Agent skill

Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion

by mukul975 in mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills

Runs a hypothesis-driven threat hunt for Volume Shadow Copy deletion (T1490) by querying SIEM/EDR telemetry for vssadmin, wmic shadowcopy, and PowerShell shadow-copy-deletion commands.

Apache-2.0Auto-check passedSecurity

Install Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion

skills CLI
$ npx skills add mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills --skill hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion .claude/skills/hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion
GitHub stars
34k
Token cost
~891 tokens
SKILL.md length
300 words
Files
8 (incl. scripts, references, assets)
Skills in repo
644
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
Apache-2.0

At a glance

Runs a hypothesis-driven threat hunt for Volume Shadow Copy deletion (T1490) by querying SIEM/EDR telemetry for vssadmin, wmic shadowcopy, and PowerShell shadow-copy-deletion commands.

  • Works in 7 steps: Formulate Hypothesis: Define a testable… → Identify Data Sources: Determine which… → Execute Queries: Run detection queries… → …
  • Hunting for ransomware preparation
  • SKILL.md covers When to Use, Prerequisites, Workflow and Key Concepts, plus 3 more sections
  • Runs Python scripts from its folder

What it does

Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion is an agent skill from mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills. Runs a hypothesis-driven threat hunt for Volume Shadow Copy deletion (T1490) by querying SIEM/EDR telemetry for vssadmin, wmic shadowcopy, and PowerShell shadow-copy-deletion commands. Use when hunting for ransomware preparation or anti-forensics activity, after threat intel flags active campaigns, or when alerts trigger on shadow-copy deletion commands.

Its SKILL.md is about 890 tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 10 other files, including scripts, reference files and assets (for example `assets/template.md`, `references/api-reference.md` and `references/standards.md`).

It sits in Security, covering Security operations. It works with PowerShell. The repository describes itself as: 817 structured cybersecurity skills for AI agents · Mapped to 6 frameworks: MITRE ATT&CK, NIST CSF 2.0, MITRE ATLAS, D3FEND, NIST AI RMF & MITRE F3 (Fight Fraud) · agentskills.io…. The licence is Apache-2.0.

When your agent uses it

  • Hunting for ransomware preparation
  • Anti-forensics activity
  • After threat intel flags active campaigns
  • Alerts trigger on shadow-copy deletion commands

Example prompts

  • “/hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion”

Requirements

  • Python 3

Workflow steps

7 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

  1. Formulate Hypothesis: Define a testable hypothesis based on threat intelligence or ATT&CK gap analysis.
  2. Identify Data Sources: Determine which logs and telemetry are needed to validate or refute the hypothesis.
  3. Execute Queries: Run detection queries against SIEM and EDR platforms to collect relevant events.
  4. Analyze Results: Examine query results for anomalies, correlating across multiple data sources.
  5. Validate Findings: Distinguish true positives from false positives through contextual analysis.
  6. Correlate Activity: Link findings to broader attack chains and threat actor TTPs.
  7. Document and Report: Record findings, update detection rules, and recommend response actions.

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 54a7988. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    Ships 2 files in scripts/ (Python), which the agent can run.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion loads about 891 tokens when it runs, and up to ~2.4k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 97 tokens; SKILL.md has 300 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~97
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~891
With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them
~2.4k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); the scripts in this folder are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills at commit 54a7988, republished under its Apache-2.0 licence (© mukul975). 300 words, ~891 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 7 other files; get the full folder from GitHub.
name
hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion
description
Runs a hypothesis-driven threat hunt for Volume Shadow Copy deletion (T1490) by querying SIEM/EDR telemetry for vssadmin, wmic shadowcopy, and PowerShell shadow-copy-deletion commands. Use when hunting for ransomware preparation or anti-forensics activity, after threat intel flags active campaigns, or when alerts trigger on shadow-copy deletion commands.
domain
cybersecurity
subdomain
threat-hunting
tags
threat-hunting, mitre-attack, shadow-copy, ransomware, anti-forensics, t1490, proactive-detection
version
1.0
author
mahipal
license
Apache-2.0
d3fend_techniques
Platform Hardening, Restore Object, Restore Configuration, Restore Software, Software Update
nist_csf
DE.CM-01, DE.AE-02, DE.AE-07, ID.RA-05
mitre_attack
T1046, T1057, T1082, T1083, T1486

Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion

When to Use

  • When proactively hunting for indicators of hunting for shadow copy deletion in the environment
  • After threat intelligence indicates active campaigns using these techniques
  • During incident response to scope compromise related to these techniques
  • When EDR or SIEM alerts trigger on related indicators
  • During periodic security assessments and purple team exercises

Prerequisites

  • EDR platform with process and network telemetry (CrowdStrike, MDE, SentinelOne)
  • SIEM with relevant log data ingested (Splunk, Elastic, Sentinel)
  • Sysmon deployed with comprehensive configuration
  • Windows Security Event Log forwarding enabled
  • Threat intelligence feeds for IOC correlation

Workflow

  1. Formulate Hypothesis: Define a testable hypothesis based on threat intelligence or ATT&CK gap analysis.
  2. Identify Data Sources: Determine which logs and telemetry are needed to validate or refute the hypothesis.
  3. Execute Queries: Run detection queries against SIEM and EDR platforms to collect relevant events.
  4. Analyze Results: Examine query results for anomalies, correlating across multiple data sources.
  5. Validate Findings: Distinguish true positives from false positives through contextual analysis.
  6. Correlate Activity: Link findings to broader attack chains and threat actor TTPs.
  7. Document and Report: Record findings, update detection rules, and recommend response actions.

