Icarus

MITRE ATT&CK does not currently catalogue Icarus, so this is our assessment of the techniques it uses, drawn from public reporting. The techniques themselves, and every "what that means" definition below, come from MITRE ATT&CK v20.0. Confidence: medium. Treat it as orientation, not attribution.

1. T1059.001 PowerShell Execution

   What they do: Icarus executes malicious payloads through PowerShell scripts to stage ransomware components.

   What that means: Adversaries may abuse PowerShell commands and scripts for execution.

2. T1569.002 Service Execution Execution

   What they do: Icarus executes ransomware binaries through Windows Service installation to maintain persistence.

   What that means: Adversaries may abuse the Windows service control manager to execute malicious commands or payloads.

3. T1112 Modify Registry PersistenceDefense Impairment

   What they do: Icarus modifies Windows Registry Run keys to ensure ransomware execution upon system reboot.

   What that means: Adversaries may interact with the Windows Registry as part of a variety of other techniques to aid in defense evasion, persistence, and execution.

4. T1685 Disable or Modify Tools Defense Impairment

   What they do: Icarus disables antivirus tools by terminating security processes and modifying Windows Defender settings.

   What that means: Adversaries may disable, degrade, or tamper with security tools or applications (e.g., endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools, intrusion detection systems (IDS), antivirus, logging agents, sensors, etc.) to impair or reduce visibility of defensive capabilities.

5. T1070.004 File Deletion Stealth

   What they do: Icarus deletes Volume Shadow Copies and backup directories via vssadmin commands to prevent recovery.

   What that means: Adversaries may delete files left behind by the actions of their intrusion activity.

6. T1083 File and Directory Discovery Discovery

   What they do: Icarus uses file and directory discovery via PowerShell to enumerate critical data paths before encryption.

   What that means: Adversaries may enumerate files and directories or may search in specific locations of a host or network share for certain information within a file system.

7. T1021.002 SMB/Windows Admin Shares Lateral Movement

   What they do: Icarus moves laterally through SMB shares using stolen credentials to compromise additional servers.

   What that means: Adversaries may use Valid Accounts to interact with a remote network share using Server Message Block (SMB).

8. T1486 Data Encrypted for Impact Impact

   What they do: Icarus encrypts victim files using AES-256 encryption with custom ransomware binaries targeting business documents.

   What that means: Adversaries may encrypt data on target systems or on large numbers of systems in a network to interrupt availability to system and network resources.

9. T1490 Inhibit System Recovery Impact

   What they do: Icarus inhibits system recovery by disabling backup restoration services and altering system startup configurations.

   What that means: Adversaries may delete or remove built-in data and turn off services designed to aid in the recovery of a corrupted system to prevent recovery.

10. T1491.001 Internal Defacement Impact

    What they do: Icarus performs internal defacement by replacing victim files with ransom notes containing decryption instructions.

    What that means: An adversary may deface systems internal to an organization in an attempt to intimidate or mislead users, thus discrediting the integrity of the systems.