malware

RunningRAT S0253

Type: malware
Platform: Windows
Created: 17 October 2018
Last modified: 22 October 2025

RunningRAT is a remote access tool that appeared in operations surrounding the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics along with Gold Dragon and Brave Prince. [1]

Techniques47th pct

TacticsTop 20%

Threat groupsNone recorded

CampaignsNone recorded

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

Standing S0253

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
Splunk	The following analytic detects the use of commands to add or set exclusions in Windows Defender. It (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	medium	Teoderick Contreras, Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2021-11-25	2026-06-08	773b66fe-4dd9-11ec-8289-acde48001122
	Detects execution of "reg.exe" commands with the "add" or "copy" flags on safe boot registry keys. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	high	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2022-09-02	2024-03-19	d7662ff6-9e97-4596-a61d-9839e32dee8d
	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
	Detects code fragments found in small and obfuscated AMSI bypass PowerShell scripts	Generic	test	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2022-11-09	—	e0d6c087-2d1c-47fd-8799-3904103c5a98
	Detects attempts to disable AMSI (Anti-Malware Scan Interface) by modifying the AmsiEnable registry value. (...)	Generic	experimental	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	high	Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)	2025-12-25	—	aa37cbb0-da36-42cb-a90f-fdf216fc7467
	Detects activity that indicates a user disabling the ability for Antivirus mini filter to inspect a "Dev Drive".	Generic	test	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	high	@kostastsale, Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-11-05	2024-08-16	31e124fb-5dc4-42a0-83b3-44a69c77b271
	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.	Generic	experimental	-	windows	AppLocker	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Windows Command Shell Visual Basic Python Execution User Execution Malicious File	-	medium	heyyanu	2026-03-26	—	557e3bd3-7f21-495d-8d50-7c8bdfb8041c
	Detects when AppLocker prevents the execution of an Application, DLL, Script, MSI, or Packaged-App from running.	Generic	test	-	windows	AppLocker	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Windows Command Shell Visual Basic Python Execution User Execution Malicious File	-	medium	Pushkarev Dmitry	2020-06-28	2025-12-03	401e5d00-b944-11ea-8f9a-00163ecd60ae
	Detects actions that disable Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) in Linux, including: - Use (...)	Generic	experimental	process_creation	linux	Linux Auditd	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools Privilege Escalation, Stealth Process Injection Proc Memory	-	high	Milad Cheraghi	2025-05-26	2025-12-05	e497a24e-9345-4a62-9803-b06d7d7cb132
	Detect changes in auditd configuration files	Generic	test	file_event	linux	Linux Auditd	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	high	Mikhail Larin, oscd.community	2019-10-25	2021-11-27	977ef627-4539-4875-adf4-ed8f780c4922
	Detects deletion of an Amazon Bedrock guardrail, which may indicate attempts to remove model safety (...)	Generic	experimental	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	medium	Marco Pedrinazzi (@pedrinazziM) (InTheCyber)	2026-07-10	—	59b70e4d-dd17-44a9-b740-acf07ae3eb6a
	Detects updates to an Amazon Bedrock guardrail, which may indicate attempts to weaken model safety c (...)	Generic	experimental	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	medium	Marco Pedrinazzi (@pedrinazziM) (InTheCyber)	2026-07-10	—	1c722651-254a-4b04-a9f4-99b62a2d0a1f
	Detects changes to the EC2 instance startup script. (...)	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Windows Command Shell Unix Shell	-	high	faloker	2020-02-12	2022-06-07	1ab3c5ed-5baf-417b-bb6b-78ca33f6c3df
	Detects successful deletion or disabling of an AWS GuardDuty detector, possibly by an attacker trying to avoid detection of its malicious activities. (...)	Generic	experimental	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools Disable or Modify Cloud Log	-	high	suktech24	2025-11-27	—	d2656e78-c069-4571-8220-9e0ab5913f19
	Detects updates of the GuardDuty list of trusted IPs, perhaps to disable security alerts against malicious IPs.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	high	faloker	2020-02-11	2022-10-09	6e61ee20-ce00-4f8d-8aee-bedd8216f7e3
	Detects evade to Macie detection.	Unsupported	unsupported	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	medium	Sittikorn S	2021-07-06	2023-03-24	91f6a16c-ef71-437a-99ac-0b070e3ad221
	Detects the modification of the findings on SecurityHub.	Generic	stable	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	high	Sittikorn S	2021-06-28	—	a607e1fe-74bf-4440-a3ec-b059b9103157
	Detects the specific Windows execution chain and process tree associated with the Axios NPM supply chain compromise. (...)	Emerging	experimental	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Windows Command Shell Visual Basic Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Initial Access Supply Chain Compromise Compromise Software Supply Chain	-	high	Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)	2026-04-01	—	f6c27ecc-d890-4452-80e6-2e274a10e097
Splunk	The following analytic detects when the risk-based step-up consent security setting in Azure AD is disabled. (...)	Generic	stable	account_management	-	Microsoft 365	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	medium	Mauricio Velazco, Splunk	2023-11-16	2026-05-13	875de3d7-09bc-4916-8c0a-0929f4ced3d8