Key Concepts

ConceptDescription
T1490Inhibit System Recovery
T1486Data Encrypted for Impact
T1485Data Destruction

Tools & Systems

ToolPurpose
CrowdStrike FalconEDR telemetry and threat detection
Microsoft Defender for EndpointAdvanced hunting with KQL
Splunk EnterpriseSIEM log analysis with SPL queries
Elastic SecurityDetection rules and investigation timeline
SysmonDetailed Windows event monitoring
VelociraptorEndpoint artifact collection and hunting
Sigma RulesCross-platform detection rule format

Common Scenarios

  1. Scenario 1: Ransomware deleting shadow copies before encryption
  2. Scenario 2: vssadmin delete shadows /all /quiet pre-encryption
  3. Scenario 3: WMIC shadowcopy delete via PowerShell
  4. Scenario 4: bcdedit disabling recovery mode before impact

Output Format

Hunt ID: TH-HUNTIN-[DATE]-[SEQ]
Technique: T1490
Host: [Hostname]
User: [Account context]
Evidence: [Log entries, process trees, network data]
Risk Level: [Critical/High/Medium/Low]
Confidence: [High/Medium/Low]
Recommended Action: [Containment, investigation, monitoring]

© mukul975, Apache-2.0. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 7 other files (scripts, references, assets) in skills/hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion of mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills.

  • SKILL.md
  • LICENSE
  • assets/template.md
  • references/api-reference.md
  • references/standards.md
  • references/workflows.md
  • scripts/agent.py
  • scripts/process.py

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 54a7988

Compare with similar skills

Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion this skillmukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills34k—~891Automated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Threat Huntingbriiirussell/cybersecurity-skills413—~2.9kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT
Windows Log Hunterptn1411/skill219—~1kAutomated safety check: NotesNone
Security Alert Triageelastic/agent-skills5921 repos~3.5kAutomated safety check: NotesApache-2.0
Kubernetes Network Security Auditkubeshark/kubeshark12k—~7.3kAutomated safety check: NotesApache-2.0
Security Detection Rule Managementelastic/agent-skills5921 repos~3.9kAutomated safety check: NotesApache-2.0

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Works with

Categories

Questions about Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion

What does Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion do?

Runs a hypothesis-driven threat hunt for Volume Shadow Copy deletion (T1490) by querying SIEM/EDR telemetry for vssadmin, wmic shadowcopy, and PowerShell shadow-copy-deletion commands. Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion is an agent skill from mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills. Runs a hypothesis-driven threat hunt for Volume Shadow Copy deletion (T1490) by querying SIEM/EDR telemetry for vssadmin, wmic shadowcopy, and PowerShell shadow-copy-deletion commands.

When should I use Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion?

Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion fits situations like: hunting for ransomware preparation; anti-forensics activity; after threat intel flags active campaigns; alerts trigger on shadow-copy deletion commands.

How do I install Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills --skill hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion in mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills) into .claude/skills/hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion in Codex?

Run `npx skills add mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills --skill hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion in mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills) into .agents/skills/hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills --skill hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion, .gemini/skills/hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion, .github/skills/hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion and .opencode/skills/hunting-for-shadow-copy-deletion in your project.

What does Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion need to run?

Going by SKILL.md and its folder, Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion needs Python for the scripts in its folder. Our summary lists: Python 3.

Does Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. The check reads SKILL.md only: the scripts in the folder are not scanned, so read them before running anything.

What licence does Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion use?

Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion is published under the Apache-2.0 licence (declared in SKILL.md). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion use?

About 891 tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 3.6k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full. Its references folder adds about 1.5k tokens, read only when the agent opens those files.

What are the alternatives to Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion: Threat Hunting (briiirussell/cybersecurity-skills, 413 stars), Windows Log Hunter (ptn1411/skill, 219 stars), Security Alert Triage (elastic/agent-skills, 592 stars) and Kubernetes Network Security Audit (kubeshark/kubeshark, 12k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Hunting For Shadow Copy Deletion?

mukul975 (a GitHub user) maintains it in mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills, which has 34,116 GitHub stars. The repository holds 644 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on August 31, 2026.

Source: mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.