RustyWater has an obfuscated function (i.e. love_me__()) that dynamically reconstructs the string WScript.Shell using hard-coded ASCII values and the Chr() function.2
tool
RustyWater S9037
- Type
- malware
- Platform
- Windows
- Created
- 21 April 2026
- Last modified
- 12 May 2026
RustyWater is a Rust-based implant used by MuddyWater. Historically, MuddyWater has used PowerShell-based tools and RustyWater reflects a shift in tooling, demonstrating better techniques for defense evasion and reverse engineering.[1]
20
TechniquesTop 20%
7
Tactics68th pct
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 S9037
RustyWater has encrypted all strings in the code using position independent XOR encryption.3
RustyWater has gathered the victim machine’s username.4
RustyWater has used reddit.exe as its file name and a Cloudflare logo.5
RustyWater has injected its shellcode into explorer.exe by allocating memory via VirtualAllocEx, then by writing the payload via WriteProcessMemory.6
RustyWater has used the Rust request library for HTTP C2 communication.7
Standing S9037
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
Techniques20Top 20%
80th percentile · 80% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have this many Enterprise techniques or fewer.
Tactics768th pct
68th percentile · 68% 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 / technique17med40th pct
40th percentile · 60% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have more detection rules per technique.
Tests / technique3med
Detection coverage S9037
555 distinct rules cover the 20 techniques recorded for this tool. The 578 technique-to-rule mappings resolve to 555 distinct rules, because one rule can cover several techniques. 394 Sigma · 161 Splunk.
17 covered by at least one rule3 with no coverage555 distinct rules in total
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