S0605: EKANS
EKANS is ransomware variant written in Golang that first appeared in mid-December 2019 and has been used against multiple sectors, including energy, healthcare, and automotive manufacturing, which in some cases resulted in significant operational disruptions. EKANS has used a hard-coded kill-list of processes, including some associated with common ICS software platforms (e.g., GE Proficy, Honeywell HMIWeb, etc), similar to those defined in MegaCortex.[1][2]
Security context for executives and security teams
S0605: EKANS describes [EKANS](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0605) is ransomware variant written in Golang that first appeared in mid-December 2019 and has been used against multiple sectors, including energy, healthcare, and automotive manufacturing, which in some cases resulted in significant operational disruptions. [EKANS](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0605) has used a hard-coded kill-list of processes, including some associated with common ICS software platforms (e.g., GE Proficy, Honeywell HMIWeb, etc), similar to those d...
Executive priority
S0605: EKANS 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 S0605: EKANS 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 S0605: EKANS 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.
EKANS
EKANS is ransomware variant written in Golang that first appeared in mid-December 2019 and has been used against multiple sectors, including energy, healthcare, and automotive manufacturing, which in some cases resulted in significant operational disruptions. EKANS has used a hard-coded kill-list of processes, including some associated with common ICS software platforms (e.g., GE Proficy, Honeywell HMIWeb, etc), similar to those defined in MegaCortex.[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 | T1057 | Process Discovery | |
| Enterprise | T1486 | Data Encrypted for Impact | |
| Enterprise | T1490 | Inhibit System Recovery | |
| Enterprise | T1047 | Windows Management Instrumentation | |
| Enterprise | T1016 | System Network Configuration Discovery | EKANS can determine the domain of a compromised host.CitationIBM Ransomware Trends September 2020 |
| Enterprise | T1489 | Service Stop | |
| Enterprise | T1027 | Obfuscated Files or Information | |
| Enterprise | T1036.005 | Match Legitimate Resource Name or LocationSub-technique | |
| Enterprise | T1685 | Disable or Modify Tools |
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 | d318fe2820f0… | ||
| 19.1 | 2.0 | Older bundle | d318fe2820f0… |
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]Dragos EKANS
Dragos. (2020, February 3). EKANS Ransomware and ICS Operations. Retrieved February 9, 2021.
Open source URL - [2]Palo Alto Unit 42 EKANS
Hinchliffe, A. Santos, D. (2020, June 26). Threat Assessment: EKANS Ransomware. Retrieved February 9, 2021.
Open source URL - [3]FireEye Ransomware Feb 2020
Zafra, D., et al. (2020, February 24). Ransomware Against the Machine: How Adversaries are Learning to Disrupt Industrial Production by Targeting IT and OT. Retrieved March 2, 2021.
Open source URL - [4]EKANS
(Citation: Dragos EKANS)(Citation: Palo Alto Unit 42 EKANS)(Citation: FireEye Ransomware Feb 2020)
- [5]SNAKEHOSE
(Citation: FireEye Ransomware Feb 2020)
- [6]mitre-attackS0605Open source URL
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