Malicious Backup and Shadow Copy Destruction via Native Utilities

ATT&CK techniques

Impact

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

What it detects

This rule detects the deletion of volume shadow copies, backup catalogs, and recovery configuration through native Windows utilities, a recovery-inhibition step performed by Hunters International affiliates before encryption. Destroying backups to prevent restoration is a hallmark of ransomware impact activity and should be treated as high priority.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1490 — drag to rearrange

Malicious Shadow Copy and Backup Catalog Deletion (via process_creation)

Malicious Boot Recovery Disabled via Bcdedit (via process_creation)

Suspicious Symbolic Link Evaluation Enabled via fsutil by RansomHub Ransomware

Suspicious Volume Shadow Copy Deletion via PowerShell WMI by Akira Ransomware

VSS Backup Deletion or Resize (via process_creation)

Malicious Boot Recovery Tampering via Bcdedit (via process_creation)

Malicious Inhibition of System Recovery via Shadow Copy or Backup Deletion (via process_creation)

Malicious Windows Native Backup Deletion (via process_creation)

DragonForce Ransomware Volume Shadow Copy Deletion via WMIC ShadowCopy Where Delete (via process_creation)

Malicious Backup and Shadow Copy Destruction via Native Utilities

Pivot detection · T1490 · 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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