.community	2020-10-19	2022-01-12	88c0f9d8-30a8-4120-bb6b-ebb54abcf2a0
	Detect file time attribute change to hide new or changes to existing files.	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Linux Auditd	Stealth Indicator Removal Timestomp	-	medium	Igor Fits, oscd.community	2020-10-15	2022-11-28	b3cec4e7-6901-4b0d-a02d-8ab2d8eb818b
	Detects the creation of a file with the ".dll" extension that has the name of a System DLL in uncommon or unsuspected locations. (...)	Generic	test	file_event	windows	Sysmon	Stealth Masquerading Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2024-06-24	—	13c02350-4177-4e45-ac17-cf7ca628ff5e
	Detects the creation of an executable with a system process name in folders other than the system ones (System32, SysWOW64, etc.). (...)	Generic	test	file_event	windows	Sysmon	Stealth Masquerading Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location	-	medium	Sander Wiebing, Tim Shelton, Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2020-05-26	2026-07-28	d5866ddf-ce8f-4aea-b28e-d96485a20d3d
	Detects a flashplayer update from an unofficial location	Generic	test	proxy	-	-	Initial Access Drive-by Compromise Stealth Masquerading Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location Execution User Execution Malicious File	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2017-10-25	2022-08-08	4922a5dd-6743-4fc2-8e81-144374280997
	Detects PowerShell scripts that make use of the "Compress-Archive" Cmdlet in order to compress folders and files where the output is stored in a potentially suspicious location that is used often by malware for exfiltration. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Collection Data Staged Local Data Staging	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems), frack113	2021-07-20	2022-10-09	85a8e5ba-bd03-4bfb-bbfa-a4409a8f8b98
	Detects the setting of a custom protocol handler with the name "rogue". (...)	Emerging	test	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Persistence, Privilege Escalation Boot or Logon Autostart Execution Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder	CVE-2022-38028	high	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2024-04-23	—	5cdeb555-65de-4767-99fe-e26807465148
	Detects the setting of the DLL that handles the custom protocol handler. (...)	Emerging	test	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Persistence, Privilege Escalation Boot or Logon Autostart Execution Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder	CVE-2022-38028	high	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2024-04-23	—	d807056b-0e00-4cec-b7f8-b8b7518e382b
	Attackers may leverage fsutil to enumerated connected drives.	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery Peripheral Device Discovery	-	low	Christopher Peacock '@securepeacock', SCYTHE '@scythe_io'	2022-03-29	2022-07-14	63de06b9-a385-40b5-8b32-73f2b9ef84b6
	Detects when the policy allowing forks of private and internal repositories is changed (enabled or cleared).	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	GitHub Audit · GitHub	Exfiltration Automated Exfiltration Exfiltration Transfer Data to Cloud Account	-	medium	Romain Gaillard (@romain-gaillard)	2024-07-29	—	69b3bd1e-b38a-462f-9a23-fbdbf63d2294
	Detects when a repository or an organization is being transferred to another location.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	GitHub Audit · GitHub	Exfiltration Automated Exfiltration Exfiltration Transfer Data to Cloud Account	-	medium	Romain Gaillard (@romain-gaillard)	2024-07-29	—	04ad83ef-1a37-4c10-b57a-81092164bf33
	Detects execution of the "del" builtin command to remove files using greedy/wildcard expression. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	medium	frack113 , X__Junior (Nextron Systems)	2021-12-02	2023-09-11	204b17ae-4007-471b-917b-b917b315c5db
	Detects tools and process executions used by Greenbug in their May 2020 campaign as reported by Syma (...)	Emerging	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Stealth Masquerading Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location	-	critical	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2020-05-20	2023-03-09	3711eee4-a808-4849-8a14-faf733da3612
	Detects suspicious use of PCHunter, a tool like Process Hacker to view and manipulate processes, ker (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery File and Directory Discovery Discovery Process Discovery Discovery Query Registry Discovery System Information Discovery Discovery System Service Discovery	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Nasreddine Bencherchali	2022-10-10	2024-11-23	fca949cc-79ca-446e-8064-01aa7e52ece5

Title

Description

USBStealer S0136

USBStealer S0136

USBStealer MITRE reference S0136

Standing S0136

Reach

Coverage

USBStealer detections S0136