Hermes

Overview

Ransom:Win32/Hermes is a targeted, destructive ransomware strain first observed in early 2017 across Russian cybercrime underground forums. In October 2017, Hermes rose to global prominence when it was deployed by the North Korean state-sponsored threat group Lazarus Group (specifically APT38 / Hidden Cobra) during the high-profile cyber heist against Taiwan's Far Eastern International Bank (FEIB). In that intrusion, Lazarus leveraged Hermes as a diversionary wiper-ransomware payload to paralyze incident responders, obscure forensic artifact trails, and destroy local system logs while operators executed fraudulent SWIFT interbank transactions totaling $60 million. Hermes is historically significant as the direct technological predecessor and codebase progenitor for Ryuk ransomware, which emerged in mid-2018 when the Wizard Spider cybercrime syndicate adapted Hermes' source code for targeted enterprise big-game hunting. Hermes employs RSA-2048 public key encryption paired with per-file AES-256-CBC symmetric keys, terminates critical database and backup services via batch script command loops (HERMES.bat), and securely destroys Shadow Copies through vssadmin and bcdedit system manipulation.

Known aliases

Threat reports may refer to this family under multiple names:

• Hermes
• Hermes 2.1
• Ransom.Hermes
• Trojan-Ransom.Win32.Hermes

Threat Actor Attribution

Attribution is probabilistic, not a science. Each link below states its confidence level and the evidence behind it.

• Lazarus Group (APT38 / Hidden Cobra) High confidence
  Basis:
• Russian Cybercrime Underground Medium confidence
  Basis:

Family Pedigree & Lineage

Malware authors regularly fork and iterate upon existing codebases. Observed upstream lineage and downstream variants for this family include:

Known Derivatives & Downstream Variants: Hermes 2.1 (Taiwan Feib Heist) · Ryuk (Direct Successor) · Conti (Lineage)

MITRE ATT&CK Techniques

Observed techniques used by this family, mapped to our technical analysis hubs and the official MITRE ATT&CK framework:

Tactical Mitigations

Based on the techniques used by this family, consider the following defensive strategies:

• T1059.003: Restrict execution of Windows Command Shell (cmd.exe) and block unauthorized batch scripts.
• T1566.001: Scan email attachments for malicious macros, scripts, or suspicious archive files.

MITRE D3FEND™ Defensive Countermeasures

Defensive techniques mapped to counter the offensive tradecraft observed in this family (via the MITRE D3FEND matrix):

Exploited Vulnerabilities (CVEs)

This malware family is documented weaponizing the following common vulnerabilities and exposures:

• CVE-2017-0199 — In-depth exploitation analysis and catalog intelligence (NIST NVD ↗).
• CVE-2017-11882 — In-depth exploitation analysis and catalog intelligence (NIST NVD ↗).

Command & Control (C2) and Network Profile

How this family talks to its operators. C2 traffic can often identify a family even when its code and configuration are hard to analyse. Ports and patterns are historical and change between campaigns, so use them as hunting leads rather than block-only rules.

Indicators of Compromise

Public indicators drawn from CISA advisories and vendor reporting. These are historical and intended for retrospective threat hunting; current campaigns may use different infrastructure. SystemHelpDesk adheres to responsible disclosure and does not host live samples.

File hashes (SHA-256, sample)

Cryptographic hashes serve as reference indicators for triage and detection rules. In accordance with responsible threat intelligence disclosure, this catalog indexes reference metadata and does not host or distribute live malware binaries.

• a83233ff28b5e7d58fa66f44d56f5a34f9a46087b22ab1a0f8eb898eb2ec8fb2
• 4619d803c004245cc87ffec5a0ee3303d7ac5c8ba17fe94f576e273a5a407f2b

Delivery vectors

• spearphishing_attachment
• compromised_network_shares

Persistence mechanisms

• HERMES.bat execution
• HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Tiered Detection Rules (Cisco CAIRN Model)

