In early October 2025, Microsoft disrupted a Vanilla Tempest campaign by revoking over 200 certificates that the threat actor had fraudulently signed and used in fake Teams setup files to deliver the Oyster backdoor and ultimately deploy Rhysida ransomware.
We identified this Vanilla Tempest campaign in late September 2025, following several months of the threat actor using fraudulently signed binaries in attacks. In addition to revoking certificates, Microsoft Defender Antivirus detects the fake setup files, Oyster backdoor, and Rhysida ransomware, and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint detects Vanilla Tempest TTPs.
Vanilla Tempest, tracked by other security vendors as VICE SPIDER and Vice Society, is a financially motivated actor that focuses on deploying ransomware and exfiltrating data for extortion. The threat actor has used various ransomware payloads, including BlackCat, Quantum Locker, and Zeppelin, but more recently has been primarily deploying Rhysida ransomware.
In this campaign, Vanilla Tempest used fake MSTeamsSetup.exe files hosted on malicious domains mimicking Microsoft Teams, for example, teams-download[.]buzz, teams-install[.]run, or teams-download[.]top. Users are likely directed to malicious download sites using search engine optimization (SEO) poisoning.
Running the fake Microsoft Teams setups delivered a loader, which in turn delivered a fraudulently signed Oyster backdoor. Vanilla Tempest has incorporated Oyster into their attacks as early as June 2025, but they started fraudulently signing these backdoors in early September 2025.
To fraudulently sign the fake installers and post-compromise tools, Vanilla Tempest was observed using Trusted Signing, as well as SSL[.]com, DigiCert, and GlobalSign code signing services.
Fully enabled Microsoft Defender Antivirus blocks this threat. In addition to detections, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has additional guidance for mitigating and investigating this attack. While these protections help secure our customers, we’re sharing this intelligence broadly to help strengthen defenses and improve resilience across the entire cybersecurity community.
ALT The text "Vanilla Tempest" and the icon for financially motivated threat actors in white against a blue background.