KONNI

The content repeatedly describes threat actors and malware being delivered through phishing or spearphishing emails containing malicious attachments such as Microsoft Office documents, PDFs, RAR/ZIP archives, CHM, ISO, IMG, HTA, LNK, and executable files disguised as documents.

The content repeatedly describes threat actors and malware using PowerShell scripts/commands for execution, download, staging, reconnaissance, persistence, credential access, lateral movement, and defense evasion; e.g., "Sandworm Team used PowerShell scripts to run a credential harvesting tool in memory to evade defenses."

During the 2016 Ukraine Electric Power Attack, Sandworm Team used the xp_cmdshell command in MS-SQL. During the 2025 Poland Wiper Attacks, the adversaries leveraged PsExec to run cmd.exe commands on multiple victim machines. Numerous malware families and groups are described as using cmd.exe, cmd /c, Windows command shell, or command-line interfaces to execute commands, payloads, reconnaissance, persistence, cleanup, and ransomware actions.

Upon selecting the button, a VBA script is initiated... The VBA script retrieves information from “OLEFormat.IconLabel” and stores it in a temporary folder under the filename “temp.zip.”

AppleSeed has the ability to use JavaScript to execute PowerShell. APT32 has used JavaScript for drive-by downloads and C2 communications. Astaroth uses JavaScript to perform its core functionalities.

The content repeatedly describes victims being lured into opening malicious attachments, enabling macros, launching installers, clicking embedded files/links, or otherwise directly executing malicious content.

Upon opening the document, a yellow prompt bar appears, displaying “Enable Content” ... Upon selecting the button, a VBA script is initiated...

The content repeatedly describes threat actors and malware modifying, creating, deleting, or storing data in Windows Registry keys and values for persistence, configuration storage, defense evasion, credential access, privilege escalation, and execution.

The script then transitions to the “INSTALL” section, where it generates and configures a service named “netpp” using commands like “sc create,” “sc description,” and “sc config.” It configures the service to initiate automatically...

Examples include malware copied to '%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup', creation of '.lnk' shortcuts in Startup, and scripts or batch files placed in Startup folders. | The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors establishing persistence by adding values under HKCU/HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run or RunOnce, and by placing executables, scripts, or .lnk files in the Startup folder.

The script then transitions to the “INSTALL” section, where it generates and configures a service named “netpp” using commands like “sc create,” “sc description,” and “sc config.” It configures the service to initiate automatically...

Examples include malware copied to '%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup', creation of '.lnk' shortcuts in Startup, and scripts or batch files placed in Startup folders. | The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors establishing persistence by adding values under HKCU/HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run or RunOnce, and by placing executables, scripts, or .lnk files in the Startup folder.

Firstly, “wpns.dll” is invoked... It is primarily designed for UAC bypass... It initiates the process “wusa.exe”... duplicates its access token and proceeds to execute a specified command... Finally, it runs a “netpp.bat” script that inherits the elevated privileges.

The content repeatedly describes payloads, strings, configuration files, scripts, URLs, and binaries being obfuscated or encoded using Base64, XOR, RC4, AES, RSA, hex encoding, custom algorithms, and other methods across many malware families and threat actors.

Examples throughout the content include 'encrypted payloads decrypted and executed in memory,' 'encrypts its configuration file,' 'AES-encrypted resource,' 'RC4 encrypted embedded scripts,' and 'payload includes an encrypted main component.'

During the 2016 Ukraine Electric Power Attack, DLLs and EXEs with filenames associated with common electric power sector protocols were used to masquerade files.

Akira has used legitimate names and locations for files to evade defenses.

The content repeatedly describes threat actors and malware deleting files, tools, scripts, logs, droppers, staged data, and artifacts from compromised systems to cover tracks, remove evidence, or self-delete.

The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors decoding, decrypting, or deobfuscating payloads, strings, configuration data, commands, and C2 traffic prior to execution or use, e.g., 'APT28 macro uses the command certutil -decode to decode contents of a .txt file storing the base64 encoded payload' and 'Action RAT can use Base64 to decode actor-controlled C2 server communications.'

The content repeatedly describes threat actors and malware modifying, creating, deleting, or storing data in Windows Registry keys and values for persistence, configuration storage, defense evasion, credential access, privilege escalation, and execution.

The content repeatedly describes threat actors and malware stealing usernames, passwords, cookies, session tokens, and other saved credentials from web browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Edge, Opera, Safari, and Yandex.

The content repeatedly describes actors and malware using commands and APIs such as ipconfig /all, ifconfig, arp -a, route print, netsh interface show, GetAdaptersInfo, and GetIpNetTable to gather IP addresses, MAC addresses, DNS, DHCP, gateways, routing tables, ARP cache, proxy settings, and network adapter/interface details.

The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors collecting usernames, identifying logged-in users, running whoami/query user/quser, checking admin status, and enumerating user sessions.

The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors obtaining lists of running processes, using utilities such as tasklist, ps, WMI, Get-Process, CreateToolhelp32Snapshot, EnumProcesses, and similar APIs/commands to enumerate active processes on victim systems.

The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors collecting host details such as OS version, hostname, architecture, CPU, memory, BIOS, domain, language, and other configuration data; e.g., "APT41 uses multiple built-in commands such as systeminfo and net config Workstation to enumerate victim system basic configuration information."

The content repeatedly describes threat actors and malware collecting, stealing, identifying, copying, or staging files, documents, credentials, logs, databases, and other information from compromised hosts or local systems.

BabyShark has encoded data using certutil before exfiltration... KONNI has used a custom base64 key to encode stolen data before exfiltration... Mafalda can encode data using Base64 prior to exfiltration.

Following this, it executes “cmd /c makecab” to compress the file unless the temporary file has one of the following extensions...

The content repeatedly describes threat actors, malware, and campaigns using HTTP and/or HTTPS for command and control, including examples such as BlackEnergy communicating with C2 over HTTP POST requests and many other families using HTTP/S for C2.

Representative examples include "APT33 has utilized PowerShell to download files from the C2 server and run various scripts," "QakBot can use PowerShell to download and execute payloads," and "TrickBot has been known to use PowerShell to download new payloads."

C2 traffic from ADVSTORESHELL is encrypted, then encoded with Base64 encoding... APT19 HTTP malware variant used Base64 to encode communications to the C2 server... APT33 has used base64 to encode command and control traffic.

Elise exfiltrates data using cookie values that are Base64-encoded... KONNI has used a custom base64 key to encode stolen data before exfiltration... Kevin can Base32 encode chunks of output files during exfiltration.