Shamoon
Shamoon is wiper malware that was first used by an Iranian group known as the "Cutting Sword of Justice" in 2012. Other versions known as Shamoon 2 and Shamoon 3 were observed in 2016 and 2018. Shamoon has also been seen leveraging RawDisk to carry out data wiping tasks. The term Shamoon is sometimes used to refer to the group using the malware as well as the malware itself.[1][2][3][4]
Associated Software Descriptions
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Disttrack | [1] |
Techniques Used
| Domain | ID | Name | Use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | T1088 | Bypass User Account Control |
Shamoon attempts to disable UAC remote restrictions by modifying the Registry.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1043 | Commonly Used Port | |
| Enterprise | T1485 | Data Destruction |
Shamoon attempts to overwrite operating system files and disk structures with image files. In a later variant, randomly generated data was used for data overwrites.[3][4][1][2] |
| Enterprise | T1486 | Data Encrypted for Impact |
Shamoon has an operational mode for encrypting data instead of overwriting it.[1][2] |
| Enterprise | T1487 | Disk Structure Wipe |
Shamoon has been seen overwriting features of disk structure such as the MBR.[3][4][1][2] |
| Enterprise | T1036 | Masquerading |
Shamoon creates a new service named "ntssrv" that attempts to appear legitimate; the service's display name is "Microsoft Network Realtime Inspection Service" and its description is "Helps guard against time change attempts targeting known and newly discovered vulnerabilities in network time protocols."[1] |
| Enterprise | T1112 | Modify Registry |
Once Shamoon has access to a network share, it enables the RemoteRegistry service on the target system. It will then connect to the system with RegConnectRegistryW and modify the Registry to disable UAC remote restrictions by setting |
| Enterprise | T1050 | New Service |
Shamoon creates a new service named "ntssrv" to execute the payload.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1027 | Obfuscated Files or Information | |
| Enterprise | T1012 | Query Registry |
Shamoon queries several Registry keys to identify hard disk partitions to overwrite.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1105 | Remote File Copy | |
| Enterprise | T1018 | Remote System Discovery |
Shamoon scans the C-class subnet of the IPs on the victim's interfaces.[4] |
| Enterprise | T1053 | Scheduled Task |
Shamoon copies an executable payload to the target system by using Windows Admin Shares and then scheduling an unnamed task to execute the malware.[4][1] |
| Enterprise | T1035 | Service Execution |
Shamoon creates a new service named "ntssrv" to execute the payload.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1071 | Standard Application Layer Protocol | |
| Enterprise | T1082 | System Information Discovery |
Shamoon obtains the victim's operating system version and keyboard layout and sends the information to the C2 server.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1016 | System Network Configuration Discovery |
Shamoon obtains the target's IP address and local network segment.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1124 | System Time Discovery |
Shamoon obtains the system time and will only activate if it is greater than a preset date.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1078 | Valid Accounts |
If Shamoon cannot access shares using current privileges, it attempts access using hard coded, domain-specific credentials gathered earlier in the intrusion.[4] |
| Enterprise | T1077 | Windows Admin Shares |
Shamoon accesses network share(s), enables share access to the target device, copies an executable payload to the target system, and uses a Scheduled Task to execute the malware.[4] |
Groups That Use This Software
| ID | Name | References |
|---|---|---|
| G0064 | APT33 | [5] |
References
- FireEye. (2016, November 30). FireEye Responds to Wave of Destructive Cyber Attacks in Gulf Region. Retrieved January 11, 2017.
- Security Response attack Investigation Team. (2019, March 27). Elfin: Relentless Espionage Group Targets Multiple Organizations in Saudi Arabia and U.S.. Retrieved April 10, 2019.