malware
VBShower is a backdoor that has been used by Inception since at least 2019. VBShower has been used as a downloader for second stage payloads, including PowerShower.[1]
Enterprise ATT&CK only. Any Mobile or ICS rows on the same ATT&CK page are not carried.
VBShower has attempted to complicate forensic analysis by deleting all the files contained in %APPDATA%\..\Local\Temporary Internet Files\Content.Word and %APPDATA%\..\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.Word\.3
VBShower has attempted to obtain a VBS script from command and control (C2) nodes over HTTP.4
VBShower has the ability to download VBS files to the target computer.5
VBShower used HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\\[a-f0-9A-F]{8} to maintain persistence.6
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.
23rd percentile · 77% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have more Enterprise techniques.
41st percentile · 59% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have more tactics spanned.
61% of the population shares a single value across only 22 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
85% of the population shares a single value across only 8 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
90th percentile · 90% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have this many detection rules per technique or fewer.
299 distinct rules cover the 5 techniques recorded for this malware. 212 Sigma · 87 Splunk.
| Select | Title | 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 | - | 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 | - | medium | Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems) | 2023-09-04 | 2025-07-04 | 3109530e-ab47-4cc6-a953-cac5ebcc93ae | ||||
Detects javaw.exe in AppData folder as used by Adwind / JRAT | Emerging | test | process_creation | windows | Sysmon · WinEventLog Security | - | high | Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Tom Ueltschi, Jonhnathan Ribeiro, oscd.community | 2017-11-10 | 2022-10-09 | 1fac1481-2dbc-48b2-9096-753c49b4ec71 | ||||
Detects javaw.exe in AppData folder as used by Adwind / JRAT | Generic | test | file_event | windows | Sysmon | - | high | Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Tom Ueltschi, Jonhnathan Ribeiro, oscd.community | 2017-11-10 | 2022-12-02 | 0bcfabcb-7929-47f4-93d6-b33fb67d34d1 | ||||
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 | - | 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 | - | 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 | - | medium | frack113 | 2021-11-24 | 2023-11-09 | 7cff77e1-9663-46a3-8260-17f2e1aa9d0a | ||||
Detects suspicious user agent strings used in APT malware in proxy logs | Generic | test | proxy | - | - | - | high | Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Markus Neis | 2019-11-12 | 2024-02-15 | 6ec820f2-e963-4801-9127-d8b2dce4d31b | ||||
Detects suspicious user agent string of APT40 Dropbox tool | Emerging | test | proxy | - | - | - | high | Thomas Patzke | 2019-11-12 | 2023-05-18 | 5ba715b6-71b7-44fd-8245-f66893e81b3d | ||||
Detects execution of GfxDownloadWrapper.exe with a URL as an argument to download file. | Generic | test | process_creation | windows | Sysmon · WinEventLog Security | - | medium | Victor Sergeev, oscd.community | 2020-10-09 | 2023-10-18 | eee00933-a761-4cd0-be70-c42fe91731e7 | ||||
Detects file creation events linked to the Axios NPM supply chain compromise. (...) | Emerging | experimental | file_event | linux | Sysmon | - | 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 | - | - | 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 | - | 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 | - | - | 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 | - | high | Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems) | 2026-04-01 | — | f6c27ecc-d890-4452-80e6-2e274a10e097 | ||||
Detects DNS queries for the malicious C2 domain associated with the plain-crypto-js/Axios npm package supply chain compromise. (...) | Emerging | experimental | dns | - | - | - | high | Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems) | 2026-04-01 | — | 73e5d24f-493f-4092-bd2f-c72cabda40ee | ||||
Detects backup catalog deletions | Generic | test | - | windows | WinEventLog Application | - | medium | Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Tom U. @c_APT_ure (collection) | 2017-05-12 | 2022-12-25 | 9703792d-fd9a-456d-a672-ff92efe4806a | ||||
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 | - | medium | Michael Haag, Sittikorn S | 2021-03-30 | 2026-10-02 | 80630ff4-8e4c-11eb-aab5-acde48001122 | |||
Detects Bitsadmin connections to IP addresses instead of FQDN names | Generic | test | proxy | - | - | - | 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 | - | - | - | high | Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Tim Shelton | 2019-03-07 | 2026-09-30 | 9eb68894-7476-4cd6-8752-23b51f5883a7 | ||||
Detects execution of Chromium based browser in headless mode | Generic | test | process_creation | windows | Sysmon · WinEventLog Security | - | low | Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems) | 2023-09-12 | — | ef9dcfed-690c-4c5d-a9d1-482cd422225c | ||||
Detects HTTP request used by Chafer malware to receive data from its C2. | Emerging | test | proxy | - | - | - | 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 | - | medium | frack113 | 2022-01-23 | 2025-07-18 | d4488827-73af-4f8d-9244-7b7662ef046e | ||||
See what files are being deleted from flash file systems | Generic | test | authentication | - | Cisco AAA · Cisco | - | medium | Austin Clark | 2019-08-12 | 2023-01-04 | 71d65515-c436-43c0-841b-236b1f32c21e | - | |||
Splunk | The following analytic detects the execution of curl commands with insecure flags within the Cisco Isovalent environment. (...) | Anomaly | stable | process_creation | - | Cisco | - | medium | Bhavin Patel, Splunk | 2026-01-05 | 2026-10-02 | c16c4899-d3f7-461b-92c2-cc0ef5758855 | |||
Splunk | This analytic detects suspicious use of 'mshta.exe' or 'rundll32.exe' invoking 'mshtml.dll'
or the ' (...) | Anomaly | stable | network_connection | - | Cisco NVM · Cisco | - | medium | Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk | 2025-07-01 | 2026-09-22 | f2a9df84-9b01-4a21-9e3a-7aa1a217f69e | |||
