Malicious Volume Shadow Copy Deletion via Vssadmin

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 vssadmin being invoked to delete all volume shadow copies quietly, a recovery-inhibition step performed before file encryption. It is associated with REvil ransomware-as-a-service affiliate operations that wipe backups to prevent victims from restoring encrypted data. Catching this activity provides an early signal that ransomware deployment is imminent.

Reporting behind it

Related detections9 linkedT1490 — 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)

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

Windows process activity matching WannaCry executables and ransom note text

Malicious Volume Shadow Copy Deletion for Recovery Inhibition

Malicious Boot Configuration Tampering via bcdedit [Intel471] #2

Malicious Volume Shadow Copy Deletion Before Ransomware Encryption

Malicious Volume Shadow Copy Deletion via Vssadmin

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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