BRICKSTORM is a cross-platform backdoor with variants written in Go and Rust that facilitates command and control, the ingress transfer of other malware, and the exfiltration of data.[1][2][3][4]BRICKSTORM has also been created from a .NET application using ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation to blend in within victim environments.[1]BRICKSTORM was first observed in April 2024.[5]BRICKSTORM has previously been leveraged by People's Republic of China (PRC) state-nexus actors identified as UNC6201, UNC5221, WARP PANDA, PunyToad, and SYLVANITE.[6][7][1][8][9][10][3][4]
25
TechniquesTop 12%
10
TacticsTop 6%
0
Threat groupsNone recorded
0
CampaignsNone recorded
Enterprise ATT&CK only. Any Mobile or ICS rows on the same ATT&CK page are not carried.
BRICKSTORM has commands that allow the actor download files from the compromised host to the C2 server, and to also download specific sections of a file.15
BRICKSTORM has utilized XOR cipher encryption to hide key strings within their code, to include IPv4 addresses of public DNS-over-HTTPS (DOH) servers.18
BRICKSTORM has appeared to resemble legitimate processes to include the vCenter process vami-http.192021BRICKSTORM has also leveraged legitimate names of VMware vSphere platform such as vmsrc or vmware-sphere.22
BRICKSTORM has the ability to check if it is running as an active child process through the detection of a specific environment variable.30
Discovery10 detection rules
Standing S9015
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
Techniques25Top 12%
88th percentile · 88% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have this many Enterprise techniques or fewer.
Tactics10Top 6%
94th percentile · 94% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have this many tactics spanned or fewer.
Threat groups061% 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 / technique19med42nd pct
42nd percentile · 58% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have more detection rules per technique.
Tests / technique3medBottom 16%
16th percentile · 84% 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 25 Enterprise techniques.
Range
Technique Campaign use over its cumulative rule count.
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.
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. (...)
Adversaries may communicate using application layer protocols associated with web traffic to avoid detection/network filtering by blending in with existing traffic. (...)
This analytic detects creation of a Cisco IOS-XE tunnel interface with tunnel source, tunnel destination, and an IP address in the 10.10.12.0 network. (...)
This analytic detects the execution of the nsenter utility from within a container, a technique often used for exploitation and container escape. (...)
This analytic detects the usage of the Utility osascript on a macOS device initiated a network connection lasting longer than 10 minutes (600 seconds). (...)