Ransomware doesn’t hit everything at once. It slowly overflows the defense in stages. Like a water-enclosed ship, the attack begins quietly beneath the surface, with subtle warning signs that are easy to miss. By the time encryption begins, it’s too late to stop the flood.
Each stage of a ransomware attack provides a small window to detect and stop threats before it’s too late. The problem is that most organizations are not monitoring early warning signs. It allows an attacker to quietly disable backups, escalate privileges, and avoid detection until encryption locks everything.
By the time you see your ransomware notes, your chances will no longer be available.
Let’s find out the stages of ransomware attacks, how to stay resilient while constantly changing the Indicator of Compromise (IOC), and why constant validation of defense is essential to staying resilient.
Three Stages of Ransomware Attacks – and How to Detect It
Ransomware attacks do not occur immediately. Attackers follow a structured approach and carefully plan and execute the campaign at three different stages.
1. Crystal pressure: lays the foundation
Before encryption begins, the attacker takes steps to maximize damage and avoid detection. They are:
Delete shadow copies and backups to prevent recovery. Inject malware into trusted processes to establish persistence. Create a mutex so that the ransomware runs uninterrupted.
These early stage activities, known as indicators of compromise (IOCs), are important warning signs. If detected within the time limit, security teams can disrupt the attack before encryption occurs.
2. Encryption: Lock out
When the attacker controls it, it begins the encryption process. Some ransomware variations work quickly and lock the system within minutes, while others take a stealth approach – they remain undetected until encryption is complete.
By the time encryption is discovered, it is often too late. Before a file is locked, the security tool must be able to detect and respond to ransomware activity.
3. After encryption: Ransom demand
When you encrypt a file, the attacker delivers the ultimate – often embedded in ransom notes or encrypted folders left on the desktop. They usually request payments in cryptocurrency and monitor victim responses via command and control (C2) channels.
At this stage, organizations face difficult decisions. In many cases, they either pay the ransom for a large cost or try to recover.
If you are not actively monitoring the IOC across all three stages, you are making your organization vulnerable. By emulating ransomware attack paths, continuous ransomware verification helps security teams ensure that detection and response systems are effectively detecting indicators before encryption takes hold.
Compromise Indicators (IOCS): What to watch out for
When you detect Shadow Copy deletion, process injection, or termination of security services, you may already be in the pre-encrypted stage, but detecting these IOCs is an important step to prevent the deployment of an attack.
The important IOCs to note are:
1. Delete Shadow Copy: Eliminate recovery options
The attacker erases the Windows Volume Shadow Copy to prevent file repair. These snapshots retain previous file versions and enable recovery via tools such as System Restore and previous versions.
corking how it works: ransomware runs a command like this
Powershell
Remove vssadmin.exe shadow
By wiping these backups, attackers ensure a lockdown of total data and put pressure on victims to pay ransom.
2. Creating mutex: Preventing multiple infections
A Mutex (mutual exclusion object) is a synchronization mechanism that allows only one process or thread to access a shared resource at a time. With ransomware you can get used to it like this:
Prevents multiple instances of malward malware from running.
Avoid detection by reducing redundant infections and reducing resource use.
Defience-style tricks: Some security tools preemptively create mutexs associated with known ransomware stocks, making the malware think it is already active, and self-terminated. You can use a ransomware validation tool to assess whether this response is triggered by incorporating a mutex into the ransomware attack chain.
3. Process Injection: Hidden within a trusted application
Ransomware often injects malicious code into legitimate system processes to bypass and bypass security controls.
🚩 Common injection techniques:
DLL Injection – Loads malicious code into a running process. Reflective DLL Load – Injects DLLs without burning to disk and bypasses antivirus scans. APC Injection – Uses asynchronous procedure calls to run malicious payloads within a trusted process.
By running within a trusted application, ransomware can run undetected encrypted files without triggering alarms.
4. Termination of service: Disabling security defenses
To ensure uninterrupted encryption and prevent attempts to recover data during an attack, the ransomware attempts to shut down security services such as:
✔ Antivirus & EDR (endpoint detection and response)
✔ Backup Agent
✔ Database System
How corks works: Attackers use administrative commands or APIs to disable services such as Windows Defender and Backup Solutions. for example:
Powershell
taskkill /f /im msmpeng.exe # Exit Windows Defender
This allows ransomware to encrypt files freely and amplify damage by making data recovery difficult. Apart from paying the ransom, the victims have fewer options.
IOCs such as Shadow Copy deletion and process injection may not be visible to traditional security tools, but SOCs with reliable detection can find these red flags before encryption begins.
Continuous ransom verification takes you a step ahead
The nature of the IOC is subtle and intentionally difficult to detect, so how do you know that XDR effectively carves them all into the buds? You hope that is the case, but security leaders will use continuous ransomware verification to make them much more certain than that. From initial access and privilege escalation to encryption attempts, by safely emulating a complete ransomware kill chain, tools like Pentera verify whether they trigger alerts and responses that require security controls, including EDR and XDR solutions. If no critical IOCs are detected, such as Shadow Copy deletion or process injection, it is a key flag to encourage security teams to fine-tune detection rules and response workflows.
Instead of hoping that your defenses will work as needed, continuous ransomware verification allows you to see if and how these attack indicators are being used and stop the attack.
Why annual tests are not enough
The reality is: Testing your defense once a year will expose you the other 364 days. Ransomware is constantly evolving, and so is the indicators of compromise (IOC) used in attacks. Can you say with certainty that your EDR is detecting all IOCs? The last thing you need to emphasize is that the threat is constantly changing to something your security tools are not aware of and ready to handle.
Therefore, continuous ransomware verification is essential. An automated process allows you to continually test your defenses and tackle the latest threats.
We believe that ongoing ransomware verification is either too expensive or time consuming. However, automated security testing can be seamlessly integrated into your security workflow without adding unnecessary overhead. This not only reduces the burden on your IT team, but also ensures that your defenses always match the latest attacking technology.
Strong ransom defense
A well-equipped detection and response system is the first line of defense. But without regular verification, even the best XDRs can have a hard time detecting and responding ransomware in time. Continuous security verification helps to enhance detection capabilities and boost SOC teams, ensuring that security controls respond effectively to and block threats. result? A more confident and resilient security team ready to handle ransomware before it becomes a crisis.
Do not wait for an attack attack to test your defense. For more information on ransomware verification, please join Pentera’s webinar, Lessons from the Past, Future Actions: Building Ransomware Resilience. 🚨
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