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MITRE ATT&CK® Campaign

C0018: C0018

C0018 was a month-long ransomware intrusion that successfully deployed AvosLocker onto a compromised network. The unidentified actors gained initial access to the victim network through an exposed server and used a variety of open-source tools prior to executing AvosLocker.[1][2]

EnterpriseC0018CampaignObject v1.0 Modified
Discuss defensive coverage Back to ATT&CK
Glexia's Take

Analyst context for executives and security teams

Analyst confidence High

C0018 matters because it shows a ransomware intrusion pattern that moved from an exposed server to internal discovery, credential access tooling, remote access/C2 frameworks, lateral movement, and eventual AvosLocker deployment. For leaders, the decision value is not the campaign name itself; it is whether exposed services, administrative tooling, remote desktop paths, credential controls, and ransomware impact readiness are governed and evidenced well enough to stop or contain a similar month-long intrusion before encryption.

Executive priority

Prioritize this as a ransomware resilience and exposed-attack-surface validation case. Executives should ask whether public-facing systems are continuously inventoried and remediated, whether privileged credential exposure is monitored, whether RDP/WMI/software deployment tools are controlled, and whether incident response can prove lateral movement and tool staging activity quickly. Because ATT&CK provides no official detection text for this campaign, coverage should be demonstrated through local telemetry, control testing, and incident playbooks rather than assumed from ATT&CK alone.

Technical view

SOC, detection engineering, and IR teams should validate coverage across the relationship chain supplied by ATT&CK: initial access via Exploit Public-Facing Application, discovery such as network configuration, user, and service discovery, execution through PowerShell, WMI, rundll32, and software deployment tools, C2/tooling involving Cobalt Strike, Sliver, web protocols, non-standard ports, remote desktop software, and file transfer, credential risk through Mimikatz, lateral activity via RDP and lateral tool transfer, and impact through data encryption. Focus on correlations that connect exposed-server compromise to internal administration abuse and ransomware staging, not isolated tool-name alerts only.

Likely telemetry

  • Internet-facing server inventory, vulnerability, and application logs for exposed services
  • Endpoint process creation and command-line telemetry, including PowerShell, WMI, rundll32, netsh, ping, and renamed or masqueraded binaries
  • Authentication and session logs for RDP and other remote access activity
  • Windows security, PowerShell, and WMI operational logs where applicable
  • EDR detections and file events for tool transfer, staging directories, suspicious DLL execution, and ransomware-related file activity

Detection direction

  • Build detection around behavior clusters: exposed-server access followed by discovery commands, tool ingress, credential dumping indicators, remote execution, lateral transfer, and encryption activity.
  • Tune carefully for dual-use tools. Ping, netsh, PowerShell, WMI, rundll32, RDP, remote desktop software, and software deployment systems are common in administration; prioritize unusual parent-child process chains, rare hosts, new administrative paths, abnormal timing, and newly observed binaries.
  • Validate visibility for Cobalt Strike and Sliver-like C2 using network behavior, process lineage, and file staging evidence, not only static signatures.
  • Look for command obfuscation and masquerading by comparing command patterns, binary paths, names, hashes, signer information, and execution locations against enterprise baselines.
  • Confirm that ransomware-impact detections include early indicators such as tool staging and lateral movement, not only final encryption events.

Mitigation priorities

  • Reduce initial access risk by maintaining an accurate inventory of Internet-facing applications and remediating exposed server vulnerabilities or misconfigurations based on risk.
  • Restrict and monitor administrative pathways such as RDP, WMI, software deployment tooling, and remote desktop software; require strong authentication and limit privileged access where applicable.
  • Harden credential protections and monitor for credential dumping behavior associated with tools such as Mimikatz.
  • Control script and command execution through least privilege, logging, and policy enforcement for PowerShell, rundll32, and administrative utilities.
  • Segment critical systems and limit lateral file transfer paths to reduce ransomware propagation opportunities.
Analyst notes and limits

This object is a campaign entry, not a full procedure report. ATT&CK states the intrusion lasted about a month, began through an exposed server, used open-source tools, and deployed AvosLocker. The relationship set is valuable because it maps the defensive validation surface: public-facing exploitation, discovery, credential dumping, remote execution, C2, lateral movement, and data encryption. Local environment baselines are essential because many related tools and techniques overlap heavily with legitimate administration.

Official detection is not provided, the campaign platforms are not specified, and the actors are unidentified in the supplied description. Related software and technique platform fields indicate where those objects may apply, but they should not be treated as confirmed campaign platform scope without local evidence. This take does not assert active exploitation, attribution, customer exposure, or guaranteed detection coverage.

