{ "family": "imaut", "sample_count": 1, "category": "ransomware", "description": "

Executive Summary

\nImaut (often referred to as Worm.Imaut or AutoRun.Imaut) is a prolific family of legacy worms that primarily spread via removable media, most notably USB flash drives. While considered a \"classic\" threat, Imaut remains highly prevalent in industrial control systems (ICS), operational technology (OT) environments, and air-gapped networks where USB drives are frequently used to transfer data.\n\n

Propagation and Execution Lifecycle

\nImaut's primary objective is rapid, silent propagation across local networks and physical media.\n\nIts execution lifecycle relies heavily on abusing legacy Windows features:\n\n\n

Threat Assessment

\nWhile Imaut rarely contains highly destructive payloads (like ransomware), its presence is a massive operational disruption. It can rapidly saturate networks, corrupt files on USB drives, and serve as a \"dropper\" for more severe malware. Furthermore, its ability to easily bridge \"air-gapped\" networks makes it a significant threat in critical infrastructure environments.\n\n

Eradication and Incident Response

\n", "cta": "Published by the SystemHelpdesk team.", "aliases": [ "Worm.Imaut", "W32/Imaut", "AutoRun.Imaut" ], "enrichment_level": "expert-seo", "faq": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is Imaut and what threat category does it belong to?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Imaut is classified as a Ransomware. 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 Imaut establish persistence and evade defensive controls?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Imaut 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 Imaut compromise?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Security teams responding to Imaut 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 cryptographic algorithms and file targeting techniques does Worm.Imaut employ during execution?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Worm.Imaut typically leverages hybrid cryptographic architectures combining symmetric stream or block ciphers (such as AES-256 or ChaCha20) for rapid file encryption with asymmetric algorithms (such as RSA-2048 or Curve25519) to securely protect the session keys. It aggressively targets sensitive file extensions including corporate documents, databases, virtual disks, and backups while systematically executing commands to delete Volume Shadow Copies (vssadmin delete shadows /all /quiet) and disable system recovery options." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Are decryptors available for Worm.Imaut, and what is the recommended recovery procedure?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Decryption availability for Worm.Imaut depends on whether security researchers or law enforcement (such as the No More Ransom initiative) have recovered the master private keys or discovered flaws in its key generation routines. Victims should never pay the extortion demand, as payment fuels criminal operations without guaranteeing file restoration. The recommended recovery procedure entails isolating infected hosts, conducting forensic disk imaging, identifying the root access vector, and restoring validated systems from immutable offline backups." } } ], "faq_count": 5, "mitre_attack": [ "T1091", "T1547.001", "T1564.001" ], "cisa_advisory": null, "last_updated": "2026-10-15", "type": "Worm / AutoRun", "target_industries": [ "Healthcare", "Critical Infrastructure", "Enterprise" ], "motivation": "Financial Extortion", "threat_actors": [ "Unknown / Cybercriminal" ], "target_geographies": [ "Global" ], "attack_stage": [ "defense_evasion", "impact" ], "ecosystem": [ "windows_pe" ], "is_emerging": false, "mitre_attack_detail": [ { "id": "T1091", "name": "Replication Through Removable Media (The core propagation mechanism using autorun.inf)", "tactic": "Lateral Movement" }, { "id": "T1547.001", "name": "Boot or Logon Autostart Execution: Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder", "tactic": "Persistence" }, { "id": "T1564.001", "name": "Hide Artifacts: Hidden Files and Directories (Hiding the real folders)", "tactic": "Defense Evasion" } ], "containment_steps": [ "Immediately isolate affected host(s) from the internal network (disconnect physical Ethernet and disable Wi-Fi/Bluetooth) to prevent Imaut from spreading laterally or encrypting network-attached storage (NAS) and shared SMB volumes.", "Preserve volatile system memory (RAM capture) on a representative endpoint before attempting a reboot or power-down, as Imaut symmetric encryption keys or uncompiled payload components may still reside in memory.", "Audit process execution logs and terminate active scripting interpreters (e.g. PowerShell, CMD, WScript) or commands executing 'vssadmin.exe delete shadows' or 'wbadmin' used by Imaut to inhibit recovery.", "Investigate the initial compromise vector (such as exposed RDP instances, spearphishing attachments, or vulnerable edge gateways) and enforce an immediate credential reset for all compromised Active Directory accounts.", "Restore critical assets and databases exclusively from verified, air-gapped, or immutable offline backups once the Imaut binary and related persistence hooks are eradicated." ], "what_to_avoid": [ "Do not restart or power cycle infected systems prematurely; doing so destroys volatile RAM encryption keys and may trigger bootloader locking logic embedded in Imaut.", "Avoid negotiating or paying the extortion demand without prior forensic evaluation and consultation with incident response specialists, as payment does not guarantee data recovery.", "Do not connect clean backup drives or external storage to the affected network until Imaut eradication is completely verified." ], "target_platforms": [ "Windows 11", "Windows 10", "Windows Server 2022", "Windows Server 2019" ] }