Adversaries may delete or remove built-in data and turn off services designed to aid in the recovery of a corrupted system to prevent recovery.^[1],[2] This may deny access to available backups and recovery options.

Operating systems may contain features that can help fix corrupted systems, such as a backup catalog, volume shadow copies, and automatic repair features. Adversaries may disable or delete system recovery features to augment the effects of Data Destruction and Data Encrypted for Impact.^[1],[2] Furthermore, adversaries may disable recovery notifications, then corrupt backups.^[3]

A number of native Windows utilities have been used by adversaries to disable or delete system recovery features:

• vssadmin.exe can be used to delete all volume shadow copies on a system - vssadmin.exe delete shadows /all /quiet
• Windows Management Instrumentation can be used to delete volume shadow copies - wmic shadowcopy delete
• wbadmin.exe can be used to delete the Windows Backup Catalog - wbadmin.exe delete catalog -quiet
• bcdedit.exe can be used to disable automatic Windows recovery features by modifying boot configuration data - bcdedit.exe /set {default} bootstatuspolicy ignoreallfailures & bcdedit /set {default} recoveryenabled no
• REAgentC.exe can be used to disable Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) repair/recovery options of an infected system
• diskshadow.exe can be used to delete all volume shadow copies on a system - diskshadow delete shadows all^[4],[5]

On network devices, adversaries may leverage Disk Wipe to delete backup firmware images and reformat the file system, then System Shutdown/Reboot to reload the device. Together this activity may leave network devices completely inoperable and inhibit recovery operations.

On ESXi servers, adversaries may delete or encrypt snapshots of virtual machines to support Data Encrypted for Impact, preventing them from being leveraged as backups (e.g., via vim-cmd vmsvc/snapshot.removeall).^[6]

Adversaries may also delete “online” backups that are connected to their network – whether via network storage media or through folders that sync to cloud services.^[7] In cloud environments, adversaries may disable versioning and backup policies and delete snapshots, database backups, machine images, and prior versions of objects designed to be used in disaster recovery scenarios.^[8],[9]

References

1. Mercer, W. and Rascagneres, P. (2018, February 12). Olympic Destroyer Takes Aim At Winter Olympics. Retrieved March 14, 2019.
2. Berry, A., Homan, J., and Eitzman, R. (2017, May 23). WannaCry Malware Profile. Retrieved March 15, 2019.
3. TheDFIRReport. (2022, March 1). Disabling notifications on Synology servers before ransom. Retrieved September 12, 2024.
4. Microsoft Windows Server. (2023, February 3). Diskshadow. Retrieved November 21, 2023.
5. Romain Dumont . (2022, September 21). Technical Analysis of Crytox Ransomware. Retrieved November 22, 2023.
6. Cybereason Nocturnus. (n.d.). Cybereason vs. BlackCat Ransomware. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
7. Steve Ranger. (2020, February 27). Ransomware victims thought their backups were safe. They were wrong. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
8. Brian Prince. (2014, June 20). Code Hosting Service Shuts Down After Cyber Attack. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
9. Spencer Gietzen. (n.d.). AWS Simple Storage Service S3 Ransomware Part 2: Prevention and Defense. Retrieved March 21, 2023.

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