S1073: Royal
Royal is ransomware that first appeared in early 2022; a version that also targets ESXi servers was later observed in February 2023. Royal employs partial encryption and multiple threads to evade detection and speed encryption. Royal has been used in attacks against multiple industries worldwide--including critical infrastructure. Security researchers have identified similarities in the encryption routines and TTPs used in Royal and Conti attacks and noted a possible connection between their operators.[1][2][3][4][5]
Security context for executives and security teams
S1073: Royal describes [Royal](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S1073) is ransomware that first appeared in early 2022; a version that also targets ESXi servers was later observed in February 2023. [Royal](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S1073) employs partial encryption and multiple threads to evade detection and speed encryption. [Royal](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S1073) has been used in attacks against multiple industries worldwide--including critical infrastructure. Security researchers have identified similarities in the e...
Executive priority
S1073: Royal 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 S1073: Royal by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (the mapped ATT&CK tactic context), supported platforms (Windows, ESXi), 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 S1073: Royal 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.
Royal
Royal is ransomware that first appeared in early 2022; a version that also targets ESXi servers was later observed in February 2023. Royal employs partial encryption and multiple threads to evade detection and speed encryption. Royal has been used in attacks against multiple industries worldwide--including critical infrastructure. Security researchers have identified similarities in the encryption routines and TTPs used in Royal and Conti attacks and noted a possible connection between their operators.[1][2][3][4][5]
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 | T1486 | Data Encrypted for Impact | |
| Enterprise | T1489 | Service Stop | |
| Enterprise | T1082 | System Information Discovery | |
| Enterprise | T1059.012 | Hypervisor CLISub-technique | Royal ransomware uses `esxcli` to gather a list of running VMs and terminate them.[4] |
| Enterprise | T1021.002 | SMB/Windows Admin SharesSub-technique | |
| Enterprise | T1046 | Network Service Discovery | |
| Enterprise | T1490 | Inhibit System Recovery | |
| Enterprise | T1135 | Network Share Discovery | |
| Enterprise | T1016 | System Network Configuration Discovery | |
| Enterprise | T1106 | Native API | |
| Enterprise | T1095 | Non-Application Layer Protocol | |
| Enterprise | T1680 | Local Storage Discovery | |
| Enterprise | T1566 | Phishing | |
| Enterprise | T1057 | Process Discovery | |
| Enterprise | T1083 | File and Directory Discovery |
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(3)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20.0 | 1.2 | Current bundle | 99158991b845… | ||
| 19.2 | 1.2 | Older bundle | 99158991b845… | ||
| 19.1 | 1.2 | Older bundle | 99158991b845… |
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]Microsoft Royal ransomware November 2022
MSTIC. (2022, November 17). DEV-0569 finds new ways to deliver Royal ransomware, various payloads. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
Open source URL - [2]Cybereason Royal December 2022
Cybereason Global SOC and Cybereason Security Research Teams. (2022, December 14). Royal Rumble: Analysis of Royal Ransomware. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
Open source URL - [3]Kroll Royal Deep Dive February 2023
Iacono, L. and Green, S. (2023, February 13). Royal Ransomware Deep Dive. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
Open source URL - [4]Trend Micro Royal Linux ESXi February 2023
Morales, N. et al. (2023, February 20). Royal Ransomware Expands Attacks by Targeting Linux ESXi Servers. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
Open source URL - [5]CISA Royal AA23-061A March 2023
CISA. (2023, March 2). #StopRansomware: Royal Ransomware. Retrieved March 31, 2023.
Open source URL - [6]mitre-attackS1073Open source URL
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.