Akira, a ransomware operation responsible for 1517 recorded attacks across 67 countries, has targeted sectors like manufacturing and business services worldwide.
Who Akira is
The Akira ransomware group is said to have emerged in March 2023, and there's much speculation about its ties to the former CONTI ransomware group. It's worth noting that with the end of CONTI's operation, several affiliates migrated to independent campaigns such as Royal, BlackBasta, and others. According to some reports, Akira affiliates also work with other ransomware operations, such as Snatch and BlackByte, as an open directory of tools used by an Akira operator was identified, which also had connections to the Snatch ransomware. The first version of the Akira ransomware was written in C++ and appended files with the '.akira' extension, creating a ransom note named 'akira_readme.txt,' partially based on the Conti V2 source code. However, on June 29, 2023, a decryptor for this version was reportedly released by Avast. Subsequently, a version was released that fixed the decryption fla
Recorded activity
Disclosures attributed to Akira in this database run from January 2024 to October 2026, totalling 1,522 victims — 6.5% of everything tracked here. Akira has listed victims in 67 countries in this database, most often United States, followed by Canada and Germany. The sectors appearing most in its listings are Manufacturing, Business Services, Technology.
How Akira is documented to operate
Valid Accounts
T1078
Stealth
Persistence
Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of existing accounts as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Compromised credentials may be used to bypass access controls placed on various resources on systems within the network and may even be used for persistent access to remote systems and externally available services, such as VPNs, Outlook Web Access, network devices, and remote desktop. Compromised credentials may also grant an adversary increased privilege to specific systems or access to restricted areas of the network.
Mitigations:
Application Developer Guidance, User Training, Password Policies, User Account Management, Privileged Account Management, Multi-factor Authentication
MITRE ATT&CK reference
External Remote Services
T1133
Persistence
Initial Access
Adversaries may leverage external-facing remote services to initially access and/or persist within a network. Remote services such as VPNs, Citrix, and other access mechanisms allow users to connect to internal enterprise network resources from external locations. There are often remote service gateways that manage connections and credential authentication for these services. Services such as Windows Remote Management and VNC can also be used externally. Access to Valid Accounts to use the service is often a requirement, which could be obtained through credential pharming or by obtaining the credentials from users after compromising the enterprise network.
Mitigations:
Limit Access to Resource Over Network, Restrict Web-Based Content, Network Segmentation, Multi-factor Authentication, Disable or Remove Feature or Program
MITRE ATT&CK reference
Exploit Public-Facing Application
T1190
Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network. The weakness in the system can be a software bug, a temporary glitch, or a misconfiguration. Exploited applications are often websites/web servers, but can also include databases (like SQL), standard services (like SMB or SSH), network device administration and management protocols (like SNMP and Smart Install), and any other system with Internet-accessible open sockets. On ESXi infrastructure, adversaries may exploit exposed OpenSLP services; they may alternatively exploit exposed VMware vCenter servers.
Mitigations:
Vulnerability Scanning, Limit Access to Resource Over Network, Filter Network Traffic, Network Segmentation, Privileged Account Management, Application Isolation and Sandboxing
MITRE ATT&CK reference
Windows Management Instrumentation
T1047
Execution
Adversaries may abuse Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to execute malicious commands and payloads. WMI is designed for programmers and is the infrastructure for management data and operations on Windows systems. WMI is an administration feature that provides a uniform environment to access Windows system components. The WMI service enables both local and remote access, though the latter is facilitated by Remote Services such as Distributed Component Object Model and Windows Remote Management. Remote WMI over DCOM operates using port 135, whereas WMI over WinRM operates over port 5985 when using HTTP and 5986 for HTTPS.
Mitigations:
Execution Prevention, Behavior Prevention on Endpoint, User Account Management, Privileged Account Management
MITRE ATT&CK reference
Command and Scripting Interpreter
T1059
Execution
Adversaries may abuse command and script interpreters to execute commands, scripts, or binaries. These interfaces and languages provide ways of interacting with computer systems and are a common feature across many different platforms. Most systems come with some built-in command-line interface and scripting capabilities, for example, macOS and Linux distributions include some flavor of Unix Shell while Windows installations include the Windows Command Shell and PowerShell. There are also cross-platform interpreters such as Python, as well as those commonly associated with client applications such as JavaScript and Visual Basic.
Mitigations:
Restrict Web-Based Content, Limit Software Installation, Execution Prevention, Code Signing, Behavior Prevention on Endpoint, Privileged Account Management
MITRE ATT&CK reference
MITRE ATT&CK techniques attributed to Akira across its recorded activity. They describe the group overall, not any single incident.
