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MITRE ATT&CK® Malware

S1125: AcidRain

AcidRain is an ELF binary targeting modems and routers using MIPS architecture.[1] AcidRain is associated with the ViaSat KA-SAT communication outage that took place during the initial phases of the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Analysis indicates overlap with another network device-targeting malware, VPNFilter, associated with Sandworm Team.[1] US and European government sources linked AcidRain to Russian government entities, while Ukrainian government sources linked AcidRain specifically to Sandworm Team.[2][3]

EnterpriseS1125MalwareObject v1.1Modified
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis

Security context for executives and security teams

Automation confidenceMedium

S1125: AcidRain describes [AcidRain](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S1125) is an ELF binary targeting modems and routers using MIPS architecture.(Citation: AcidRain JAGS 2022) [AcidRain](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S1125) is associated with the ViaSat KA-SAT communication outage that took place during the initial phases of the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Analysis indicates overlap with another network device-targeting malware, VPNFilter, associated with [Sandworm Team](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0034).(Citation: Acid...

Executive priority

S1125: AcidRain 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 S1125: AcidRain by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (the mapped ATT&CK tactic context), supported platforms (Network Devices, 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 S1125: AcidRain 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

AcidRain

AcidRain is an ELF binary targeting modems and routers using MIPS architecture.[1] AcidRain is associated with the ViaSat KA-SAT communication outage that took place during the initial phases of the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Analysis indicates overlap with another network device-targeting malware, VPNFilter, associated with Sandworm Team.[1] US and European government sources linked AcidRain to Russian government entities, while Ukrainian government sources linked AcidRain specifically to Sandworm Team.[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.

4 rows
DomainIDNameRelationship / procedure
EnterpriseT1529System Shutdown/Reboot

AcidRain reboots the target system once the various wiping processes are complete.[1]

EnterpriseT1485Data Destruction

AcidRain performs an in-depth wipe of the target filesystem and various attached storage devices through either a data overwrite or calling various IOCTLS to erase it.[1]

EnterpriseT1561.001Disk Content WipeSub-technique

AcidRain iterates over device file identifiers on the target, opens the device file, and either overwrites the file or calls various IOCTLS commands to erase it.[1]

EnterpriseT1083File and Directory Discovery

AcidRain identifies specific files and directories in the Linux operating system associated with storage devices.[1]

Associated objects

Groups, software, and campaigns

GroupEnterprise

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]

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
19.2
Object version
1.1
Created
Modified
Raw hash
5fa8c8b53558d850...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)
ReleaseBundle importedObject versionModifiedStatusRaw hash
19.21.1Current bundle5fa8c8b53558…
19.11.1Older bundle5fa8c8b53558…
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]
    AcidRain JAGS 2022

    Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade and Max van Amerongen, SentinelOne. (2022, March 31). AcidRain | A Modem Wiper Rains Down on Europe. Retrieved March 25, 2024.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    AcidRain State Department 2022

    Antony J. Blinken, US Department of State. (2022, May 10). Attribution of Russia’s Malicious Cyber Activity Against Ukraine. Retrieved March 25, 2024.

    Open source URL
  3. [3]
    Vincens AcidPour 2024

    A.J. Vincens, CyberScoop. (2024, March 18). Researchers spot updated version of malware that hit Viasat. Retrieved March 25, 2024.

    Open source URL
  4. [4]
    mitre-attackS1125
    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.