malware

Denis S0354

Type: malware
Platform: Windows
Created: 30 January 2019
Last modified: 16 April 2025

Denis is a Windows backdoor and Trojan used by APT32. Denis shares several similarities to the SOUNDBITE backdoor and has been used in conjunction with the Goopy backdoor.[1]

TechniquesTop 20%

Tactics53rd pct

Threat groupunranked

CampaignsNone recorded

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

Standing S0354

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
	Detects alternate PowerShell hosts potentially bypassing detections looking for powershell.exe	Generic	test	ps_module	windows	PowerShell	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell	-	medium	Roberto Rodriguez @Cyb3rWard0g	2019-08-11	2025-10-17	64e8e417-c19a-475a-8d19-98ea705394cc
	Detects alternate PowerShell hosts potentially bypassing detections looking for powershell.exe	Generic	test	pipe_created	windows	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell	-	medium	Roberto Rodriguez @Cyb3rWard0g, Tim Shelton	2019-09-12	2025-10-07	58cb02d5-78ce-4692-b3e1-dce850aae41a
	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 DNS queries made by "AppInstaller.EXE". (...)	Generic	test	dns	windows	Sysmon	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	frack113	2021-11-24	2023-11-09	7cff77e1-9663-46a3-8260-17f2e1aa9d0a
	Detects the execution of DLL side-loading malware used by threat group Emissary Panda aka APT27	Emerging	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution, Stealth Hijack Execution Flow DLL	-	critical	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2018-09-03	2023-03-09	9aa01d62-7667-4d3b-acb8-8cb5103e2014
	Detects execution of GfxDownloadWrapper.exe with a URL as an argument to download file.	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Victor Sergeev, oscd.community	2020-10-09	2023-10-18	eee00933-a761-4cd0-be70-c42fe91731e7
	Detects potential DLL sideloading activity via the Aruba Networks Virtual Intranet Access "arubanets (...)	Generic	test	image_load	windows	Sysmon	Execution, Stealth Hijack Execution Flow DLL	-	high	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-01-22	2023-03-15	90ae0469-0cee-4509-b67f-e5efcef040f7
	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 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 file creation events linked to the Axios NPM supply chain compromise. (...)	Emerging	experimental	file_event	linux	Sysmon	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Initial Access Supply Chain Compromise Compromise Software Supply Chain	-	high	Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)	2026-04-01	—	b7cb840c-11f6-47f7-b3ef-5524739c9077
	Detects file creation events linked to the Axios NPM supply chain compromise on macOS devices. (...)	Emerging	experimental	file_event	macos	-	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Initial Access Supply Chain Compromise Compromise Software Supply Chain	-	high	Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)	2026-04-01	—	2db0458c-05c9-4069-a26f-77becd9c8c13
	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. (...)	Emerging	experimental	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Unix Shell Python Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Initial Access Supply Chain Compromise Compromise Software Supply Chain	-	high	Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)	2026-04-01	—	0a23a62d-c5b3-468b-a072-25064a9a8c87
	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.	Emerging	experimental	process_creation	macos	-	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter AppleScript Unix Shell Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Initial Access Supply Chain Compromise Compromise Software Supply Chain	-	high	Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)	2026-04-01	—	a09ee860-31b3-4586-8a68-0ebd74ce0e5f
	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
	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
	focuses on trivial artifacts observed in variants of prevalent offensive ps1 payloads, including Cob (...)	Generic	test	ps_module	windows	PowerShell	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell	-	critical	ok @securonix invrep_de, oscd.community	2020-10-09	2022-12-25	8d31a8ce-46b5-4dd6-bdc3-680931f1db86
	Detects usage of the "FromBase64String" function in the commandline which is used to decode a base64 (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Stealth Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information Stealth Obfuscated Files or Information	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)	2020-01-29	2023-01-26	e32d4572-9826-4738-b651-95fa63747e8a
	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 detects the use of `bitsadmin.exe` with the `transfer` parameter to download a remote object. (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Execution, Persistence, Stealth BITS Jobs Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Michael Haag, Sittikorn S	2021-03-30	2026-10-02	80630ff4-8e4c-11eb-aab5-acde48001122
	Detects default file names outputted by the BloodHound collection tool SharpHound	Generic	test	file_event	windows	Sysmon	Discovery Account Discovery Local Account Domain Account Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Discovery Domain Trust Discovery Discovery Permission Groups Discovery Local Groups Domain Groups	-	high	C.J. May	2022-08-09	2026-02-19	02773bed-83bf-469f-b7ff-e676e7d78bab
