ZxxZ S1013

Type: malware
Platform: Windows
Created: 2 June 2022
Last modified: 10 April 2024

ZxxZ is a trojan written in Visual C++ that has been used by BITTER since at least August 2021, including against Bangladeshi government personnel.[1]

Techniques61st pct

TacticsTop 20%

Threat groupunranked

CampaignsNone recorded

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

ZxxZ MITRE reference S1013

Data from Local System T1005 ↗

ZxxZ can collect data from a compromised host.2

Collection22 detection rules

Query Registry T1012 ↗

ZxxZ can search the registry of a compromised host.3

Discovery27 detection rules

Encrypted/Encoded File T1027.013 ↗

ZxxZ has been encoded to avoid detection from static analysis tools.4

Stealth1 detection rules

System Owner/User Discovery T1033 ↗

ZxxZ can collect the username from a compromised host.5

Discovery47 detection rules

Masquerade Task or Service T1036.004 ↗

ZxxZ has been disguised as a Windows security update service.6

Stealth4 detection rules

Scheduled Task T1053.005 ↗

ZxxZ has used scheduled tasks for persistence and execution.7

Execution · Persistence · Privilege Escalation79 detection rules

Standing S1013

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.

Reach

Techniques1461st pct

61st percentile · 61% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have this many Enterprise techniques or fewer.

Tactics8Top 20%

80th percentile · 80% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have this many tactics spanned or fewer.

Threat group161% tie · 22 values

61% of the population shares a single value across only 22 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.

Campaigns085% tie · 8 values

85% of the population shares a single value across only 8 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.

Coverage

Rules / technique24.5med58th pct

58th percentile · 58% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have this many detection rules per technique or fewer.

Tests / technique9med

ZxxZ detections S1013

518 distinct rules cover the 14 techniques recorded for this malware. 335 Sigma · 183 Splunk.

14 covered by at least one rule518 distinct rules in total

Showing 1-50 of 500+ rules

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Select	Description	Category	Status	Event	OS	Product	MITRE ATT&CK	CVEs	Severity	Author	Created	Updated	ID	Refs
	Detects suspicious local connections via a named pipe to the AD FS configuration database (Windows Internal Database). (...)	Generic	test	pipe_created	windows	Sysmon	Collection Data from Local System	-	medium	Roberto Rodriguez @Cyb3rWard0g	2021-10-08	2023-11-30	1ea13e8c-03ea-409b-877d-ce5c3d2c1cb3
	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 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
	The .SettingContent-ms file type was introduced in Windows 10 and allows a user to create "shortcuts" to various Windows 10 setting pages. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Initial Access Phishing Spearphishing Attachment Execution User Execution	-	medium	Sreeman	2020-03-13	2022-04-14	24de4f3b-804c-4165-b442-5a06a2302c7e
	An attempt to export an AWS EC2 instance has been detected. (...)	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Collection Data from Local System Exfiltration Transfer Data to Cloud Account	-	low	Diogo Braz	2020-04-16	2022-10-05	54b9a76a-3c71-4673-b4b3-2edb4566ea7b
	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 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
Splunk	The following analytic detects the creation of a batch file (.bat) within the Windows system directory tree, specifically in the System32 or SysWOW64 folders. (...)	Anomaly	stable	file_event	windows	Sysmon	Execution User Execution Malicious File	-	medium	Steven Dick, Michael Haag, Rico Valdez, Splunk	2020-04-29	2026-07-02	503d17cb-9eab-4cf8-a20e-01d5c6987ae3	-
	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 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
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
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 file copy activity on Cisco ASA devices via CLI or ASDM. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Collection Data from Cloud Storage Collection Data from Local System	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-11-21	2026-05-13	4d7e8f3a-9c2b-4e6f-8a1d-5b9c7e2f4a8c
Splunk	This analytic detects file copy operations to remote locations on Cisco ASA devices via CLI or ASDM. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Collection Data from Local System Exfiltration Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol Exfiltration Over Unencrypted Non-C2 Protocol Exfiltration Exfiltration Over C2 Channel	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-11-21	2026-05-13	8a9e5f2b-6d4c-4e7f-9b3a-1c8d7f5e2a9b
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
	Collect pertinent data from the configuration files	Generic	test	authentication	-	Cisco AAA · Cisco	Discovery Account Discovery Local Account Collection Data from Local System Credential Access Unsecured Credentials Credentials In Files	-	low	Austin Clark	2019-08-11	2023-01-04	cd072b25-a418-4f98-8ebc-5093fb38fe1a
	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
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 detects script execution (`wscript.exe` or `cscript.exe`) triggered from compressed fi (...)	Anomaly	stable	network_connection	-	Cisco NVM · Cisco	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Visual Basic Execution User Execution Malicious File	-	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	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 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
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	Execution Exploitation for Client Execution Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	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	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Stealth Obfuscated Files or Information	-	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	Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Stealth Obfuscated Files or Information	-	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	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer Execution, Persistence, Privilege Escalation Scheduled Task/Job Cron	-	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	Collection Archive Collected Data Archive via Utility Collection Data Staged Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	low	Austin Clark	2019-08-12	2023-01-04	5e51acb2-bcbe-435b-99c6-0e3cd5e2aa59	-
Splunk	This analytic detects the configuration of TFTP services on Cisco IOS devices that could be used to exfiltrate sensitive configuration files. (...)	Generic	stable	configuration_change	-	Cisco IOS · Cisco	Collection Data from Local System Exfiltration Exfiltration Over Web Service	CVE-2018-0171	medium	Bhavin Patel, Michael Haag, Splunk	2025-08-21	2026-05-13	1abce487-f480-4d5f-a551-01de0bece0bd
	Detects CLR DLL being loaded by an Office Product	Generic	test	image_load	windows	Sysmon	Execution User Execution Malicious File	-	medium	Antonlovesdnb	2020-02-19	2023-03-29	d13c43f0-f66b-4279-8b2c-5912077c1780
	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 a suspicious command line execution that includes an URL and AppData string in the command l (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter PowerShell Windows Command Shell Command and Control Ingress Tool Transfer	-	medium	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Jonhnathan Ribeiro, oscd.community	2019-01-16	2021-11-27	1ac8666b-046f-4201-8aba-1951aaec03a3
	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

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