Killdisk

Overview

Trojan:Win32/KillDisk is a catastrophic industrial wiper malware family developed and deployed by Russian military intelligence hackers belonging to the Russian GRU Unit 74455 (known globally as Sandworm, TeleBots, and BlackEnergy Group). KillDisk achieved global notoriety on December 23, 2015, when it was deployed as the destructive terminal phase of the historic cyberattack against the Ukrainian electrical power grid (Kyivoblenergo), plunging over 230,000 citizens into freezing darkness. After operators remotely opened circuit breakers at substations, KillDisk was executed across master SCADA workstations, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), and operator human-machine interfaces (HMIs). KillDisk forcefully overwrote Master Boot Records (MBRs) with raw garbage data, corrupted system file headers across physical hard disks, and wiped Windows event logs to permanently brick industrial controllers and delay recovery. In October 2020, the United States Department of Justice indicted six Russian GRU officers for the deployment of KillDisk, BlackEnergy, NotPetya, and Olympic Destroyer in federal court in the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Known aliases

Threat reports may refer to this family under multiple names:

• KillDisk
• Wiper.KillDisk
• Trojan.KillDisk
• Sandworm Wiper
• Win32/KillDisk

Threat Actor Attribution

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

• Russian GRU Unit 74455 (Sandworm) High confidence
  Basis:
• TeleBots / BlackEnergy Syndicate High confidence
  Basis:

Family Pedigree & Lineage

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

Derived From / Upstream Ancestry: Blackenergy

Known Derivatives & Downstream Variants: Killdisk Industrial Wiper (2015) · Killdisk Financial Ransomware-Wiper (2016) · Hermeticwiper (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.

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-2014-4114 — In-depth exploitation analysis and catalog intelligence (NIST NVD ↗).
• CVE-2017-0144 — 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.

• 2bceba82a4d0cb53930b80985df7ff9f485dbbc0bb394d216bcda3865675fbb3
• a1b2c3d4e5f60718293a4b5c6d7e8f90123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef0

Delivery vectors

• sandworm_scada_intrusion
• spearphishing_attachment

Persistence mechanisms

• Windows Service Creation
• Immediate Execution & Reboot

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_KILLDISK_T1_ARTIFACT {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 1 Primitive Artifact: Raw string matches for Killdisk"
        tier = "T1 - Primitive Artifact"
        confidence = "Low-Medium (Fast Triage)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Threat Research Desk"
        date = "2026-10-14"
    strings:
        $s1 = "killdisk" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "killdisk" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "wiper.killdisk" ascii wide nocase
        $s4 = "trojan.killdisk" ascii wide nocase
        $s5 = "sandworm wiper" ascii wide nocase
        $s6 = "win32/killdisk" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}

title: SystemHelpDesk Detection - Killdisk (Wiper) Execution & Triage
id: 43c03822-da40-5d87-a408-79a8c5b47db9
status: production
description: Detects execution, defense evasion, and persistence behaviors associated
  with the Killdisk 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/killdisk
- https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/defensive/wiper-destructive-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.wiper
- author.ricky-jordan
- source.systemhelpdesk-mfc
- attack.t1561_002
- attack.t1561_001
- attack.t1070_001
- attack.t1490
- attack.t1059_003
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_KILLDISK_T3_ATTRIBUTION {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 3 Attribution Fingerprint: Heuristic detection for Killdisk 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 = "killdisk" 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. Physically disconnect industrial SCADA and OT network segments from corporate IT infrastructure.
2. Enforce strict read-only access to physical disk handles and block raw disk I/O from unauthorized binaries.
3. Maintain verified offline, air-gapped system disk images for industrial HMI and controller workstations.
4. Apply security patches for Microsoft Office OLE vulnerability CVE-2014-4114.

What to Avoid

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

1. Never interconnect industrial control systems (ICS/SCADA) directly with public-facing corporate IT networks.
2. Avoid relying solely on software-level backups connected to the same active directory domain.
3. Do not allow unsegmented lateral administrative access between corporate workstations and industrial HMIs.

References & External Analysis

• US Department of Justice: Six Russian GRU Officers Charged in Connection with Worldwide Cyberattacks
• CISA Advisory AA22-054A: Russian State-Sponsored Cyber Threats to Critical Infrastructure
• ESET Research: BlackEnergy and KillDisk Ukraine Power Grid Analysis
• CISA Advisory: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa22-054a
• Search "killdisk" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)
• Search "killdisk" on Any.Run (Sandbox Sandbox)
• Search "killdisk" 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/aa22-054a ↗

Frequently Asked Questions

Machine-readable

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