Cheers

MITRE ATT&CK does not currently catalogue Cheers, 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: medium. Treat it as orientation, not attribution.

1. T1059.001 PowerShell Execution

   What they do: cheers executes malicious payloads via PowerShell scripts to stage ransomware execution on compromised systems.

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

2. T1547.001 Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder PersistencePrivilege Escalation

   What they do: cheers modifies Windows Registry Run Keys to ensure ransomware execution persists across user logoffs and reboots.

   What that means: Adversaries may achieve persistence by adding a program to a startup folder or referencing it with a Registry run key.

3. T1685 Disable or Modify Tools Defense Impairment

   What they do: cheers disables security tools like EDR agents and backup software to prevent system recovery and hinder incident response.

   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. T1688 Safe Mode Boot Defense Impairment

   What they do: cheers forces Safe Mode Boot to bypass standard user-mode security controls during initial execution phases.

   What that means: Adversaries may abuse Windows safe mode to disable endpoint defenses.

5. T1070.004 File Deletion Stealth

   What they do: cheers deletes Volume Shadow Copies and backup directories via system commands to eliminate recovery options for victims.

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

6. T1135 Network Share Discovery Discovery

   What they do: cheers uses network share discovery to locate and encrypt victim files across mapped drives and shared directories.

   What that means: Adversaries may look for folders and drives shared on remote systems as a means of identifying sources of information to gather as a precursor for Collection and to identify potential systems of interest for Lateral Movement.

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

   What they do: cheers leverages SMB/Windows Admin Shares for lateral movement between networked servers and workstations within victim environments.

   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: cheers encrypts victim data files using strong symmetric cryptography to maximize impact and force ransom payment.

   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. T1489 Service Stop Impact

   What they do: cheeks stops critical Windows services and processes using command scripts to disrupt operational continuity and hinder recovery.

   What that means: Adversaries may stop or disable services on a system to render those services unavailable to legitimate users.

10. T1490 Inhibit System Recovery Impact

    What they do: cheers calls system recovery inhibitors like shutdown scripts to prevent automatic restoration processes from running.

    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.