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Yes. In an incident observed in the last week of July 2022, a ransomware operator used mhyprot2.sys, a kernel-mode anti-cheat driver associated with Genshin Impact, to terminate endpoint protection processes. The game did not need to be installed on the victim’s computer: the attacker brought the driver into the attack separately.
What happened in the reported attack
Trend Micro researchers Ryan Soliven and Hitomi Kimura published their analysis on August 24, 2022. They described the incident as the first malicious use of this driver they had observed—not as a measure of how often the technique occurs globally.
The reported chain began with a Windows installer masquerading as AVG security software. It dropped several files, including mhyprot2.sys, a helper executable, and ransomware. The helper loaded the driver and supplied a list of processes to terminate. The driver’s kernel-level access let the attacker stop endpoint protection processes before attempting ransomware deployment.
Trend Micro also described domain-level access and scripts used to stage or distribute components within the environment. Those actions are details of this case, not a template that applies to every attack using a vulnerable driver.
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Why an anti-cheat driver could disable security tools
mhyprot2.sys is a Windows kernel driver associated with Genshin Impact’s anti-cheat system. A kernel driver operates with highly privileged access. Trend Micro’s technical analysis describes capabilities including memory access and process termination from kernel context; in this incident, a malicious helper used the driver’s interface to request process termination.
The security concern is the privileged driver interface being repurposed by a malicious program. It does not mean the game client was involved in the victim’s infection. As the Trend Micro researchers put it: “Genshin Impact does not need to be installed on a victim’s device for this to work; the use of this driver is independent of the game.”
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What CVE-2020-36603 does—and does not—tell you
The CVE-2020-36603 advisory record concerns version 1.0.0.0 of the driver. It describes insufficient restrictions on unprivileged function calls that could allow local arbitrary code execution with SYSTEM privileges. The National Vulnerability Database lists a CVSS v3 score of 6.5 for that vulnerability record. That score is not a measurement of this ransomware incident’s impact, and the record should not be generalized to every version of the driver.
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Trend Micro reported in 2022 that the driver’s code-signing status remained valid at the time of its publication. That is a dated observation, not confirmation of the certificate’s present status. The available reporting also does not establish whether current Windows driver blocklists cover the relevant version or what remediation the game developer may have implemented since then.
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Does this mean installing Genshin Impact causes ransomware?
No. The reported attack does not show that installing or playing Genshin Impact caused the infection. The attacker could bring the driver to a victim device independently of the game. The issue described is malicious use of a privileged driver, not an infection mechanism triggered by ordinary gameplay.
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The case illustrates why a valid digital signature alone cannot establish that a driver is harmless. A signed driver with a vulnerable or powerful interface can still be abused when an attacker introduces it to a system. NCC-CSIRT recommends monitoring driver installation and investigating unexpected driver activity.
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- Apply driver policy: Where supported by the organization’s systems and policies, restrict or block vulnerable drivers that are not needed. Validate policy compatibility before broad deployment.
- Monitor driver and service activity: Review unexpected driver loads and service creation, especially when they occur alongside suspicious software installation or lateral movement.
- Investigate security-process termination: Treat unexpected stopping of endpoint protection as a potential incident signal, particularly when paired with unfamiliar drivers or helper executables.
These are layered defensive measures, not a guarantee against compromise. The cited advisories do not establish a single sufficient control or rank commercial security products by effectiveness.
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