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MITRE ATT&CK® Malware

S0638: Babuk

Babuk is a Ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) malware that has been used since at least 2021. The operators of Babuk employ a "Big Game Hunting" approach to targeting major enterprises and operate a leak site to post stolen data as part of their extortion scheme.[1][2][3]

EnterpriseS0638MalwareObject v1.0Modified
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis

Security context for executives and security teams

Automation confidenceMedium

S0638: Babuk describes [Babuk](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0638) is a Ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) malware that has been used since at least 2021. The operators of [Babuk](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0638) employ a "Big Game Hunting" approach to targeting major enterprises and operate a leak site to post stolen data as part of their extortion scheme.(Citation: Sogeti CERT ESEC Babuk March 2021)(Citation: McAfee Babuk February 2021)(Citation: CyberScoop Babuk February 2021)

Executive priority

S0638: Babuk 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 S0638: Babuk by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (the mapped ATT&CK tactic context), supported platforms (Windows, Linux), 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 S0638: Babuk 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

Babuk

Babuk is a Ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) malware that has been used since at least 2021. The operators of Babuk employ a "Big Game Hunting" approach to targeting major enterprises and operate a leak site to post stolen data as part of their extortion scheme.[1][2][3]

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.

14 rows
DomainIDNameRelationship / procedure
EnterpriseT1685Disable or Modify Tools

Babuk can stop anti-virus services on a compromised host.[1]

EnterpriseT1049System Network Connections Discovery

Babuk can use “WNetOpenEnumW” and “WNetEnumResourceW” to enumerate files in network resources for encryption.[2]

EnterpriseT1106Native API

Babuk can use multiple Windows API calls for actions on compromised hosts including discovery and execution.[1][2]CitationMedium Babuk February 2021

EnterpriseT1140Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information

Babuk has the ability to unpack itself into memory using XOR.[1]CitationMedium Babuk February 2021

EnterpriseT1486Data Encrypted for Impact

Babuk can use ChaCha8 and ECDH to encrypt data.[1][2]CitationMedium Babuk February 2021[4]

EnterpriseT1027.002Software PackingSub-technique

Versions of Babuk have been packed.[1][2]CitationMedium Babuk February 2021

EnterpriseT1489Service Stop

Babuk can stop specific services related to backups.[1][2][4]

EnterpriseT1490Inhibit System Recovery

Babuk has the ability to delete shadow volumes using vssadmin.exe delete shadows /all /quiet.[1][2]

EnterpriseT1059.003Windows Command ShellSub-technique

Babuk has the ability to use the command line to control execution on compromised hosts.[1][2]

EnterpriseT1135Network Share Discovery

Babuk has the ability to enumerate network shares.[1]

EnterpriseT1007System Service Discovery

Babuk can enumerate all services running on a compromised host.[2]

EnterpriseT1057Process Discovery

Babuk has the ability to check running processes on a targeted system.[1][2][4]

EnterpriseT1680Local Storage Discovery

Babuk can enumerate disk volumes, get disk information, and query service status.[2]

EnterpriseT1083File and Directory Discovery

Babuk has the ability to enumerate files on a targeted system.[2][4]

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
20.0
Object version
1.0
Created
Modified
Raw hash
766246acbed96570...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(3)
ReleaseBundle importedObject versionModifiedStatusRaw hash
20.01.0Current bundle766246acbed9…
19.21.0Older bundle766246acbed9…
19.11.0Older bundle766246acbed9…
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]
    Sogeti CERT ESEC Babuk March 2021

    Sogeti. (2021, March). Babuk Ransomware. Retrieved August 11, 2021.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    McAfee Babuk February 2021

    Mundo, A. et al. (2021, February). Technical Analysis of Babuk Ransomware. Retrieved August 11, 2021.

    Open source URL
  3. [3]
    CyberScoop Babuk February 2021

    Lyngaas, S. (2021, February 4). Meet Babuk, a ransomware attacker blamed for the Serco breach. Retrieved August 11, 2021.

    Open source URL
  4. [4]
    Trend Micro Ransomware February 2021

    Centero, R. et al. (2021, February 5). New in Ransomware: Seth-Locker, Babuk Locker, Maoloa, TeslaCrypt, and CobraLocker. Retrieved August 11, 2021.

    Open source URL
  5. [5]
    Babyk

    (Citation: Sogeti CERT ESEC Babuk March 2021)(Citation: McAfee Babuk February 2021)(Citation: Trend Micro Ransomware February 2021)

  6. [6]
    Vasa Locker

    (Citation: Sogeti CERT ESEC Babuk March 2021)(Citation: McAfee Babuk February 2021)

  7. [7]
    mitre-attackS0638
    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.