What is peculiar about this file is it is a variant of the open-source MicroBackdoor, a backdoor allowing an attacker to browse the file system, upload and download files, execute commands and remove itself from the system (Figure 13). As the threat actor would normally have a foothold into the network prior to ransomware deployment, it raises the question of why this backdoor is part of the ransomware execution. One possibility is that it is used to monitor ransomed systems for blue team and incident response (IR) activity, though even in that case it is unusual to see offensive tools dropped at this point in the infection.