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MITRE ATT&CK® Malware

S0150: POSHSPY

POSHSPY is a backdoor that has been used by APT29 since at least 2015. It appears to be used as a secondary backdoor used if the actors lost access to their primary backdoors. [1]

EnterpriseS0150MalwareObject v1.2Modified
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis

Security context for executives and security teams

Automation confidenceMedium

S0150: POSHSPY describes [POSHSPY](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0150) is a backdoor that has been used by [APT29](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0016) since at least 2015. It appears to be used as a secondary backdoor used if the actors lost access to their primary backdoors. (Citation: FireEye POSHSPY April 2017)

Executive priority

S0150: POSHSPY is an official MITRE ATT&CK software. Glexia treats it as defensive behavior context for prioritizing monitoring, control validation, and response planning without using the object by itself as an attribution claim.

Technical view

Security teams should validate S0150: POSHSPY by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (the mapped ATT&CK tactic context), supported platforms (Windows), and available local telemetry before making detection or mitigation decisions.

Likely telemetry

  • Official ATT&CK relationships and object metadata
  • Network, endpoint, and security-tool telemetry

Detection direction

  • Validate whether S0150: POSHSPY appears in your detection coverage and tabletop scenarios.
  • Use the object to align executive risk language with SOC, incident response, and detection engineering work.
  • Do not treat ATT&CK relationship context as attribution without corroborating evidence.

Mitigation priorities

  • Map the object to existing controls and identify missing telemetry or response ownership.
  • Prioritize mitigations that reduce exposure on the listed platforms and tactics.
  • Review adjacent ATT&CK relationships before changing policy, detections, or reporting language.
Additional notes and limits

Baseline Glexia take generated from the official MITRE ATT&CK STIX object, source hash, tactics, platforms, and detection fields. It is safe to replace with a richer model-generated take for the same source hash later.

This baseline take is source-grounded and schema-validated, but it does not include environment-specific telemetry, incident evidence, or threat-intelligence corroboration.

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.

Official MITRE ATT&CK definition

POSHSPY

POSHSPY is a backdoor that has been used by APT29 since at least 2015. It appears to be used as a secondary backdoor used if the actors lost access to their primary backdoors. [1]

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.

8 rows
DomainIDNameRelationship / procedure
EnterpriseT1030Data Transfer Size Limits

POSHSPY uploads data in 2048-byte chunks.[1]

EnterpriseT1568.002Domain Generation AlgorithmsSub-technique

POSHSPY uses a DGA to derive command and control URLs from a word list.[1]

EnterpriseT1027Obfuscated Files or Information

POSHSPY appends a file signature header (randomly selected from six file types) to encrypted data prior to upload or download.[1]

EnterpriseT1059.001PowerShellSub-technique

POSHSPY uses PowerShell to execute various commands, one to execute its payload.[1]

EnterpriseT1573.002Asymmetric CryptographySub-technique

POSHSPY encrypts C2 traffic with AES and RSA.[1]

EnterpriseT1105Ingress Tool Transfer

POSHSPY downloads and executes additional PowerShell code and Windows binaries.[1]

EnterpriseT1070.006TimestompSub-technique

POSHSPY modifies timestamps of all downloaded executables to match a randomly selected file created prior to 2013.[1]

EnterpriseT1546.003Windows Management Instrumentation Event SubscriptionSub-technique

POSHSPY uses a WMI event subscription to establish persistence.[1]

Associated objects

Groups, software, and campaigns

GroupEnterprise

G0016: APT29

APT29 is threat group that has been attributed to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).[1][2] They have operated since at least 2008, often targeting government networks in Europe and NATO member countries, research institutes, and think tanks. APT29 reportedly compromised the Democratic National Committee starting in the summer of 2015.[3][4][5][6]

In April 2021, the US and UK governments attributed the SolarWinds Compromise to the SVR; public statements included citations to APT29, Cozy Bear, and The Dukes.[7][8] Industry reporting also referred to the actors involved in this campaign as UNC2452, NOBELIUM, StellarParticle, Dark Halo, and SolarStorm.[9][10][11][12][13][14]

Relationship explorer

All related ATT&CK context

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
19.2
Object version
1.2
Created
Modified
Raw hash
2ec4c22deccb722e...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)
ReleaseBundle importedObject versionModifiedStatusRaw hash
19.21.2Current bundle2ec4c22deccb…
19.11.2Older bundle2ec4c22deccb…
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.

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]
    FireEye POSHSPY April 2017

    Dunwoody, M.. (2017, April 3). Dissecting One of APT29’s Fileless WMI and PowerShell Backdoors (POSHSPY). Retrieved April 5, 2017.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    POSHSPY

    (Citation: FireEye POSHSPY April 2017)

  3. [3]
    mitre-attackS0150
    Open source URL
Source and licensing

Source: MITRE ATT&CK®. © 2026 The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation. MITRE ATT&CK and ATT&CK are registered trademarks of The MITRE Corporation. Glexia is not affiliated with or endorsed by MITRE.