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MITRE ATT&CK® Malware

S1140: Spica

Spica is a custom backdoor written in Rust that has been used by Star Blizzard since at least 2023.[1]

EnterpriseS1140MalwareObject v1.0Modified
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis

Security context for executives and security teams

Automation confidenceMedium

S1140: Spica describes [Spica](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S1140) is a custom backdoor written in Rust that has been used by [Star Blizzard](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G1033) since at least 2023.(Citation: Google TAG COLDRIVER January 2024)

Executive priority

S1140: Spica 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 S1140: Spica 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 S1140: Spica 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

Spica

Spica is a custom backdoor written in Rust that has been used by Star Blizzard since at least 2023.[1]

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.

9 rows
DomainIDNameRelationship / procedure
EnterpriseT1059.001PowerShellSub-technique

Spica can use an obfuscated PowerShell command to create a scheduled task for persistence.[1]

EnterpriseT1105Ingress Tool Transfer

Spica can upload and download files to and from compromised hosts.[1]

EnterpriseT1560Archive Collected Data

Spica can archive collected documents for exfiltration.[1]

EnterpriseT1083File and Directory Discovery

Spica can list filesystem contents on targeted systems.[1]

EnterpriseT1539Steal Web Session Cookie

Spica has the ability to steal cookies from Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Edge browsers.[1]

EnterpriseT1053.005Scheduled TaskSub-technique

Spica has created a scheduled task named `CalendarChecker` to establish persistence.[1]

EnterpriseT1036.004Masquerade Task or ServiceSub-technique

Spica has created a scheduled task named `CalendarChecker` for persistence on compromised hosts.[1]

EnterpriseT1095Non-Application Layer Protocol

Spica can use JSON over WebSockets for C2 communications.[1]

EnterpriseT1140Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information

Upon execution Spica can decode an embedded .pdf and write it to the desktop as a decoy document.[1]

Associated objects

Groups, software, and campaigns

GroupEnterprise

G1033: Star Blizzard

Star Blizzard is a cyber espionage and influence group originating in Russia that has been active since at least 2019. Star Blizzard campaigns align closely with Russian state interests and have included persistent phishing and credential theft against academic, defense, government, NGO, and think tank organizations in NATO countries, particularly the US and the UK.[1][2][3][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
19.2
Object version
1.0
Created
Modified
Raw hash
072e8c0309a6e436...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)
ReleaseBundle importedObject versionModifiedStatusRaw hash
19.21.0Current bundle072e8c0309a6…
19.11.0Older bundle072e8c0309a6…
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]
    Google TAG COLDRIVER January 2024

    Shields, W. (2024, January 18). Russian threat group COLDRIVER expands its targeting of Western officials to include the use of malware. Retrieved June 13, 2024.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    mitre-attackS1140
    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.