	Detects when Events are deleted in Azure Kubernetes. (...)	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Azure Activity Logs · Azure	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	medium	Austin Songer @austinsonger	2021-07-24	2022-08-23	225d8b09-e714-479c-a0e4-55e6f29adf35
	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 changes to the bitbucket audit log configuration.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Bitbucket Audit · Bitbucket	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	medium	Muhammad Faisal (@faisalusuf)	2024-02-25	—	6aa12161-235a-4dfb-9c74-fe08df8d8da1
	Detects Bitbucket global secret scanning rule deletion activity.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Bitbucket Audit · Bitbucket	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	medium	Muhammad Faisal (@faisalusuf)	2024-02-25	—	e16cf0f0-ee88-4901-bd0b-4c8d13d9ee05
	Detects Bitbucket global SSH access configuration changes.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Bitbucket Audit · Bitbucket	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools Lateral Movement Remote Services SSH	-	medium	Muhammad Faisal (@faisalusuf)	2024-02-25	—	16ab6143-510a-44e2-a615-bdb80b8317fc
	Detects when a secret scanning allowlist rule is added for projects.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Bitbucket Audit · Bitbucket	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	low	Muhammad Faisal (@faisalusuf)	2024-02-25	—	42ccce6d-7bd3-4930-95cd-e4d83fa94a30
	Detects when a repository is exempted from secret scanning feature.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Bitbucket Audit · Bitbucket	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	high	Muhammad Faisal (@faisalusuf)	2024-02-25	—	b91e8d5e-0033-44fe-973f-b730316f23a1
	Detects when secret scanning rule is deleted for the project or repository.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Bitbucket Audit · Bitbucket	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	low	Muhammad Faisal (@faisalusuf)	2024-02-25	—	ff91e3f0-ad15-459f-9a85-1556390c138d
	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	Adversaries may intentionally suppress or reduce the volume of core Cisco ASA syslog messages to evade detection or cover their tracks. (...)	Hunting	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	CVE-2025-20362 CVE-2025-20333	medium	Bhavin Patel, Micheal Haag, Splunk	2025-09-25	2026-05-13	4b4f8fdd-1f9e-45d8-9b0f-1f64c0b297a4
Splunk	This analytic detects the disabling of logging functionality on a Cisco ASA device through CLI comma (...)	Generic	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	medium	Bhavin Patel, Micheal Haag, Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-09-25	2026-05-13	7b4c9f3e-5a88-4b7b-9c4b-94d8e5d67201
Splunk	This analytic detects tampering with logging filter configurations on Cisco ASA devices via CLI or ASDM. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-11-21	2026-05-13	b87b48a8-6d1a-4280-9cf1-16a950dbf901
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
Splunk	This analytic provides comprehensive monitoring of configuration changes on Cisco devices by analyzing archive logs. (...)	Hunting	stable	configuration_change	-	Cisco IOS · Cisco	Persistence, Privilege Escalation Account Manipulation Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools Persistence Server Software Component Web Shell	CVE-2018-0171	medium	Bhavin Patel, Michael Haag, Splunk	2025-08-21	2026-05-13	f52d5c0b-d45d-4304-b300-a4f6a1130dec
	Turn off logging locally or remote	Generic	test	authentication	-	Cisco AAA · Cisco	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools	-	high	Austin Clark	2019-08-11	2023-01-04	9e8f6035-88bf-4a63-96b6-b17c0508257e
	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
	Detects the manual disablement of IEEE 802.1X (dot1x) on a Cisco network device interface. (...)	Generic	experimental	authentication	-	Cisco AAA · Cisco	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools Persistence, Defense Impairment, Credential Access Modify Authentication Process Network Device Authentication	-	medium	Luc Génaux	2026-04-28	—	ef0ff092-a24a-4fbc-beea-06c08d53e085
	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 Cisco IOS-XE command sequences where show logging, clear logging, and exit occur within a short period. (...)	Anomaly	stable	network_device	-	Cisco IOS · Cisco	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools Clear Windows Event Logs	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali	2026-05-19	2026-05-20	e20a6709-5f2c-4508-83fb-b3af6f705717
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	This analytic detects rapid modification of Cisco IOS-XE VTY access-class settings. (...)	Anomaly	stable	network_device	-	Cisco IOS · Cisco	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools Lateral Movement Remote Services	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali	2026-05-19	2026-05-20	a01ca274-16cb-476d-a814-d2ffe29d8905
Splunk	This analytic detects changes to SNMP community strings on Cisco devices, which could indicate an attacker establishing persistence or attempting to extract credentials. (...)	Anomaly	stable	configuration_change	-	Cisco IOS · Cisco	Defense Impairment Disable or Modify Tools Credential Access, Discovery Network Sniffing Credential Access Unsecured Credentials	CVE-2018-0171	medium	Bhavin Patel, Michael Haag, Splunk	2025-08-21	2026-05-13	b0ce5521-2533-4f24-b8d5-c2ff977aae08
	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 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

Title

Description

RunningRAT S0253

RunningRAT S0253

RunningRAT MITRE reference S0253

Standing S0253

Reach

Coverage

RunningRAT detections S0253