Modern threat detection requires multi-layered rule engineering. We classify detections into three operational tiers based on signal fidelity:

rule MALWARE_WIN_HERMES_T1_ARTIFACT {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 1 Primitive Artifact: Raw string matches for Hermes"
        tier = "T1 - Primitive Artifact"
        confidence = "Low-Medium (Fast Triage)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Threat Research Desk"
        date = "2026-10-14"
    strings:
        $s1 = "hermes" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "hermes" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "hermes 2.1" ascii wide nocase
        $s4 = "ransom.hermes" ascii wide nocase
        $s5 = "trojan-ransom.win32.hermes" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}

title: SystemHelpDesk Detection - Hermes (Ransomware) Execution & Triage
id: d9cfc5fd-05e0-593e-bc9f-55a46f6059f9
status: production
description: Detects execution, defense evasion, and persistence behaviors associated
  with the Hermes malware family. Detects volume shadow copy deletion, boot status
  tampering, and recovery inhibition characteristic of modern ransomware operations.
references:
- https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/families/hermes
- https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/defensive/ransomware-protection
- https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/
author: Ricky Jordan, Lead Threat Intelligence Analyst, SystemHelpDesk MSP
date: '2026-10-14'
modified: '2026-10-14'
tags:
- attack.ransomware
- author.ricky-jordan
- source.systemhelpdesk-mfc
- attack.t1486
- attack.t1070_001
- attack.t1490
- attack.t1059_003
- attack.t1566_001
logsource:
  category: process_creation
  product: windows
detection:
  selection_process:
    Image|endswith:
    - \vssadmin.exe
    - \wmic.exe
    - \wbadmin.exe
    - \bcdedit.exe
    CommandLine|contains:
    - delete shadows
    - shadowcopy delete
    - resize shadowstorage
    - recoveryenabled no
    - ignoreallfailures
  condition: selection_process
falsepositives:
- Legitimate enterprise administrative scripts during approved change windows
- Authorized IT software deployment utilities and backup management agents
level: critical

rule MALWARE_WIN_HERMES_T3_ATTRIBUTION {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 3 Attribution Fingerprint: Heuristic detection for Hermes tradecraft"
        tier = "T3 - Attribution Fingerprint"
        confidence = "High (Confirmed Family Signature)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Threat Research Desk"
        date = "2026-10-14"
    strings:
        // Core family identifier & heuristic payload signatures
        $attrib_str = "hermes" ascii wide nocase
        $pe_magic = "MZ" ascii
        $net_marker = "http" ascii nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and ($attrib_str and $net_marker) and filesize < 15MB
}

Containment & Response Steps

Ordered checklist for responders. Adapt to your environment and engage professional support for active incidents.

1. Segregate SWIFT messaging terminals and financial transaction hosts onto isolated, air-gapped VLANs.
2. Deploy endpoint detection agents to identify and block batch script execution invoking vssadmin delete shadows.
3. Inspect perimeter firewalls for anomalous outbound connections to known Lazarus Group command infrastructure.
4. Enforce security updates for Microsoft Office equation editor vulnerabilities CVE-2017-0199 and CVE-2017-11882.

What to Avoid

Common mistakes during response to this family that can destroy evidence, spread the infection, or worsen recovery.

1. Do not allow direct internet access from financial processing or SWIFT financial network environments.
2. Avoid running endpoint backups on mapped, write-accessible network shares accessible to ransomware operators.
3. Never enable Office macro execution on inbound emails from external domains.

References & External Analysis

• CISA Cybersecurity Advisory AA20-280A: FASTCash 2.0 & Lazarus Group
• BAE Systems Threat Research: Taiwan Bank Heist and Hermes Ransomware
• US Department of Justice Indictment of Park Jin Hyok (Lazarus Group)
• CISA Advisory: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa20-280a
• Search "hermes" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)
• Search "hermes" on Any.Run (Sandbox Sandbox)
• Search "hermes" on MalwareBazaar (Malware Samples)

North American Authority Advisory (CISA / NIST)

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has published an official US federal advisory on this family, which can be mapped to NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) incident response controls: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa20-280a ↗

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Threats (Category: Ransomware)

Explore other documented threats in the same operational category:

• Udslee
• Adpower
• Hexzone
• Macoute
• Qqfarmer
• Binderon
• Fbtaken
• Pulobe

Machine-readable

Get this profile as JSON: https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/api/hermes.json

Ecosystem & Interactive Environments

This profile is part of the Malware Families Catalog, a public dataset of 2,899 malware families. The catalog is also published across our ecosystem: Hugging Face, Kaggle, Zenodo, Replit, StackBlitz, CodeSandbox, and CodePen.