Official MITRE ATT&CK definition

C0018

C0018 was a month-long ransomware intrusion that successfully deployed AvosLocker onto a compromised network. The unidentified actors gained initial access to the victim network through an exposed server and used a variety of open-source tools prior to executing AvosLocker.[1][2]

View the same entry on attack.mitre.org (MITRE-hosted reference; in-page links above use the Glexia ATT&CK library.)

Glexia analysis

How security teams should use this page

Treat this object as behavior context, not an attribution claim. Validate the related groups, software, data sources, and mitigations against official ATT&CK relationships and your own telemetry before making control-coverage decisions.

ATT&CK relationship table

Techniques used

This mirrors the MITRE pattern of making group, software, campaign, and technique relationships scannable. Relationship notes come from mirrored ATT&CK relationship text when available.

19 rows
Domain ID Name Relationship / procedure
Enterprise T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application

During C0018, the threat actors exploited VMWare Horizon Unified Access Gateways that were vulnerable to several Log4Shell vulnerabilities, including CVE-2021-44228, CVE-2021-45046, CVE-2021-45105, and CVE-2021-44832.CitationCisco Talos Avos Jun 2022
Enterprise T1036.005 Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location Sub-technique

For C0018, the threat actors renamed a Sliver payload to `vmware_kb.exe`.CitationCisco Talos Avos Jun 2022
Enterprise T1571 Non-Standard Port

During C0018, the threat actors opened a variety of ports, including ports 28035, 32467, 41578, and 46892, to establish RDP connections.CitationCosta AvosLocker May 2022
Enterprise T1021.001 Remote Desktop Protocol Sub-technique

During C0018, the threat actors opened a variety of ports to establish RDP connections, including ports 28035, 32467, 41578, and 46892.CitationCosta AvosLocker May 2022
Enterprise T1219.002 Remote Desktop Software Sub-technique

During C0018, the threat actors used AnyDesk to transfer tools between systems.CitationCisco Talos Avos Jun 2022CitationCosta AvosLocker May 2022
Enterprise T1570 Lateral Tool Transfer

During C0018, the threat actors transferred the SoftPerfect Network Scanner and other tools to machines in the network using AnyDesk and PDQ Deploy.CitationCisco Talos Avos Jun 2022CitationCosta AvosLocker May 2022
Enterprise T1033 System Owner/User Discovery

During C0018, the threat actors collected `whoami` information via PowerShell scripts.CitationCosta AvosLocker May 2022
Enterprise T1486 Data Encrypted for Impact

During C0018, the threat actors used AvosLocker ransomware to encrypt files on the compromised network.CitationCisco Talos Avos Jun 2022CitationCosta AvosLocker May 2022
Enterprise T1046 Network Service Discovery

During C0018, the threat actors used the SoftPerfect Network Scanner for network scanning.CitationCisco Talos Avos Jun 2022
Enterprise T1059.001 PowerShell Sub-technique

During C0018, the threat actors used encoded PowerShell scripts for execution.CitationCisco Talos Avos Jun 2022CitationCosta AvosLocker May 2022
Enterprise T1027.010 Command Obfuscation Sub-technique

During C0018, the threat actors used Base64 to encode their PowerShell scripts.CitationCisco Talos Avos Jun 2022CitationCosta AvosLocker May 2022
Enterprise T1016 System Network Configuration Discovery

During C0018, the threat actors ran `nslookup` and Advanced IP Scanner on the target network.CitationCosta AvosLocker May 2022
Enterprise T1588.002 Tool Sub-technique

For C0018, the threat actors acquired a variety of open source tools, including Mimikatz, Sliver, SoftPerfect Network Scanner, AnyDesk, and PDQ Deploy.CitationCisco Talos Avos Jun 2022CitationCosta AvosLocker May 2022
Enterprise T1071.001 Web Protocols Sub-technique

During C0018, the threat actors used HTTP for C2 communications.CitationCosta AvosLocker May 2022
Enterprise T1072 Software Deployment Tools

During C0018, the threat actors used PDQ Deploy to move AvosLocker and tools across the network.CitationCisco Talos Avos Jun 2022
Enterprise T1105 Ingress Tool Transfer

During C0018, the threat actors downloaded additional tools, such as Mimikatz and Sliver, as well as Cobalt Strike and AvosLocker ransomware onto the victim network.CitationCisco Talos Avos Jun 2022CitationCosta AvosLocker May 2022
Enterprise T1036 Masquerading

During C0018, AvosLocker was disguised using the victim company name as the filename.CitationCisco Talos Avos Jun 2022
Enterprise T1047 Windows Management Instrumentation

During C0018, the threat actors used WMIC to modify administrative settings on both a local and a remote host, likely as part of the first stages for their lateral movement; they also used WMI Provider Host (`wmiprvse.exe`) to execute a variety of encoded PowerShell scripts using the `DownloadString` method.CitationCisco Talos Avos Jun 2022CitationCosta AvosLocker May 2022
Enterprise T1218.011 Rundll32 Sub-technique

