malware

ShrinkLocker S1178

Type: malware
Platform: Windows
Created: 7 December 2024
Last modified: 12 May 2026

ShrinkLocker is a VBS-based malicious script that leverages the legitimate Bitlocker application to encrypt files on victim systems for ransom. ShrinkLocker functions by using Bitlocker to encrypt files, then renames impacted drives to the adversary’s contact email address to facilitate communication for the ransom payment.[1][2]

TechniquesTop 18%

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 S1178

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
	Detects file access requests to files ending with either the ".hive"/".reg" extension, usually associated with Windows Registry backups.	Hunting	test	file_access	windows	-	Persistence, Defense Impairment Modify Registry	-	low	frack113	2023-09-15	2024-07-29	337a31c6-46c4-46be-886a-260d7aa78cac
	Detect set Notification_Suppress to 1 to disable the Windows security center notification	Generic	test	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Persistence, Defense Impairment Modify Registry	-	medium	frack113	2022-08-19	2023-08-17	0c93308a-3f1b-40a9-b649-57ea1a1c1d63
	Detect set DisallowRun to 1 to prevent user running specific computer program	Generic	test	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Persistence, Defense Impairment Modify Registry	-	medium	frack113	2022-08-19	2023-08-17	275641a5-a492-45e2-a817-7c81e9d9d3e9
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 javaw.exe in AppData folder as used by Adwind / JRAT	Emerging	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Visual Basic JavaScript	-	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	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Visual Basic JavaScript	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Tom Ueltschi, Jonhnathan Ribeiro, oscd.community	2017-11-10	2022-12-02	0bcfabcb-7929-47f4-93d6-b33fb67d34d1
	Detect enable rdp feature to allow specific user to rdp connect on the targeted machine	Generic	test	registry_set	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Persistence, Defense Impairment Modify Registry	-	medium	frack113	2022-08-19	2023-08-17	37b437cf-3fc5-4c8e-9c94-1d7c9aff842b
	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 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 a highly relevant Antivirus alert that reports ransomware. (...)	Generic	test	antivirus	-	-	Impact Data Encrypted for Impact	-	critical	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Arnim Rupp	2022-05-12	2026-06-15	4c6ca276-d4d0-4a8c-9e4c-d69832f8671f
	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 the removal or uninstallation of an application via "Wmic.EXE".	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Windows Management Instrumentation	-	medium	frack113	2022-01-28	2024-07-02	b53317a0-8acf-4fd1-8de8-a5401e776b96
	Detects an attempt to terminate a process via "wmic" with the "call terminate" flag. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Windows Management Instrumentation	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-09-11	—	49d9671b-0a0a-4c09-8280-d215bfd30662
	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 suspicious user agent strings used in APT malware in proxy logs	Generic	test	proxy	-	-	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols	-	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	-	-	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Exfiltration Exfiltration Over Web Service Exfiltration to Cloud Storage	-	high	Thomas Patzke	2019-11-12	2023-05-18	5ba715b6-71b7-44fd-8245-f66893e81b3d
Splunk	The following analytic detects the creation of AWS KMS keys with an encryption policy accessible to everyone, including external entities. (...)	Generic	stable	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Impact Data Encrypted for Impact	-	medium	Patrick Bareiss, Splunk	2020-10-27	2026-05-13	16ae9076-d1d5-411c-8fdd-457504b33dac
	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
Splunk	The following analytic identifies attempts to delete AWS Bedrock Knowledge Bases, which are resources that store and manage domain-specific information for AI models. (...)	Generic	stable	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Impact Data Destruction	-	medium	Bhavin Patel, Splunk	2025-03-25	2026-05-13	8b4e3d62-f743-11ee-9f6e-acde48001123
	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
Splunk	The following analytic detects the creation of AWS KMS keys with an encryption policy accessible to everyone, including external entities. (...)	Generic	stable	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Impact Data Encrypted for Impact	-	medium	Rod Soto, Patrick Bareiss Splunk	2020-10-27	2026-05-13	c79c164f-4b21-4847-98f9-cf6a9f49179e
