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.
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 has the ability to upload and download files.7
Command and Control131 detection rules
Standing S1217
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
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 / technique8medBottom 12%
12th percentile · 88% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have more detection rules per technique.
Tests / technique3.5medBottom 19%
19th percentile · 81% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have more atomic tests per technique.
Data comps / technique5med54% tie · 11 values
54% of the population shares a single value across only 11 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
Mitigations / technique2medTop 9%
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 12 Enterprise techniques.
Range
Technique Campaign use over its cumulative rule count.
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.
The following analytic detects the execution of tools commonly exploited by cybercriminals, such as those used for unauthorized access, network scanning, privilege escalation, password dumping or data exfiltration. (...)
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. (...)
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.
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. (...)
The following analytic detects potential reverse shell activity by identifying connections involving ports commonly associated with remote access tools, shell listeners, or tunneling utilities. (...)
The following analytic detects connections with a high Encrypted Visibility Engine (EVE) threat confidence score, indicating potentially malicious behavior within encrypted traffic. (...)
This analytic identifies Snort intrusion signatures that have been triggered by ten or more distinct internal IP addresses within a one-hour window. (...)
The following analytic detects the execution of the curl utility where the command line includes percent-encoded characters and explicit file output options (such as -o or --output). (...)
Detects the usage of schtasks with the delete flag and the asterisk symbol to delete all tasks from the schedule of the local computer, including tasks scheduled by other users.