sigmalowHunting

Virtualbox Driver Installation or Starting of VMs

Adversaries can carry out malicious operations using a virtual instance to avoid detection. This rule is built to detect the registration of the Virtualbox driver or start of a Virtualbox VM.

MITRE ATT&CK

T1564.006 T1564

defense-evasion

Detection Query

selection_1:
  CommandLine|contains:
    - VBoxRT.dll,RTR3Init
    - VBoxC.dll
    - VBoxDrv.sys
selection_2:
  CommandLine|contains:
    - startvm
    - controlvm
condition: 1 of selection_*

Author

Janantha Marasinghe

Created

2020-09-26

Data Sources

windowsProcess Creation Events

Platforms

windows

References

Tags

attack.defense-evasionattack.t1564.006attack.t1564

Raw Content

title: Virtualbox Driver Installation or Starting of VMs
id: bab049ca-7471-4828-9024-38279a4c04da
status: test
description: Adversaries can carry out malicious operations using a virtual instance to avoid detection. This rule is built to detect the registration of the Virtualbox driver or start of a Virtualbox VM.
references:
    - https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2020/05/21/ragnar-locker-ransomware-deploys-virtual-machine-to-dodge-security/
    - https://threatpost.com/maze-ransomware-ragnar-locker-virtual-machine/159350/
author: Janantha Marasinghe
date: 2020-09-26
modified: 2025-07-29
tags:
    - attack.defense-evasion
    - attack.t1564.006
    - attack.t1564
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection_1:
        CommandLine|contains:
            - 'VBoxRT.dll,RTR3Init'
            - 'VBoxC.dll'
            - 'VBoxDrv.sys'
    selection_2:
        CommandLine|contains:
            - 'startvm'
            - 'controlvm'
    condition: 1 of selection_*
falsepositives:
    - This may have false positives on hosts where Virtualbox is legitimately being used for operations
level: low