VIRTUALPITA has utilized VMware service names and ports to masquerade as legitimate services.2
tool
VIRTUALPITA S1217
- Type
- malware
- Platforms
- ESXi, Linux
- Created
- 2 June 2025
- Last modified
- 3 June 2025
VIRTUALPITA is a passive backdoor with ESXi and Linux vCenter variants capable of command execution, file transfer, and starting and stopping processes. VIRTUALPITA has been in use since at least 2022 including by UNC3886 who leveraged malicious vSphere Installation Bundles (VIBs) for install on ESXi hypervisors.[1]
12
Techniques54th pct
9
TacticsTop 11%
1
Threat groupunranked
0
CampaignsNone recorded
Enterprise ATT&CK only. Any Mobile or ICS rows on the same ATT&CK page are not carried.
MITRE reference S1217
VIRTUALPITA samples have been found in /usr/libexec/setconf/ksmd and /usr/bin/ksmd, named to spoof the legitimate Kernel Same-Page Merging Daemon binary. 3
VIRTUALPITA can persist as an init.d startup service on Linux vCenter systems.4
VIRTUALPITA has the ability to spawn a bash shell for script execution.5
VIRTUALPITA can call a Python script to run commands on a targeted guest virtual machine.6
VIRTUALPITA has the ability to upload and download files.7
Standing S1217
Reach is how much of ATT&CK this tool 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
Techniques1254th pct
54th percentile · 54% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have this many Enterprise techniques or fewer.
Tactics9Top 11%
89th percentile · 89% 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 / technique8.5medBottom 12%
12th percentile · 88% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have more detection rules per technique.
Tests / technique3.5med
Detection coverage S1217
254 distinct rules cover the 12 techniques recorded for this tool. The 266 technique-to-rule mappings resolve to 254 distinct rules, because one rule can cover several techniques. 170 Sigma · 84 Splunk.
11 covered by at least one rule1 with no coverage254 distinct rules in total
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