In short: Anubis attackers follow identifiable patterns during initial access that can be detected early through monitoring of CVE exploitation and remote tool abuse.
Anubis affiliates attack via known vulnerabilities and legitimate remote access tools. Arctic Wolf has documented recurring patterns in the attack chain that enable detection and defense.
The Anubis ransomware campaign uses two primary vectors for initial network access: exploitation of known vulnerabilities in Citrix systems (CVE-2023-4966 and related) and abuse of legitimate remote access tools such as VPN clients and Remote Desktop Protocol. According to Arctic Wolf’s findings, these initial accesses do not occur randomly but follow structured patterns.
For security professionals, this is relevant: these patterns make it possible to interrupt the attack chain early — before attackers perform lateral movement or initiate encryption. Attack preparation typically consists of enumeration, credential harvesting, and persistence mechanisms that become visible in logs, VPN connections, and proxy traffic.
Concrete measures include prioritizing patches for vulnerabilities in Citrix and similarly critical remote access systems, monitoring suspicious access to VPN and RDP systems, and implementing downstream detection signatures for known post-compromise activities (process injection, lateral movement tools). A combination of patch management, network segmentation, and endpoint detection and response is required to stop attackers between initial access and ransomware deployment.
Source: www.security-insider.de · Published July 14, 2026
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