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 | - | medium | Radka Viskova, Splunk | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-22 | 6bc88a9d-f7de-4257-b526-acf15bc5a517 | |||
Splunk | This analytic detects script execution (`wscript.exe` or `cscript.exe`) triggered from compressed fi (...) | Anomaly | stable | network_connection | - | Cisco NVM · Cisco | - | medium | Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk | 2025-07-01 | 2026-09-22 | 8b07c2c9-0cde-4c44-9fa6-59dcf2b25777 | |||
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 | - | medium | Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk | 2025-07-01 | 2026-09-22 | cd0e816f-f67d-4dbe-a153-480b546e867e | |||
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 | - | medium | Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk | 2025-07-01 | 2026-09-22 | 1984f997-3b49-4d4b-a7e9-dc5dbf88370e | |||
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 | - | medium | Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk | 2025-04-03 | 2026-09-22 | c43f7b49-2dab-4e76-892e-7f971c2f20f1 | |||
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 | - | 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 | - | 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 | - | 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 | - | medium | Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk | 2025-04-03 | 2026-05-13 | 8c15183e-2e70-4db4-86c3-88f8d9129b66 | |||
Splunk | The following analytic detects file downloads that were classified as malware by Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense. (...) | Anomaly | stable | firewall | - | Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco | - | medium | Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk | 2025-04-09 | 2026-09-22 | 3cc93f52-5aa6-4b7f-83b9-3430b1436813 | |||
Splunk | The following analytic detects repeated malware file downloads initiated by the same internal host (src) within a short time window. (...) | Anomaly | stable | firewall | - | Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco | - | medium | Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk | 2025-04-09 | 2026-09-22 | aeff2bb5-3483-48d4-9be8-c8976194be1e | |||
Splunk | This analytic identifies Snort intrusion signatures that have been triggered by ten or more distinct internal IP addresses within a one-hour window. (...) | Anomaly | stable | firewall | - | Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco | - | medium | Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk | 2025-04-16 | 2026-05-13 | a4c76d0a-56b6-44be-814b-939746c4d406 | |||
Splunk | The following analytic detects outbound connections initiated by command-line tools such as curl or wget. (...) | Anomaly | stable | firewall | - | Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco | - | medium | Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk | 2025-04-03 | 2026-05-13 | 173a1cb9-1814-4128-a9dc-f29dade89957 | |||
Various protocols maybe used to put data on the device for exfil or infil | Generic | test | authentication | - | Cisco AAA · Cisco | - | low | Austin Clark | 2019-08-12 | 2023-01-04 | 5e51acb2-bcbe-435b-99c6-0e3cd5e2aa59 | - | |||
Detects modification of Windows Registry Classes keys used for persistence. (...) | Generic | test | registry_set | windows | Sysmon · WinEventLog Security | - | 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 | - | medium | Teoderick Contreras, Splunk | 2021-06-10 | 2026-05-13 | cd80a6ac-c9d9-11eb-8839-acde48001122 | |||
Detects DNS requests to Cloudflared tunnels domains. (...) | Generic | test | dns | windows | Sysmon | - | medium | Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems) | 2023-12-20 | — | a1d9eec5-33b2-4177-8d24-27fe754d0812 | ||||
Detects a suspicious command line execution that includes an URL and AppData string in the command l (...) | Generic | test | process_creation | windows | Sysmon · WinEventLog Security | - | medium | Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Jonhnathan Ribeiro, oscd.community | 2019-01-16 | 2021-11-27 | 1ac8666b-046f-4201-8aba-1951aaec03a3 | ||||
Detects modification of autostart extensibility point (ASEP) in registry. | Generic | test | registry_set | windows | Sysmon · WinEventLog Security | - | 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 Turla ComRAT network communication. | Emerging | test | proxy | - | - | - | high | Florian Roth (Nextron Systems) | 2020-05-26 | 2024-02-26 | 7857f021-007f-4928-8b2c-7aedbe64bb82 | ||||
Detects suspicious user agent strings used by crypto miners in proxy logs | Generic | test | proxy | - | - | - | high | Florian Roth (Nextron Systems) | 2019-10-21 | 2021-11-27 | fa935401-513b-467b-81f4-f9e77aa0dd78 | ||||
Detects a potentially suspicious parent of "csc.exe", which could be a sign of payload delivery. | Generic | test | process_creation | windows | Sysmon · WinEventLog Security | - | high | Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems), X__Junior (Nextron Systems) | 2019-02-11 | 2026-03-23 | b730a276-6b63-41b8-bcf8-55930c8fc6ee | ||||
Detects Wscript/Cscript executing a file with an uncommon (i.e. (...) | Generic | test | process_creation | windows | Sysmon · WinEventLog Security | - | high | Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems) | 2023-05-15 | 2023-06-19 | 99b7460d-c9f1-40d7-a316-1f36f61d52ee | ||||
Adversaries can use curl to download payloads remotely and execute them. (...) | Generic | test | process_creation | windows | Sysmon · WinEventLog Security | - | high | Sreeman, Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems) | 2020-01-13 | 2024-03-05 | 21dd6d38-2b18-4453-9404-a0fe4a0cc288 |
95th percentile · 95% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have this many atomic tests per technique or fewer.
54% of the population shares a single value across only 11 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
91st percentile · 91% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have this many mitigations per technique or fewer.
5 of 8 axes carry an honest rank on this page. Coverage medians are taken across this malware’s 5 Enterprise techniques.
Technique Campaign use over its cumulative rule count.