HermeticWiper
HermeticWiper (canonical ESET + SentinelOne + Symantec joint February 23, 2022 first-day disclosure naming derived from Cypriot Hermetica Digital Ltd code-signing certificate per ESET.
Microsoft alternative naming FoxBlade per ESET "A year of wiper attacks in Ukraine" retrospective.
cluster-defining destructive disk wiper with companion HermeticWizard custom worm + HermeticRansom/ PartyTicket Golang decoy ransomware) is a destructive disk wiper deployed February 23, 2022, the second wiper of the 2022 Ukraine wartime wiper cluster + cluster-defining invasion-eve cyber-kinetic-coordination attack (T-1 day before Russia's February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine)
Russian state-sponsored APT attribution to Sandworm (Russian GRU Unit 74455, also Mandiant APT44 / Microsoft Seashell Blizzard / Dragos ELECTRUM, curated separately as sandworm_team parent operator) per ESET canonical February 24, 2023 compilation by Anton Cherepanov + Robert Lipovsky: "We were able to attribute the majority of these attacks to Sandworm, with varying degrees of confidence".
standalone malware platform cluster paralleling whispergate + caddywiper in Ukraine 2022 wartime wiper cell.
operational attack architecture with ~2-month development pre-positioning (per ESET timestamps from December 28, 2021), Active Directory GPO mass deployment via default domain policy indicating Active Directory server takeover, deployment across hundreds of systems in at least 5 Ukrainian organizations + neighbor countries Latvia + Lithuania with finance sector + government contractor targeting per Symantec.
cluster-defining EaseUS Partition Master signed-driver abuse tradecraft using legitimate empntdrv.sys (EPMNTDRV) partition management driver for direct userland filesystem access, same technique used by Lazarus Group's Destover + APT33 Shamoon with Eldos Rawdisk (lineage cluster-cell coherence with prior nation-state wiper tradecraft); 114KB binary sample with ~70% composed of ms-compressed EaseUS Partition Master driver resources for multiple OS versions/bitness + SysWow64 redirection.
signed with Cypriot Hermetica Digital Ltd code-signing certificate (DigiCert EV Code Signing CA issuer per SentinelLabs YARA rule), per ZeroFox Brian Kime "the certification might have been designed to help the malware dodge antivirus protections... but a sign of a 'sophisticated and targeted' operator"; multi-component campaign architecture comprising HermeticWiper signed-driver destructive wiper + HermeticWizard custom worm for LAN propagation + HermeticRansom (PartyTicket per SentinelLabs naming) Golang decoy ransomware (counterintuitive use as deception layer, per SentinelOne: "very loud and ineffective ransomware that should fire alerts left and right", anti-US sentiment in code per SentinelLabs analysis of folder organization + function naming); anti-forensics tradecraft modifying registry SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\Control\CrashControl CrashDumpEnabled key to zero (disabling crash dumps), iterating PhysicalDrive enumeration for MBR + content destruction, finally initiating system shutdown via sleeping threads pattern.
adjacent same-week Sandworm wiper operations including IsaacWiper deployed February 24, 2022 against Ukrainian governmental network (per ESET March 1, 2022 disclosure "IsaacWiper + HermeticWizard: wiper + worm targeting Ukraine") + AcidRain February 24, 2022 ViaSat KA-SAT satellite modem wiper disrupting Ukrainian + European satellite communications (US/UK/EU joint Russia GRU attribution); additional Hermetic campaigns March 10, 2022 + March 17, 2022 + March 24, 2022 + HermeticWiper x64 variant October 5, 2022.
CISA + FBI joint advisory February 28, 2022 warning of WhisperGate + HermeticWiper destructive malware spreading.
CERT-UA + ESET + SentinelOne + Symantec + Stairwell + RedCanary joint industry threat-intelligence response demonstrated cross-vendor coordination capability.
cluster fills invasion-eve wiper position in 2022 Ukraine wartime wiper chronology: WhisperGate January 2022 - HermeticWiper February 23, 2022 - IsaacWiper February 24, 2022 - CaddyWiper March 14, 2022 - Industroyer2 April 8, 2022.
canonical illustration of EaseUS Partition Master signed-driver-abuse tradecraft from Shamoon + Destover lineage cited in essentially all subsequent 2022+ Ukraine wiper + signed-driver- abuse wiper industry analyses through 2022-2026 period.