{
  "family": "diskscanfa",
  "sample_count": 1,
  "category": "advanced_threat",
  "description": "<h3>Executive Summary</h3>\nDiskScanFA is a classification for a specific family of Rogue Security Software, commonly referred to as \"FakeAV\" or \"Scareware.\" It masquerades as a legitimate Windows disk scanning or antivirus utility. Its sole purpose is financial extortion: it deliberately displays fake system errors, non-existent virus infections, and fictitious hard drive failures to frighten the victim into purchasing a worthless \"premium\" license to fix the fabricated issues.\n\n<h3>Infection Vector and Technical Capabilities</h3>\nDiskScanFA is primarily distributed via drive-by downloads, malvertising (malicious ads that redirect to fake scanner pages), or bundled heavily with pirated software. The infection often begins with a web page that looks like a \"My Computer\" window, falsely scanning the user's hard drive.\n\nOnce installed on the endpoint, DiskScanFA employs aggressive extortion tactics:\n<ul>\n<li><strong>UI Subversion and Harassment:</strong> The malware launches a highly convincing, albeit fake, graphical interface resembling a Microsoft security product. It continuously bombards the user with high-priority alerts claiming the hard drive is failing, RAM is corrupted, or severe rootkits have been detected.</li>\n<li><strong>System Lockdown:</strong> To force payment, DiskScanFA often blocks legitimate applications from launching. It intercepts executable launches (`.exe`) and displays a fake alert claiming the application is infected and must be blocked until the \"premium\" version is purchased.</li>\n<li><strong>Security Disablement:</strong> The malware modifies the Windows Registry to disable the Task Manager, Registry Editor, and legitimate antivirus software to prevent the user from manually terminating the rogue process.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<h3>Threat Assessment</h3>\nWhile the primary goal is financial fraud (stealing credit card details during the fake purchase process), the presence of DiskScanFA severely disrupts business operations by locking down the workstation. Furthermore, the payload is often distributed by pay-per-install botnets, meaning the endpoint is highly likely infected with secondary, silent threats like Info-Stealers.\n\n<h3>Incident Response and Remediation</h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Safe Mode Triage:</strong> Because the rogue software blocks application execution, incident responders must boot the infected machine into Windows \"Safe Mode with Networking\" to bypass the malware's autostart mechanisms.</li>\n<li><strong>Registry and File Eradication:</strong> In Safe Mode, utilize a reputable, enterprise-grade anti-malware scanner to locate and delete the hidden executables (often in `%AppData%`) and revert the malicious registry modifications (specifically `HKCU\\Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Run`).</li>\n<li><strong>Credit Card Monitoring:</strong> If the user entered their credit card information into the fake software portal, they must immediately contact their bank, cancel the card, and monitor for fraudulent transactions.</li>\n</ul>",
  "cta": "Published by the SystemHelpdesk team.",
  "aliases": [
    "Rogue.DiskScanFA",
    "FakeAV.DiskScan",
    "Win32/FakeAV"
  ],
  "enrichment_level": "expert-seo",
  "faq": [
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "What is Diskscanfa and what threat category does it belong to?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Diskscanfa is classified as a Advanced Threat. Documented across security telemetry, it is engineered to execute unauthorized operations, establish persistent footholds on target endpoints, and facilitate malicious campaigns targeting enterprise and individual environments."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "How does Diskscanfa establish persistence and evade defensive controls?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Diskscanfa typically establishes persistence through registry run keys, scheduled tasks, or service installations, while evading signature-based antivirus solutions through code obfuscation, memory injection, or anti-analysis sandbox checks."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "What are the essential incident response steps for mitigating a Diskscanfa compromise?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Security teams responding to Diskscanfa should immediately isolate affected endpoints from the network, perform memory triage to capture volatile forensic artifacts, audit registry and startup persistence mechanisms, revoke exposed user credentials, and restore systems from verified, clean backups."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "What lateral movement and credential access tactics does Rogue.DiskScanFA leverage in enterprise intrusions?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Rogue.DiskScanFA frequently utilizes privileged account harvesting techniques such as LSASS memory dumping, Kerberoasting, and token impersonation to escalate privileges. Once administrative credentials are acquired, it pivots across the victim network utilizing living-off-the-land binaries (LOLBins) such as WMI, PowerShell remoting, and PsExec, or abuses remote desktop protocols (RDP) to reach critical internal repositories and domain controllers."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "How does Rogue.DiskScanFA maintain covert communications and evade perimeter network monitoring?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Rogue.DiskScanFA often relies on multi-stage command and control (C2) architectures utilizing encrypted protocols over standard web ports (HTTPS/443 or DNS tunneling) to blend in with legitimate enterprise network traffic. Many variants incorporate proxy networks, domain fronting, or cloud services (such as Microsoft Graph API, Google Drive, or Telegram) to masquerade C2 channels, bypassing traditional signature-based egress filtering."
      }
    }
  ],
  "faq_count": 5,
  "mitre_attack": [
    "T1489",
    "T1112",
    "T1562.001",
    "T1490"
  ],
  "cisa_advisory": null,
  "last_updated": "2026-10-15",
  "type": "FakeAV / Rogue Security Software",
  "target_industries": [
    "Global / Opportunistic"
  ],
  "motivation": "Opportunistic",
  "threat_actors": [
    "Unknown / Cybercriminal"
  ],
  "target_geographies": [
    "Global"
  ],
  "attack_stage": [
    "execution",
    "persistence"
  ],
  "ecosystem": [
    "windows_pe"
  ],
  "is_emerging": false,
  "mitre_attack_detail": [
    {
      "id": "T1489",
      "name": "Service Stop (Forcefully stopping AV services)",
      "tactic": "Impact"
    },
    {
      "id": "T1112",
      "name": "Modify Registry",
      "tactic": "Defense Evasion"
    },
    {
      "id": "T1562.001",
      "name": "Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools",
      "tactic": "Defense Evasion"
    },
    {
      "id": "T1490",
      "name": "Inhibit System Recovery (Behaviorally blocking the deletion of backups)",
      "tactic": "Impact"
    }
  ],
  "containment_steps": [
    "Enforce forensic network isolation on all suspected endpoints while maintaining an out-of-band telemetry conduit to capture live Diskscanfa adversary activity.",
    "Perform full memory dumps across identified staging nodes to extract memory-only implants, kernel rootkit hooks, and decrypted Diskscanfa C2 infrastructure IP/domain lists.",
    "Review Active Directory domain controller authentication logs for anomalous Kerberos ticket requests (Pass-the-Ticket, Golden Ticket) and unauthorized DCSync operations associated with Diskscanfa.",
    "Block all confirmed C2 domains, dynamic DNS endpoints, and proxy IP addresses across perimeter firewalls, proxies, and DNS security gateways.",
    "Conduct an enterprise-wide sweep across surrounding subnets for secondary webshells, WMI event subscriptions, or remote execution tooling left behind by Diskscanfa operators."
  ],
  "what_to_avoid": [
    "Do not assume the incident is resolved simply because an antivirus tool removed the initial Diskscanfa dropper; always verify that secondary payloads and persistence hooks have been eradicated.",
    "Avoid logging in with Domain Admin or privileged credentials on a machine suspected of running Diskscanfa until memory triage is complete.",
    "Do not delay host isolation; automated lateral movement and credential dumping can occur within minutes of initial execution."
  ],
  "target_platforms": [
    "Windows 11",
    "Windows 10",
    "Windows Server 2022",
    "Windows Server 2019"
  ]
}