S1029: AuTo Stealer
AuTo Stealer is malware written in C++ has been used by SideCopy since at least December 2021 to target government agencies and personnel in India and Afghanistan.[1]
Security context for executives and security teams
S1029: AuTo Stealer describes [AuTo Stealer](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S1029) is malware written in C++ has been used by [SideCopy](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G1008) since at least December 2021 to target government agencies and personnel in India and Afghanistan.(Citation: MalwareBytes SideCopy Dec 2021)
Executive priority
S1029: AuTo Stealer 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 S1029: AuTo Stealer 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 S1029: AuTo Stealer 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.
AuTo Stealer
AuTo Stealer is malware written in C++ has been used by SideCopy since at least December 2021 to target government agencies and personnel in India and Afghanistan.[1]
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 | T1074.001 | Local Data StagingSub-technique | AuTo Stealer can store collected data from an infected host to a file named `Hostname_UserName.txt` prior to exfiltration.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1547.001 | Registry Run Keys / Startup FolderSub-technique | AuTo Stealer can place malicious executables in a victim's AutoRun registry key or StartUp directory, depending on the AV product installed, to maintain persistence.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1033 | System Owner/User Discovery | AuTo Stealer has the ability to collect the username from an infected host.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1095 | Non-Application Layer Protocol | AuTo Stealer can use TCP to communicate with command and control servers.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1059.003 | Windows Command ShellSub-technique | AuTo Stealer can use `cmd.exe` to execute a created batch file.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1041 | Exfiltration Over C2 Channel | AuTo Stealer can exfiltrate data over actor-controlled C2 servers via HTTP or TCP.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1071.001 | Web ProtocolsSub-technique | AuTo Stealer can use HTTP to communicate with its C2 servers.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1005 | Data from Local System | AuTo Stealer can collect data such as PowerPoint files, Word documents, Excel files, PDF files, text files, database files, and image files from an infected machine.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1082 | System Information Discovery | AuTo Stealer has the ability to collect the hostname and OS information from an infected host.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1518.001 | Security Software DiscoverySub-technique | AuTo Stealer has the ability to collect information about installed AV products from an infected host.[1] |
Groups, software, and campaigns
G1008: SideCopy
SideCopy is a Pakistani threat group that has primarily targeted South Asian countries, including Indian and Afghani government personnel, since at least 2019. SideCopy's name comes from its infection chain that tries to mimic that of Sidewinder, a suspected Indian threat group.[1]
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 | 1.0 | Current bundle | d0877c2ce6ae… | ||
| 19.1 | 1.0 | Older bundle | d0877c2ce6ae… |
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]MalwareBytes SideCopy Dec 2021
Threat Intelligence Team. (2021, December 2). SideCopy APT: Connecting lures victims, payloads to infrastructure. Retrieved June 13, 2022.
Open source URL - [2]mitre-attackS1029Open source URL
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