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S1129 Akira

Akira ransomware, written in C++, is most prominently (but not exclusively) associated with the ransomware-as-a-service entity Akira. Akira ransomware has been used in attacks across North America, Europe, and Australia, with a focus on critical infrastructure sectors including manufacturing, education, and IT services. Akira ransomware employs hybrid encryption and threading to increase the speed and efficiency of encryption and runtime arguments for tailored attacks. Notable variants include Rust-based Megazord for targeting Windows and Akira _v2 for targeting VMware ESXi servers.213

Item Value
ID S1129
Associated Names
Type MALWARE
Version 2.0
Created 04 April 2024
Last Modified 11 March 2025
Navigation Layer View In ATT&CK® Navigator

Techniques Used

Domain ID Name Use
enterprise T1059 Command and Scripting Interpreter -
enterprise T1059.001 PowerShell Akira will execute PowerShell commands to delete system volume shadow copies.21
enterprise T1059.003 Windows Command Shell Akira executes from the Windows command line and can take various arguments for execution.2
enterprise T1486 Data Encrypted for Impact Akira can encrypt victim filesystems for financial extortion purposes including through the use of the ChaCha20 and ChaCha8 stream ciphers.213
enterprise T1083 File and Directory Discovery Akira examines files prior to encryption to determine if they meet requirements for encryption and can be encrypted by the ransomware. These checks are performed through native Windows functions such as GetFileAttributesW.23
enterprise T1490 Inhibit System Recovery Akira will delete system volume shadow copies via PowerShell commands.21
enterprise T1106 Native API Akira executes native Windows functions such as GetFileAttributesW and GetSystemInfo.2
enterprise T1135 Network Share Discovery Akira can identify remote file shares for encryption.2
enterprise T1057 Process Discovery Akira verifies the deletion of volume shadow copies by checking for the existence of the process ID related to the process created to delete these items.2
enterprise T1082 System Information Discovery Akira uses the GetSystemInfo Windows function to determine the number of processors on a victim machine.2
enterprise T1047 Windows Management Instrumentation Akira will leverage COM objects accessed through WMI during execution to evade detection.2

Groups That Use This Software

ID Name References
G1024 Akira 23

References

  1. CISA et al. (2024, April 18). #StopRansomware: Akira Ransomware. Retrieved December 10, 2024. ↩↩↩↩

  2. Max Kersten & Alexandre Mundo. (2023, November 29). Akira Ransomware. Retrieved April 4, 2024. ↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  3. Nutland, J. and Szeliga, M. (2024, October 21). Akira ransomware continues to evolve. Retrieved December 10, 2024. ↩↩↩↩