S0365: Olympic Destroyer
Olympic Destroyer is malware that was used by Sandworm Team against the 2018 Winter Olympics, held in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The main purpose of the malware was to render infected computer systems inoperable. The malware leverages various native Windows utilities and API calls to carry out its destructive tasks. Olympic Destroyer has worm-like features to spread itself across a computer network in order to maximize its destructive impact.[1][2]
Security context for executives and security teams
S0365: Olympic Destroyer describes [Olympic Destroyer](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0365) is malware that was used by [Sandworm Team](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0034) against the 2018 Winter Olympics, held in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The main purpose of the malware was to render infected computer systems inoperable. The malware leverages various native Windows utilities and API calls to carry out its destructive tasks. [Olympic Destroyer](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0365) has worm-like features to spread itself across a computer ...
Executive priority
S0365: Olympic Destroyer 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 S0365: Olympic Destroyer 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 S0365: Olympic Destroyer 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.
Olympic Destroyer
Olympic Destroyer is malware that was used by Sandworm Team against the 2018 Winter Olympics, held in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The main purpose of the malware was to render infected computer systems inoperable. The malware leverages various native Windows utilities and API calls to carry out its destructive tasks. Olympic Destroyer has worm-like features to spread itself across a computer network in order to maximize its destructive impact.[1][2]
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.
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.
| Domain | ID | Name | Relationship / procedure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | T1016 | System Network Configuration Discovery | Olympic Destroyer uses API calls to enumerate the infected system's ARP table.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1555.003 | Credentials from Web BrowsersSub-technique | Olympic Destroyer contains a module that tries to obtain stored credentials from web browsers.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1489 | Service Stop | Olympic Destroyer uses the API call |
| Enterprise | T1529 | System Shutdown/Reboot | Olympic Destroyer will shut down the compromised system after it is done modifying system configuration settings.[1][2] |
| Enterprise | T1685.005 | Clear Windows Event LogsSub-technique | Olympic Destroyer will attempt to clear the System and Security event logs using |
| Enterprise | T1485 | Data Destruction | Olympic Destroyer overwrites files locally and on remote shares.[1][2] |
| Enterprise | T1570 | Lateral Tool Transfer | Olympic Destroyer attempts to copy itself to remote machines on the network.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1047 | Windows Management Instrumentation | Olympic Destroyer uses WMI to help propagate itself across a network.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1018 | Remote System Discovery | Olympic Destroyer uses Windows Management Instrumentation to enumerate all systems in the network.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1135 | Network Share Discovery | Olympic Destroyer will attempt to enumerate mapped network shares to later attempt to wipe all files on those shares.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1569.002 | Service ExecutionSub-technique | Olympic Destroyer utilizes PsExec to help propagate itself across a network.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1021.002 | SMB/Windows Admin SharesSub-technique | Olympic Destroyer uses PsExec to interact with the |
| Enterprise | T1490 | Inhibit System Recovery | Olympic Destroyer uses the native Windows utilities |
| Enterprise | T1003.001 | LSASS MemorySub-technique | Olympic Destroyer contains a module that tries to obtain credentials from LSASS, similar to Mimikatz. These credentials are used with PsExec and Windows Management Instrumentation to help the malware propagate itself across a network.[1] |
Groups, software, and campaigns
G0034: Sandworm Team
Sandworm Team is a destructive threat group that has been attributed to Russia's General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) Main Center for Special Technologies (GTsST) military unit 74455.[1][2] This group has been active since at least 2009.[3][4][5][6]
In October 2020, the US indicted six GRU Unit 74455 officers associated with Sandworm Team for the following cyber operations: the 2015 and 2016 attacks against Ukrainian electrical companies and government organizations, the 2017 worldwide NotPetya attack, targeting of the 2017 French presidential campaign, the 2018 Olympic Destroyer attack against the Winter Olympic Games, the 2018 operation against the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and attacks against the country of Georgia in 2018 and 2019.[1][2] Some of these were conducted with the assistance of GRU Unit 26165, which is also referred to as APT28.[7]
All related ATT&CK context
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.
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19.2 | 2.0 | Current bundle | cefd0038d3ff… | ||
| 19.1 | 2.0 | Older bundle | cefd0038d3ff… |
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.
External references and citations
MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.
- [1]Talos Olympic Destroyer 2018
Mercer, W. and Rascagneres, P. (2018, February 12). Olympic Destroyer Takes Aim At Winter Olympics. Retrieved March 14, 2019.
Open source URL - [2]US District Court Indictment GRU Unit 74455 October 2020
Scott W. Brady. (2020, October 15). United States vs. Yuriy Sergeyevich Andrienko et al.. Retrieved November 25, 2020.
Open source URL - [3]mitre-attackS0365Open source URL
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