Grief

MITRE ATT&CK does not currently catalogue Grief, 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: grief executes malicious commands via PowerShell scripts to stage ransomware payloads and evade detection.

   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: grief modifies Windows Registry Run Keys to ensure ransomware execution upon system startup for persistence.

   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: grief disables antivirus tools and security 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. T1027.013 Encrypted/Encoded File Stealth

   What they do: grief encodes ransomware binaries and configuration data to evade signature-based detection mechanisms.

   What that means: Adversaries may encrypt or encode files to obfuscate strings, bytes, and other specific patterns to impede detection.

5. T1070.004 File Deletion Stealth

   What they do: grief deletes Volume Shadow Copies and backup files via vssadmin or similar commands to eliminate recovery options.

   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: grief scans network shares using SMB tools to identify victim systems for lateral movement and data access.

   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. T1486 Data Encrypted for Impact Impact

   What they do: grief encrypts victim files and data using strong symmetric encryption 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.

8. T1490 Inhibit System Recovery Impact

   What they do: grief halts system recovery processes and service restarts to prevent automated remediation and isolate compromised hosts.

   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.

The note this group leaves on a compromised machine. Click a filename to read it.

[snip], you are fucked.

DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING!


What to do ( password: [snip] ):

http://payorgz3j6hs2gj66nk6omfw65atgmqwzxqbbxnqi3bv2mlwgcirunad.onion/context/[snip]


USE TOR.


P0G_

Ransom-note text from RansomLook, licensed CC BY 4.0.