malware

WINDSHIELD S0155

Type: malware
Created: 14 December 2017
Last modified: 25 April 2025

WINDSHIELD is a signature backdoor used by APT32. [1]

TechniquesBottom 23%

TacticsBottom 21%

Threat groupunranked

CampaignsNone recorded

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

Standing S0155

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
	This detection uses Windows security events to detect suspicious access attempts to the registry key of Azure AD Health monitoring agent. (...)	Generic	test	-	windows	WinEventLog Security	Discovery Query Registry	-	medium	Roberto Rodriguez (Cyb3rWard0g), OTR (Open Threat Research), MSTIC	2021-08-26	2022-10-09	ff151c33-45fa-475d-af4f-c2f93571f4fe
	This detection uses Windows security events to detect suspicious access attempts to the registry key values and sub-keys of Azure AD Health service agents (e.g AD FS). (...)	Generic	test	-	windows	WinEventLog Security	Discovery Query Registry	-	medium	Roberto Rodriguez (Cyb3rWard0g), OTR (Open Threat Research), MSTIC	2021-08-26	2022-10-09	1d2ab8ac-1a01-423b-9c39-001510eae8e8
	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 user data export activity.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Bitbucket Audit · Bitbucket	Collection Data from Information Repositories Reconnaissance Gather Victim Org Information Identify Roles Discovery System Information Discovery	-	medium	Muhammad Faisal (@faisalusuf)	2024-02-25	—	5259cbf2-0a75-48bf-b57a-c54d6fabaef3
	Detects user permission data export attempt.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Bitbucket Audit · Bitbucket	Collection Data from Information Repositories Reconnaissance Gather Victim Org Information Identify Roles Discovery System Information Discovery	-	medium	Muhammad Faisal (@faisalusuf)	2024-02-25	—	87cc6698-3e07-4ba2-9b43-a85a73e151e2
Splunk	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". (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	medium	Teoderick Contreras, Splunk	2021-09-14	2026-05-13	a9079b18-1633-11ec-859c-acde48001122	-
	Detects patterns found in process executions cause by China Chopper like tiny (ASPX) webshells	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery Account Discovery Discovery Remote System Discovery Persistence Server Software Component Web Shell Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	CVE-2022-41040 CVE-2022-41082	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), MSTI (query)	2022-10-01	—	fa3c117a-bc0d-416e-a31b-0c0e80653efb
Splunk	This analytic detects potential reconnaissance activities on Cisco ASA devices by identifying execution of multiple information-gathering "show" commands within a short timeframe. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Reconnaissance Gather Victim Network Information Domain Properties IP Addresses Discovery System Information Discovery	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-11-21	2026-05-13	6e9d4f7a-3c8b-4a9e-8d2f-7b5c9e1a6f3d
	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	-
Splunk	This analytic detects bursts of Cisco IOS or NX-OS discovery commands associated with Salt Typhoon tradecraft. (...)	Anomaly	stable	network_device	-	Cisco IOS · Cisco	Reconnaissance Gather Victim Network Information Discovery System Information Discovery Discovery System Network Configuration Discovery	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali	2026-05-19	2026-05-20	71ac5328-2364-40cf-8381-92b8dc531399
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 the use of the redirection character ">" to redirect information on the command line. (...)	Hunting	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery System Information Discovery	-	low	frack113	2022-01-22	2024-03-19	4f4eaa9f-5ad4-410c-a4be-bc6132b0175a
	Detects usage of the Get-ADComputer cmdlet to collect computer information and output it to a file	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2022-11-10	2022-11-17	435e10e4-992a-4281-96f3-38b11106adde
	Detects usage of the Get-ADComputer cmdlet to collect computer information and output it to a file	Generic	test	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2022-11-17	—	db885529-903f-4c5d-9864-28fe199e6370
	Detects potential container discovery via listing of certain kernel features in the "/proc" virtual (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Discovery System Information Discovery	-	low	Seth Hanford	2023-08-23	—	746c86fb-ccda-4816-8997-01386263acc4