	detects BPFDoor .lock and .pid files access in temporary file storage facility	Generic	test	file_event	linux	Linux Auditd	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Execution Native API	-	high	Rafal Piasecki	2022-08-10	2026-03-30	808146b2-9332-4d78-9416-d7e47012d83d
	Detects execution of Chromium based browser in headless mode	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Stealth Hide Artifacts Hidden Window Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	low	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-09-12	—	ef9dcfed-690c-4c5d-a9d1-482cd422225c
	Detects powershell execution with that make use of to the bxor (Bitwise XOR). (...)	Hunting	test	ps_classic_start	windows	PowerShell	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell	-	low	Teymur Kheirkhabarov, Harish Segar	2020-06-29	2024-12-11	812837bb-b17f-45e9-8bd0-0ec35d2e3bd6
	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 the execution of the certutil with the "exportPFX" flag which allows the utility to export certificates.	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Stealth Obfuscated Files or Information	-	medium	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Jonhnathan Ribeiro, oscd.community, Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-02-15	2024-03-05	3ffd6f51-e6c1-47b7-94b4-c1e61d4117c5
	Detects calls to cmdlets that are used to export certificates from the local certificate store. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Credential Access Unsecured Credentials Private Keys	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-05-18	—	9e716b33-63b2-46da-86a4-bd3c3b9b5dfb
Splunk	The following analytic detects the use of CertUtil.exe with the 'decode' argument, which may indicate an attempt to decode a previously encoded file, potentially containing malicious payloads. (...)	Generic	stable	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security · CrowdStrike	Stealth Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information	-	medium	Michael Haag, Splunk	2021-03-25	2026-10-02	bfe94226-8c10-11eb-a4b3-acde48001122
	Detects changing the PowerShell script execution policy to a potentially insecure level using the "-ExecutionPolicy" flag.	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell	-	medium	frack113	2021-11-01	2025-10-07	87e3c4e8-a6a8-4ad9-bb4f-46e7ff99a180
	Detects changing the PowerShell script execution policy to a potentially insecure level using the "Set-ExecutionPolicy" cmdlet.	Generic	test	ps_script	windows	PowerShell	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell	-	medium	frack113	2021-10-20	2023-12-14	61d0475c-173f-4844-86f7-f3eebae1c66b
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
	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 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 curl commands with insecure flags within the Cisco Isovalent environment. (...)	Anomaly	stable	process_creation	-	Cisco	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Bhavin Patel, Splunk	2026-01-05	2026-10-02	c16c4899-d3f7-461b-92c2-cc0ef5758855
Splunk	This analytic identifies the use of Chromium-based browsers (like Microsoft Edge) running in headless mode with the `--dump-dom` argument. (...)	Generic	stable	network_connection	-	Cisco NVM · Cisco	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-07-01	2026-09-22	cd0e816f-f67d-4dbe-a153-480b546e867e
Splunk	This analytic identifies non-browser processes reaching out to public IP lookup or geolocation servi (...)	Anomaly	stable	network_connection	-	Cisco NVM · Cisco	Reconnaissance Gather Victim Network Information IP Addresses Discovery System Network Configuration Discovery	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk, Janantha Marasinghe	2025-07-01	2026-09-22	568cb83e-d79e-4a23-85ec-6e1f6c30cb2f
Splunk	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. (...)	Generic	stable	network_connection	-	Cisco NVM · Cisco	Initial Access Exploit Public-Facing Application Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-07-01	2026-09-22	1984f997-3b49-4d4b-a7e9-dc5dbf88370e
Splunk	The following analytic detects potential reverse shell activity by identifying connections involving ports commonly associated with remote access tools, shell listeners, or tunneling utilities. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Command and Control Non-Standard Port Privilege Escalation, Stealth Process Injection Command and Control Remote Access Tools Lateral Movement Remote Services	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-03	2026-05-13	d85c05c8-42c0-4e4a-87e7-4e1bb3e844e3
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 file transfers flagged as malware that occurred over non-standard ports (other than 80 and 443). (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Command and Control Non-Standard Port	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-09	2026-09-22	f26445a8-a6a2-4855-bec0-0c39e52e5b8f
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

Title

Description

Denis S0354

Denis MITRE reference S0354

Standing S0354

Reach

Coverage

Denis detections S0354