During C0018, the threat actors used `rundll32` to run Mimikatz.CitationCosta AvosLocker May 2022
Associated objects

Groups, software, and campaigns

Tool Enterprise

S0633: Sliver

Sliver is an open source, cross-platform, red team command and control (C2) framework written in Golang. Sliver includes its own package manager, "armory," for staging and downloading additional tools and payloads to the primary C2 framework.[1][2]

WindowsLinuxmacOS
Tool Enterprise

S0108: netsh

netsh is a scripting utility used to interact with networking components on local or remote systems. [1]

Windows
Tool Enterprise

S0097: Ping

Ping is an operating system utility commonly used to troubleshoot and verify network connections. [1]

Malware Enterprise

S1053: AvosLocker

AvosLocker is ransomware written in C++ that has been offered via the Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) model. It was first observed in June 2021 and has been used against financial services, critical manufacturing, government facilities, and other critical infrastructure sectors in the United States. As of March 2022, AvosLocker had also been used against organizations in Belgium, Canada, China, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Syria, Taiwan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.[1][2][3]

LinuxWindows
Tool Enterprise

S0002: Mimikatz

Mimikatz is a credential dumper capable of obtaining plaintext Windows account logins and passwords, along with many other features that make it useful for testing the security of networks. [1] [2]

Windows
Malware Enterprise

S0154: Cobalt Strike

Cobalt Strike is a commercial, full-featured, remote access tool that bills itself as “adversary simulation software designed to execute targeted attacks and emulate the post-exploitation actions of advanced threat actors”. Cobalt Strike’s interactive post-exploit capabilities cover the full range of ATT&CK tactics, all executed within a single, integrated system.[1]

In addition to its own capabilities, Cobalt Strike leverages the capabilities of other well-known tools such as Metasploit and Mimikatz.[1]

LinuxmacOSWindows
Relationship explorer

All related ATT&CK context

uses · Tool S0633: Sliver Enterprise uses · Tool S0108: netsh Enterprise uses · Tool S0097: Ping Enterprise uses · Technique T1190: Exploit Public-Facing Application Enterprise uses · Technique T1036.005: Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location Enterprise uses · Technique T1571: Non-Standard Port Enterprise uses · Technique T1021.001: Remote Desktop Protocol Enterprise uses · Technique T1219.002: Remote Desktop Software Enterprise uses · Technique T1570: Lateral Tool Transfer Enterprise uses · Technique T1033: System Owner/User Discovery Enterprise uses · Malware S1053: AvosLocker Enterprise uses · Technique T1486: Data Encrypted for Impact Enterprise uses · Technique T1046: Network Service Discovery Enterprise uses · Technique T1059.001: PowerShell Enterprise uses · Tool S0002: Mimikatz Enterprise uses · Technique T1027.010: Command Obfuscation Enterprise uses · Malware S0154: Cobalt Strike Enterprise uses · Technique T1016: System Network Configuration Discovery Enterprise uses · Technique T1588.002: Tool Enterprise uses · Technique T1071.001: Web Protocols Enterprise uses · Technique T1072: Software Deployment Tools Enterprise uses · Technique T1105: Ingress Tool Transfer Enterprise uses · Technique T1036: Masquerading Enterprise uses · Technique T1047: Windows Management Instrumentation Enterprise
Change history

Object version and sync metadata

The fields below describe the current mirrored snapshot. When Glexia retains multiple ATT&CK source imports, you can open the table to compare the same object across releases (hashes and MITRE timestamps). For MITRE’s own release notes and roadmap, see ATT&CK resources — Updates .

ATT&CK release
19.1
Object version
1.0
Created
Modified
Raw hash
b8aa3fa0dcc059a0...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases (1)
Release Bundle imported Object version Modified Status Raw hash
19.1 1.0 Current bundle b8aa3fa0dcc0…
Raw source

Mirrored ATT&CK source object

The raw object is retained through the mirrored ATT&CK source bundle and object hash. The raw endpoint returns the exact object from the mirrored bundle when available.

Open mirrored raw JSON Open MITRE-hosted copy
Source references

External references and citations

MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.

  1. [1]
    Costa AvosLocker May 2022

    Costa, F. (2022, May 1). RaaS AvosLocker Incident Response Analysis. Retrieved January 11, 2023.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    Cisco Talos Avos Jun 2022

    Venere, G. Neal, C. (2022, June 21). Avos ransomware group expands with new attack arsenal. Retrieved January 11, 2023.

    Open source URL
  3. [3]
    mitre-attack C0018
    Open source URL
Source and licensing

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