Procedure examples

menuPass has used esentutl to change file extensions to their true type that were masquerading as .txt files.

APT32 has disguised a Cobalt Strike beacon as a Flash Installer.

Storm-1811 has prompted users to download and execute batch scripts that masquerade as legitimate update files during initial access and social engineering operations.

TeamTNT has disguised their scripts with docker-related file names.

Sandworm Team masqueraded malicious installers as Windows update packages to evade defense and entice users to execute binaries.

ZIRCONIUM has spoofed legitimate applications in phishing lures and changed file extensions to conceal installation of malware.

Contagious Interview has delivered BeaverTail malware masquerading as legitimate software or applications. Contagious Interview has also delivered malicious payloads masquerading as legitimate software drivers.

OilRig has used .doc file extensions to mask malicious executables.

Aoqin Dragon has used fake icons including antivirus and external drives to disguise malicious payloads.

Winter Vivern created specially-crafted documents mimicking legitimate government or similar documents during phishing campaigns.

BRONZE BUTLER has masked executables with document file icons including Word and Adobe PDF.

TA551 has masked malware DLLs as dat and jpg files.

Ember Bear has renamed the legitimate Sysinternals tool procdump to alternative names such as dump64.exe to evade detection.

LazyScripter has used several different security software icons to disguise executables.

Windshift has used icons mimicking MS Office files to mask malicious executables. Windshift has also attempted to hide executables by changing the file extension to ".scr" to mimic Windows screensavers.

Agrius used the Plink tool for tunneling and connections to remote machines, renaming it systems.exe in some instances.

APT28 has renamed the WinRAR utility to avoid detection.

PLATINUM has renamed rar.exe to avoid detection.

FIN13 has masqueraded staged data by using the Windows certutil utility to generate fake Base64 encoded certificates with the input file.

Nomadic Octopus attempted to make Octopus appear as a Telegram Messenger with a Russian interface.