Splunk	The following analytic identifies users with KMS keys performing encryption operations on S3 buckets. (...)	Anomaly	stable	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Impact Data Encrypted for Impact	-	medium	Rod Soto, Patrick Bareiss Splunk	2020-10-27	2026-05-13	884a5f59-eec7-4f4a-948b-dbde18225fdc
	Identifies disabling of default Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) encryption in the current region. (...)	Generic	stable	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Impact Data Encrypted for Impact Impact Data Manipulation	-	medium	Sittikorn S	2021-06-29	2021-08-20	16124c2d-e40b-4fcc-8f2c-5ab7870a2223
	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 when a EFS Fileshare Mount is modified or deleted. (...)	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Impact Data Destruction	-	medium	Austin Songer @austinsonger	2021-08-15	2022-10-09	6a7ba45c-63d8-473e-9736-2eaabff79964
	Identifies when an EKS cluster is created or deleted.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Impact Data Destruction	-	low	Austin Songer	2021-08-16	2022-10-09	33d50d03-20ec-4b74-a74e-1e65a38af1c0
	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 the import or deletion of key material in AWS KMS, which can be used as part of ransomware attacks. (...)	Generic	experimental	cloud_audit	-	AWS CloudTrail · AWS	Impact Data Encrypted for Impact Resource Development Stage Capabilities Install Digital Certificate	-	high	toopricey	2025-10-18	—	1279262f-1464-422f-ac0d-5b545320c526
	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
	Detects DNS queries for the malicious C2 domain associated with the plain-crypto-js/Axios npm package supply chain compromise. (...)	Emerging	experimental	dns	-	-	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Command and Control Dynamic Resolution	-	high	Swachchhanda Shrawan Poudel (Nextron Systems)	2026-04-01	—	73e5d24f-493f-4092-bd2f-c72cabda40ee
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 a Container Registry is created or deleted.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Azure Activity Logs · Azure	Impact Data Destruction Impact Resource Hijacking Impact Service Stop	-	low	Austin Songer @austinsonger	2021-08-07	2022-08-23	93e0ef48-37c8-49ed-a02c-038aab23628e
	Identifies when a device or device configuration in azure is modified or deleted.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Azure Activity Logs · Azure	Impact Data Destruction Impact Data Manipulation Stored Data Manipulation	-	medium	Austin Songer @austinsonger	2021-09-03	2022-10-09	46530378-f9db-4af9-a9e5-889c177d3881
	Detects when a Azure Kubernetes Cluster is created or deleted.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Azure Activity Logs · Azure	Impact Data Destruction Impact Resource Hijacking Impact Service Stop	-	low	Austin Songer @austinsonger	2021-08-07	2022-08-23	9541f321-7cba-4b43-80fc-fbd1fb922808
	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
	Identifies when a Azure Kubernetes network policy is modified or deleted.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Azure Activity Logs · Azure	Impact Data Destruction Impact Resource Hijacking Impact Service Stop	-	medium	Austin Songer @austinsonger	2021-08-07	2022-08-23	08d6ac24-c927-4469-b3b7-2e422d6e3c43
	Detects the creation or patching of potential malicious RoleBinding/ClusterRoleBinding.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Azure Activity Logs · Azure	Impact Data Destruction Impact Resource Hijacking Impact Service Stop	-	medium	Austin Songer @austinsonger	2021-08-07	2022-08-23	25cb259b-bbdc-4b87-98b7-90d7c72f8743
	Identifies when a Kubernetes account access a sensitive objects such as configmaps or secrets.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Azure Activity Logs · Azure	Impact Data Destruction Impact Resource Hijacking Impact Service Stop	-	medium	Austin Songer @austinsonger	2021-08-07	2022-08-23	7ee0b4aa-d8d4-4088-b661-20efdf41a04c
	Identifies when ClusterRoles/Roles are being modified or deleted.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Azure Activity Logs · Azure	Impact Data Destruction Impact Resource Hijacking Impact Service Stop	-	medium	Austin Songer @austinsonger	2021-08-07	2022-08-23	818fee0c-e0ec-4e45-824e-83e4817b0887

Title

Description

ShrinkLocker S1178

ShrinkLocker S1178

ShrinkLocker MITRE reference S1178

Standing S1178

Reach

Coverage

ShrinkLocker detections S1178