Splunk	The following analytic identifies specific GET or HEAD requests to web servers that indicate reconnaissance attempts to find vulnerable JBoss servers. (...)	Generic	experimental	webserver	-	-	Initial Access, Persistence External Remote Services Discovery System Information Discovery	-	medium	Bhavin Patel, Splunk	2020-04-29	2026-05-13	104658f4-afdc-499e-9719-17243f982681	-
	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
	Detects listing or file reading of ".dockerenv" which can be a sing of potential container discovery	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Discovery System Information Discovery	-	low	Seth Hanford	2023-08-23	—	11701de9-d5a5-44aa-8238-84252f131895
	Domain user and group enumeration via network reconnaissance. (...)	Unsupported	unsupported	-	-	DCE/RPC · Zeek	Discovery Account Discovery Domain Account Discovery System Information Discovery	-	medium	Nate Guagenti (@neu5ron), Open Threat Research (OTR)	2020-05-03	2023-03-24	66a0bdc6-ee04-441a-9125-99d2eb547942
	Detects the execution of "whoami.exe" with the "/all" flag	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	medium	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-12-04	2024-03-05	c248c896-e412-4279-8c15-1c558067b6fa
	Detects execution of the "esxcli" command with the "network" flag in order to retrieve information about the network configuration.	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Hypervisor CLI Discovery System Owner/User Discovery Discovery System Service Discovery	-	medium	Cedric Maurugeon	2023-09-04	—	33e814e0-1f00-4e43-9c34-31fb7ae2b174
	Detects execution of the "esxcli" command with the "storage" flag in order to retrieve information about the storage status and other related information. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Hypervisor CLI Discovery System Owner/User Discovery Discovery System Service Discovery	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems), Cedric Maurugeon	2023-09-04	—	f41dada5-3f56-4232-8503-3fb7f9cf2d60
Splunk	This detection identifies the use of ESXCLI system-level commands that retrieve configuration details. (...)	Generic	stable	-	esxi	VMware ESXi · VMware	Discovery System Information Discovery	-	medium	Raven Tait, Splunk	2025-07-11	2026-05-13	b4d4217a-6673-4fb6-837d-07a522bdf9f7	-
	Detects execution of the "esxcli" command with the "system" flag in order to retrieve information about the different component of the system. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Hypervisor CLI Discovery System Owner/User Discovery Discovery System Service Discovery	-	medium	Cedric Maurugeon	2023-09-04	—	e80273e1-9faf-40bc-bd85-dbaff104c4e9
	Detects execution of the "esxcli" command with the "vm" flag in order to retrieve information about the installed VMs.	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Hypervisor CLI Discovery System Owner/User Discovery Discovery System Service Discovery	-	medium	Cedric Maurugeon	2023-09-04	—	5f1573a7-363b-4114-9208-ad7a61de46eb
	Detects execution of the "esxcli" command with the "vsan" flag in order to retrieve information about virtual storage. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Hypervisor CLI Discovery System Owner/User Discovery Discovery System Service Discovery	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems), Cedric Maurugeon	2023-09-04	—	d54c2f06-aca9-4e2b-81c9-5317858f4b79
	Detects the export of a crital Registry key to a file.	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery Query Registry	-	high	Oddvar Moe, Sander Wiebing, oscd.community	2020-10-12	2024-03-13	82880171-b475-4201-b811-e9c826cd5eaa
	Detects the export of the target Registry key to a file.	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery Query Registry	-	low	Oddvar Moe, Sander Wiebing, oscd.community	2020-10-07	2024-03-13	f0e53e89-8d22-46ea-9db5-9d4796ee2f8a
	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
	Detects AS-REP roasting is an attack that is often-overlooked. (...)	Generic	test	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	medium	frack113	2022-03-17	—	96c982fe-3d08-4df4-bed2-eb14e02f21c8
Splunk	The following analytic detects the execution of `powershell.exe` with command-line arguments invoking the `GetCurrent` method of the WindowsIdentity .NET class. (...)	Hunting	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	medium	Mauricio Velazco, Splunk	2021-08-24	2026-10-02	7eb9c3d5-c98c-4088-acc5-8240bad15379
