Loki

MITRE ATT&CK does not currently catalogue Loki, 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 v19.2. Confidence: low. Treat it as orientation, not attribution.

1. T1059.001 PowerShell Execution

   What they do: Loki executes malicious payloads via PowerShell to stage ransomware operations on compromised hosts.

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

2. T1569.002 Service Execution Execution

   What they do: Loki executes ransomware binaries through Windows Service contexts to ensure persistence and evasion.

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

3. T1685 Disable or Modify Tools Defense Impairment

   What they do: Loki disables security tools like EDR and AV processes to hinder incident response and persistence.

   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.

4. T1070.004 File Deletion Stealth

   What they do: Loki deletes Volume Shadow Copies and backups via system commands to prevent data recovery.

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

5. T1083 File and Directory Discovery Discovery

   What they do: Loki uses file and directory discovery to enumerate critical system and 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.

6. T1486 Data Encrypted for Impact Impact

   What they do: Loki encrypts victim files and data using cryptographic routines to maximize impact and ransom demand.

   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.

7. T1490 Inhibit System Recovery Impact

   What they do: Loki inhibits system recovery by corrupting restore points and disabling backup mechanisms.

   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.

8. T1491.001 Internal Defacement Impact

   What they do: Loki performs internal defacement by replacing victim files with ransom notes or altered content.

   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.

Software Loki has been seen using, grouped by what it is used for. Legitimate administration tools appear here because these actors routinely abuse them — presence in this list is not itself malicious.

Tool data from Ransomware Tool Matrix by BushidoUK, licensed CC BY 4.0. Grouped by purpose and matched to this group by Dark Eye.