malware

NICECURL S1192

Type: malware
Platform: Windows
Created: 8 January 2025
Last modified: 8 January 2025

NICECURL is a VBScript-based backdoor used by APT42 to download additional modules.[1]

TechniquesBottom 23%

TacticsBottom 21%

Threat groupunranked

CampaignsNone recorded

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

Standing S1192

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 potential DLL sideloading of DLLs that are known to be abused from suspicious locations	Generic	test	image_load	windows	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter	-	high	X__Junior (Nextron Systems)	2023-07-11	—	799a5f48-0ac1-4e0f-9152-71d137d48c2a
	Detects usage of winget to add a new insecure (http) download source. (...)	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter	-	high	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-04-17	—	81a0ecb5-0a41-4ba1-b2ba-c944eb92bfa2
	Detects usage of winget to add new additional download sources	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-04-17	—	05ebafc8-7aa2-4bcd-a269-2aec93f9e842
	Detects usage of winget to add new potentially suspicious download sources	Generic	test	process_creation	windows	Sysmon · WinEventLog Security	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2023-04-17	2023-12-04	c15a46a0-07d4-4c87-b4b6-89207835a83b
	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 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 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
	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 spawning of suspicious child processes by Atlassian Confluence server which may indicate suc (...)	Emerging	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Initial Access Exploit Public-Facing Application	CVE-2022-26134	high	Nasreddine Bencherchali (Nextron Systems)	2022-06-03	—	7fb14105-530e-4e2e-8cfb-99f7d8700b66
	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 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
	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
	Identifies when a new cloudshell is created inside of Azure portal.	Generic	test	cloud_audit	-	Azure Activity Logs · Azure	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter	-	medium	Austin Songer	2021-09-21	2022-08-23	72af37e2-ec32-47dc-992b-bc288a2708cb
	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
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 Bitsadmin connections to IP addresses instead of FQDN names	Generic	test	proxy	-	-	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Execution, Persistence, Stealth BITS Jobs	-	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	-	-	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Execution, Persistence, Stealth BITS Jobs	-	high	Florian Roth (Nextron Systems), Tim Shelton	2019-03-07	2026-09-30	9eb68894-7476-4cd6-8752-23b51f5883a7
	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 the use of the "capsh" utility to invoke a shell.	Generic	test	process_creation	linux	Sysmon	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter	-	high	Li Ling, Andy Parkidomo, Robert Rakowski, Blake Hartstein (Bloomberg L.P.)	2024-09-02	—	db1ac3be-f606-4e3a-89e0-9607cbe6b98a
	Detects HTTP request used by Chafer malware to receive data from its C2.	Emerging	test	proxy	-	-	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols	-	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	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols	-	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	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 guestshell enable activity followed by activation and destroy lifecycle logs. (...)	Anomaly	stable	network_device	-	Cisco IOS · Cisco	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Privilege Escalation Escape to Host	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali	2026-05-19	2026-05-20	ff82a536-8fde-4963-a801-815826fcdf75
Splunk	This analytic detects Cisco IOS-XE "request platform software package describe" commands containing suspicious shell-style filename patterns. (...)	Generic	stable	network_device	-	Cisco IOS · Cisco	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Initial Access Exploit Public-Facing Application	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali	2026-05-19	2026-05-20	a113a8be-7386-46e0-a079-d9fd46f9631f
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	Detects a Unix-based (Linux or macOS) browser process spawning a Unix shell that establishes an outbound connection to an external destination. (...)	Anomaly	stable	network_connection	-	Cisco NVM · Cisco	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter	-	medium	Maria Jose Erquiaga, Splunk	2026-09-02	2026-09-22	6f2de8d1-9a2d-4c7a-9b8c-3b8a2f7d0e41
Splunk	This analytic detects suspicious python package installations where the package name resembles popular Python libraries but may be typosquatted or slightly altered. (...)	Generic	stable	network_connection	-	Cisco NVM · Cisco	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-07-01	2026-09-22	5e3f6b44-42cb-4f8a-99f0-59e78a52ea1d
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	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter AppleScript	-	medium	Radka Viskova, Splunk	2026-09-18	2026-09-22	6bc88a9d-f7de-4257-b526-acf15bc5a517
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 file downloads involving executable, archive, or scripting-related file types that are commonly used in malware delivery. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Execution Exploitation for Client Execution	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-09	2026-09-22	24b2c2e3-2ff7-4a23-b814-87f8a62028cd
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	Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Web Protocols Resource Development Develop Capabilities Code Signing Certificates Command and Control Encrypted Channel Asymmetric Cryptography Resource Development Obtain Capabilities Digital Certificates	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-03	2026-09-22	c43f7b49-2dab-4e76-892e-7f971c2f20f1
Splunk	This analytic detects exploitation activity of CVE-2025-5777 using Cisco Secure Firewall Intrusion Events. (...)	Generic	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Execution Exploitation for Client Execution	CVE-2025-5777	medium	Michael Haag, Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk, Talos NTDR	2025-07-17	2026-05-13	93db24a0-fd21-45d7-9daf-84afd5a8cca2
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 internal systems that generate an unusually high volume of intrusion detections within a 30-minute window. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Reconnaissance Active Scanning Vulnerability Scanning Command and Control Application Layer Protocol Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-16	2026-05-13	9f2295a0-0dcb-4a5f-b013-8a6f2a3c11f6
Splunk	This analytic detects intrusion events from known threat activity using Cisco Secure Firewall Intrusion Events. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Command and Control Encrypted Channel Asymmetric Cryptography Exfiltration Exfiltration Over C2 Channel	-	medium	Bhavin Patel, Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-05-12	2026-09-22	b71e57e8-c571-4ff1-ae13-bc4384a9e891
Splunk	This analytic detects Lumma Stealer download attempts using Cisco Secure Firewall Intrusion Events. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Command and Control Encrypted Channel Asymmetric Cryptography Exfiltration Exfiltration Over C2 Channel	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk, Talos NTDR	2025-04-16	2026-05-13	66f22f52-fbae-4be7-a263-561dacb63613
Splunk	This analytic detects Lumma Stealer outbound connection attempts using Cisco Secure Firewall Intrusion Events. (...)	Anomaly	stable	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Command and Control Encrypted Channel Asymmetric Cryptography Exfiltration Exfiltration Over C2 Channel	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk, Talos NTDR	2025-04-16	2026-05-13	66f22f52-fbae-4be7-a263-561dacb63612
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 highlights high-impact intrusion events assigned by Cisco Secure Firewall. (...)	Anomaly	experimental	firewall	-	Cisco Secure Firewall · Cisco	Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter Resource Development Develop Capabilities Malware Execution Exploitation for Client Execution	-	medium	Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk	2025-04-16	2026-05-13	244a77bb-3b2a-46f1-bf2c-b4f7cd29276d

Title

Description

NICECURL S1192

NICECURL MITRE reference S1192

Standing S1192

Reach

Coverage

NICECURL detections S1192