Vulnerabilities Akira is recorded exploiting
8 of these 8 are in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, 8 of them recorded by CISA as used in ransomware campaigns. CVEs attributed to Akira in threat intelligence reporting. Patching these does not by itself rule the group out, and their presence here is not evidence of how any single organisation was reached.
Tooling observed in Akira operations
- DonPAPI
- LaZagne
- Mimikatz
- PowerTool
- ThrottleStop driver
- Zemana Anti-Rootkit driver
- Advanced IP Scanner
- Advanced Port Scanner
- Bloodhound
- Masscan
- ReconFTW
- ShareFinder
Software reported in use by Akira. Most are legitimate administration or transfer utilities; their presence in an environment is a signal to investigate, not proof of compromise.
Indicators of compromise
- 083740c55d0a459674457b8551ed9c6a
- 1a7df536c3bb676a6f90af5b3bea5302
- 4d43e35962c8c7fdca5f64da8f561f5a
- f17b6cdcbac9462f01da65bd4f8636db
- 27182f9017d8e4212fbc32e954e19d37
- ab359be0ab33876eb32325706e43f0c1
- b55fbe9358dd4b5825ce459e84cd0823ecdf7b64550fe1af968306047b7de5c9
- c9c94ac5e1991a7db42c7973e328fceeb6f163d9f644031bdfd4123c7b3898b0
- 0c0e0f9b09b80d87ebc88e2870907b6cacb4cd7703584baf8f2be1fd9438696d
- 95477703e789e6182096a09bc98853e0a70b680a4f19fa2bf86cbb9280e8ec5a
- e3fa93dad8fb8c3a6d9b35d02ce97c22035b409e0efc9f04372f4c1d6280a481
- 78d75669390e4177597faf9271ce3ad3a16a3652e145913dbfa9a5951972fcb0
- 193.242.184.180
Showing a sample of 60 MD5, 37 SHA256, 1 IP on file. Hashes and network indicators published for Akira. Leak-site addresses are deliberately excluded. Indicators age quickly — treat a match as a starting point for investigation, and an absence of matches as no assurance.
YARA detection rules
Akira.yar
/*
Akira ransomware
*/
rule Akira
{
meta:
author = "rivitna"
family = "ransomware.akira.windows"
description = "Akira ransomware Windows payload"
severity = 10
score = 100
strings:
$s0 = "\x00--encryption_path\x00" ascii wide
$s1 = "\x00--share_file\x00" ascii wide
$s2 = "\x00--encryption_percent\x00" ascii wide
$s3 = "\x00-fork\x00" ascii
$s4 = "\x00-localonly\x00" ascii wide
$s5 = "\x00Failed to read share files\x00" ascii wide
$s6 = ":\\akira\\asio\\include\\" ascii
$s7 = "\x00write_encrypt_info error: \x00" ascii
$s8 = "\x00encrypt_part error: \x00" ascii
$s9 = "\x00Detected number of cpus = \x00" ascii
$s10 = "\x00No path to encrypt\x00" ascii
$s11 = "Paste this link - https://akira" ascii
$s12 = "\x00Trend Micro\x00" wide
$s13 = "Failed to make full encrypt" ascii wide
$s14 = "Failed to make spot encrypt" ascii wide
$s15 = "Failed to make part encrypt" ascii wide
$s16 = "Failed to write header" ascii wide
$s17 = "file rename failed. System error:" ascii wide
$s18 = "Number of thread to folder parsers = \x00" ascii
$s19 = "Number of threads to encrypt = \x00" ascii
$s20 = "Number of thread to root folder parsers = \x00" ascii
$s21 = "Failed to read share files!\x00" ascii
$h0 = { 41 BA 05 00 00 00 41 80 FB 32 44 0F 42 D0 33 D2 48 8B C?
49 F7 F2 4C 8B C8
( B? 02 00 00 00 [0-4] 41 B? 04 00 00 00 |
41 B? 04 00 00 00 [0-4] B? 02 00 00 00 )
41 80 FB 32 44 0F 42 C? 41 8B C8 4? 0F AF C? 48 2B F9 33 D2
48 8B C7 49 F7 F2 }
$h1 = { C7 45 ?? 03 00 00 00 80 7D ?? 31 76 07 C7 45 ?? 05 00 00 00
0F B6 45 ?? 48 0F AF 45 ?? 48 C1 E8 02
48 B? C3 F5 28 5C 8F C2 F5 28 48 F7 E? 48 89 ?? 48 C1 E8 02 }
condition:
(((uint16(0) == 0x5A4D) and (uint32(uint32(0x3C)) == 0x00004550)) or
(uint32(0) == 0x464C457F)) and
(
(7 of ($s*)) or
(1 of ($h*))
)
}
Community-contributed rules for Akira, reproduced as published. Test them against your own corpus before relying on them: rule quality and false-positive behaviour vary by author.