Splunk	The following analytic detects the execution of the `GetCurrent` method from the WindowsIdentity .NET class using PowerShell Script Block Logging (EventCode=4104). (...)	Hunting	stable	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	medium	Mauricio Velazco, Splunk	2021-08-24	2026-10-02	80879283-c30f-44f7-8471-d1381f6d437a
	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 the execution of whoami.exe with the /group command line flag to show group membership for the current user, account type, security identifiers (SID), and attributes.	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-02-28	—	bd8b828d-0dca-48e1-8a63-8a58ecf2644f
	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
	Detects SharpLdapWhoami, a whoami alternative that queries the LDAP service on a domain controller	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2022-08-29	2023-02-04	d9367cbb-c2e0-47ce-bdc0-128cb6da898d
	Adversaries may look for details about the network configuration and settings of systems they access (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery Domain Trust Discovery Discovery Network Share Discovery Discovery Permission Groups Discovery Domain Groups Discovery System Network Connections Discovery Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	high	frack113	2021-12-10	2023-02-14	b2317cfa-4a47-4ead-b3ff-297438c0bc2d
	WinPEAS is a script that search for possible paths to escalate privileges on Windows hosts. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Discovery Account Discovery Discovery Network Service Discovery Discovery System Information Discovery	-	high	Georg Lauenstein (sure[secure])	2022-09-19	2023-03-23	98b53e78-ebaf-46f8-be06-421aafd176d9
	Detects commandline keywords indicative of potential usge of the tool WinPwn. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Privilege Escalation Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism Bypass User Account Control Credential Access Credentials from Password Stores Credentials from Web Browsers Execution Native API Discovery Network Service Discovery Discovery Software Discovery Discovery System Information Discovery Credential Access Unsecured Credentials Credentials In Files	-	high	Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel	2023-12-04	—	d557dc06-62e8-4468-a8e8-7984124908ce
	Detects scriptblock text keywords indicative of potential usge of the tool WinPwn. (...)	Generic	test	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Privilege Escalation Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism Bypass User Account Control Credential Access Credentials from Password Stores Credentials from Web Browsers Execution Native API Discovery Network Service Discovery Discovery Software Discovery Discovery System Information Discovery Credential Access Unsecured Credentials Credentials In Files	-	high	Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel	2023-12-04	—	851fd622-b675-4d26-b803-14bc7baa517a
Splunk	The following analytic detects the deletion of SSH keys on a Linux machine. (...)	Anomaly	stable	file_event	linux	Sysmon	Impact Data Destruction Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	medium	Teoderick Contreras, Splunk	2022-04-12	2026-05-13	73a56508-1cf5-4df7-b8d9-5737fbdc27d2
Splunk	The following analytic identifies the use of the 'kmod' process to list kernel modules on a Linux system. (...)	Anomaly	stable	process_creation	linux	Linux Auditd	Stealth Rootkit Discovery System Information Discovery	-	medium	Teoderick Contreras, Splunk	2024-08-09	2026-05-13	d1b088de-c47a-4572-9339-bdcc26493b32
Splunk	The following analytic detects the suspicious use of the whoami command, which may indicate an attacker trying to gather information about the current user account on a compromised system. (...)	Anomaly	stable	process_creation	linux	Linux Auditd	Discovery System Owner/User Discovery	-	medium	Teoderick Contreras, Splunk	2024-08-12	2026-10-02	d1ff2e22-310d-446a-80b3-faedaa7b3b52
Splunk	The following analytic detects the deletion of cron jobs on a Linux machine. (...)	Anomaly	stable	file_event	linux	Sysmon	Impact Data Destruction Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	medium	Teoderick Contreras, Splunk	2022-04-12	2026-05-13	3b132a71-9335-4f33-9932-00bb4f6ac7e8
Splunk	The following analytic detects the deletion of init daemon scripts on a Linux machine. (...)	Generic	stable	file_event	linux	Sysmon	Impact Data Destruction Stealth Indicator Removal File Deletion	-	medium	Teoderick Contreras, Splunk	2022-04-12	2026-05-13	729aab57-d26f-4156-b97f-ab8dda8f44b1

Title

Description

WINDSHIELD S0155

WINDSHIELD MITRE reference S0155

Standing S0155

Reach

Coverage

WINDSHIELD detections S0155