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Updating: Tracking Powershell Empire C2 via Urlscan

Medium
Published: Tue Feb 04 2020 (02/04/2020, 00:00:00 UTC)
Source: CIRCL
Vendor/Project: tlp
Product: white

Description

Updating: Tracking Powershell Empire C2 via Urlscan

AI-Powered Analysis

AILast updated: 07/02/2025, 08:59:28 UTC

Technical Analysis

The provided information pertains to tracking Command and Control (C2) infrastructure related to PowerShell Empire, a post-exploitation framework commonly used by threat actors for lateral movement, persistence, and data exfiltration within compromised networks. PowerShell Empire leverages PowerShell scripts to execute commands on victim machines, often bypassing traditional security controls. The mention of tracking via Urlscan.io indicates an OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) approach to monitor and identify malicious domains or URLs associated with PowerShell Empire C2 servers. Urlscan.io is a service that scans and indexes URLs, allowing analysts to detect suspicious or malicious web infrastructure. This tracking effort is not describing a new vulnerability or exploit but rather a method to observe and potentially disrupt botnet activity linked to PowerShell Empire. The threat is categorized as a botnet-related activity, with a medium severity level assigned, reflecting moderate risk primarily due to the potential for ongoing malicious operations if C2 servers remain active. No specific affected versions or patches are listed, and no known exploits in the wild are reported, indicating this is more an intelligence and monitoring update than a direct vulnerability or exploit notification.

Potential Impact

For European organizations, the presence of PowerShell Empire C2 infrastructure represents a significant risk if adversaries successfully deploy this framework within their networks. The impact includes unauthorized remote control of systems, data theft, lateral movement across internal networks, and potential disruption of services. Since PowerShell Empire is a post-exploitation tool, its use typically follows initial compromise, which means organizations already face a breach scenario. The ability to track C2 infrastructure via Urlscan.io can aid European cybersecurity teams in early detection and mitigation of ongoing attacks. However, if undetected, the threat could lead to loss of sensitive data, intellectual property theft, and operational downtime. The medium severity reflects that while the threat is serious, it requires initial compromise and does not exploit a new vulnerability directly, thus the risk can be managed with proper monitoring and incident response capabilities.

Mitigation Recommendations

European organizations should implement advanced monitoring of PowerShell activity within their environments, including logging and alerting on suspicious PowerShell commands and scripts. Network defenders should leverage threat intelligence feeds and OSINT tools like Urlscan.io to identify and block known malicious C2 domains and IP addresses associated with PowerShell Empire. Deploying endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions capable of detecting post-exploitation frameworks is critical. Organizations should enforce strict application whitelisting and PowerShell constrained language mode to limit unauthorized script execution. Regular threat hunting exercises focusing on lateral movement indicators and unusual network traffic patterns can help identify active C2 communications. Additionally, maintaining robust patch management and multi-factor authentication reduces the likelihood of initial compromise that enables PowerShell Empire deployment.

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Technical Details

Threat Level
2
Analysis
0
Original Timestamp
1580785351

Threat ID: 682acdbebbaf20d303f0c0c3

Added to database: 5/19/2025, 6:20:46 AM

Last enriched: 7/2/2025, 8:59:28 AM

Last updated: 8/15/2025, 11:18:36 AM

Views: 13

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