Wiper

Attackers, including ransomware families like Conti and Cactus, and wipers such as BiBi, abuse the legitimate Windows `RstrtMgr.dll` (Restart Manager) by loading it into uncommon processes to terminate applications, including security software and those holding locks on files, facilitating data encryption or destruction.

GigaWiper is a sophisticated, Golang-based destructive backdoor observed since October 2025 by Microsoft Threat Intelligence, that combines robust command-and-control (C2) capabilities with multiple destructive payloads, including physical disk wiping, ransomware-like encryption derived from Crucio, and multi-pass secure wiping reimplemented from FlockWiper.

ESET's APT Activity Report for Q4 2025 and Q1 2026 highlights diverse campaigns by China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia-aligned threat actors, including espionage, supply chain compromise, and destructive attacks.

VECT 2.0 ransomware, a RaaS offering, permanently destroys large files due to an encryption flaw, discarding decryption nonces for files above 128 KB, rendering them unrecoverable and effectively acting as a wiper; it uses raw ChaCha20-IETF with no authentication.

TeamPCP's CanisterWorm is a newly identified Kubernetes wiper targeting Iranian infrastructure, indicating a politically motivated destructive attack.

Detection of processes accessing raw disk volumes outside of normal system paths, often associated with wiper malware and boot sector attacks.

A suspicious process recursively deleting executable files (e.g., .exe, .sys, .dll) indicates potential data destruction activity, detected via high-volume file deletion/overwrite events associated with destructive malware families like CaddyWiper and SwiftSlicer.