Will the real KMSPico please stand up? Cryptbot stealer, the stowawayĬryptbot has a long history of deployment via various means from adversaries, and it harms organizations by stealing credentials and other sensitive information from affected systems. Legitimate activation on Windows is the only method supported by Microsoft. KMSPico and other non-official KMS activators circumvent Microsoft licenses and are a form of pirated software, posing a non-trivial risk to organizations.

In fact, we even experienced one ill-fated incident response engagement where our IR partner could not remediate one environment due to the organization not having a single valid Windows license in the environment.

We’ve observed several IT departments using KMSPico instead of legitimate Microsoft licenses to activate systems. Alongside the difficulty in finding a clean download, the disabling instructions prepare unwitting victims to receive malware. Since multiple antimalware vendors detect license circumvention software as a potentially unwanted program (PUP), KMSPico is often distributed with disclaimers and instructions to disable antimalware products before installing. In the best cases when someone gets the real installer, it’s only used for license circumvention. KMSPico, on the other hand, emulates a KMS server locally on the affected system to fraudulently activate the endpoint’s license.Įven when KMSPico isn’t tainted with malware, it’s not legitimate software either. Under normal circumstances, enterprises using legitimate KMS licensing install a KMS server in a central location and use Group Policy Objects (GPO) to configure clients to communicate with it. It takes advantage of Windows Key Management Services (KMS), a legitimate technology introduced to license Microsoft products in bulk across enterprise networks. KMSPico is a tool used to activate the full features of Microsoft Windows and Office products without actually owning a license key. We included the malware analysis of KMSPico in a seperate PDF to supplement the information outlined here. This article outlines what KMSPico is and how it relates to Cryptbot. In one recent case, we detected a system infected by Cryptbot malware designed to steal credentials and traced that infection back to a fake KMSPico installer. We’ve seen lots of systems fall victim to malware infection because users installed cracked software and assumed it was just cracked software. Digital piracy can be a rough lifestyle choice, due in large part to the disreputable sources for cracked software and the exploits used to activate paid features.

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