Malicious Azure Storage and Compute Destruction via Key Listing and Snapshot Deletion

ATT&CK techniques

Impact

Recon
Resource Dev
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Priv Esc
Defense Evasion
Cred Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
C2
Exfiltration
Impact
- T1486Data Encrypted for Impact
- T1490Inhibit System Recovery

What it detects

This rule detects Azure operations that list storage account keys and delete storage or compute snapshots. Microsoft observed Storm-0501 combining these to exfiltrate then destroy cloud data and backups for extortion. Bulk key retrieval followed by resource and snapshot deletion is destructive impact activity, so these operations should be treated as a possible cloud ransomware event.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1486 — drag to rearrange

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Malicious Azure Deletion of Resource Locks and Immutability Policies

Malicious BitLocker Encryption With Shadow Copy Removal via manage-bde (via process_creation)

Windows process activity matching WannaCry executables and ransom note text

Possible Akira Ransomware Note or Encrypted Extension Creation

Malicious Storm-2603 Ransom Note File Creation

Possible Ransomware Note or Encrypted File Extension Creation

Suspicious Symbolic Link Evaluation Enabled via fsutil by RansomHub Ransomware

Suspicious Volume Shadow Copy Deletion via PowerShell WMI by Akira Ransomware

Malicious Azure Storage and Compute Destruction via Key Listing and Snapshot Deletion

Pivot detection · T1486 · 9 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.

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