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Digital Forensics: AnyDesk – Favorite Tool of APTs
Welcome back, digital investigators!
AnyDesk was first introduced around 2014, and it very quickly became a popular RMM tool. It’s lightweight and easy to deploy. Those same qualities also made it attractive to hackers and APTs. Over the last several years, it’s become one of the preferred tools for maintaining persistent access to compromised systems.
Given that many admins use it legitimately, it’s common to find on corporate machines. All the hacker needs to do is gain access to the endpoint, change the AnyDesk password or configure a new access profile. This persistence often goes unnoticed for weeks or months. During that time the hacker can come and go as they please. Many organizations don’t monitor RMM logs at all, even when they have a mature SOC in place. We’ve seen companies with large infrastructures and centralized logging completely ignore AnyDesk connections. That gives hackers time to get ready for a ransomware attack.
We also see hackers modifying registry settings so the accessibility button at the Windows login screen opens a CMD prompt with the highest privileges. We showed this in our “PowerShell for Hackers – Basics” article.
If you want to see how widespread this abuse is, look at recent reports on Russia.
Kaspersky has documented incidents where AnyDesk was used by hacktivists and ransomware groups during their operations. In the ICS-CERT reporting for Q4 2024, for example, Crypt Ghouls relied on Mimikatz, PingCastle, Resocks, AnyDesk, and PsExec. In Q3 2024, BlackJack used AnyDesk, Radmin, PuTTY and tunneling with ngrok for persistence across Russian government, telecom and ICS. And that’s just a glimpse of it.
With that in mind, we want to show you how to investigate a computer that was compromised through AnyDesk.
Log Files
Today we’ll focus on log files that can help you determine whether there’s been unauthorized access. These logs can show the hacker’s AnyDesk ID, their display name, their OS and IP address. The logs can also show whether there were attempts to upload files or exfiltrate them.
During incident response this insight is already valuable. On top of that, collecting these logs and ingesting them into your SIEM can help you generate alerts on night-time access.
Here are the log files and full paths that you will need for this analysis:
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\AnyDesk\ad.trace
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\AnyDesk\connection_trace.txt
C:\ProgramData\AnyDesk\ad_svc.trace
C:\ProgramData\AnyDesk\connection_trace.txtAnyDesk can be used in two distinct ways. The first is as a portable executable. In that case, the user runs the program directly without installing it. When used this way, the logs are stored under the user’s AppData directory. The second way is to install AnyDesk as a service. When AnyDesk runs as a service, ProgramData will contain trace files. The AppData folder will still hold the ad.trace file. Together these files form the basis for your investigation.
Connection Log Timestamps
The connection_trace.txt logs are readable and give you a record of successful AnyDesk connections. Here is an example with a randomized AnyDesk ID:
Incoming 2025-07-25, 12:10 User 568936153 568936153The real AnyDesk ID has been redacted. The log shows there was a successful inbound connection on 2025-07-25 at 12:10 UTC from the AnyDesk ID. This only confirms that remote access happened, but we can dig deeper using the other logs.
Finding Information About the Hacker
Now we can try to understand who the hacker might be. Although names, IDs and OS can be changed by the attacker at any time, patterns still exist. Most don’t constantly change their display name unless they are extremely paranoid. Even then, the timestamps do not lie. Remote logins occurring repeatedly in the middle of the night are a strong indicator of unauthorized access.
We will work primarily with the ad.trace and ad_svc.trace files. These logs are noisy, so it’s better to search for specific keywords:
PS > get-content .\ad.trace | select-string -list 'Remote OS', 'Incoming session', 'app.prepare_task', 'anynet.relay', 'anynet.any_socket', 'files', 'text offers' | tee adtrace.logPS > get-content .\ad_svc.trace | select-string -list 'Remote OS', 'Incoming session', 'app.prepare_task', 'anynet.relay', 'anynet.any_socket', 'files', 'text offers' | tee adsvc.logWe filtered out only the most interesting lines and saved them into adtrace.log and adsvc.log
IP Address
In many cases, the ad_svc.trace log contains the external IP address from which the hacker connected. “Logged in from” has the IP next to it, while “Accepting from” has the AnyDesk ID. These values were redacted.
Once you have the IP, you can block it and remove the app from the host if it’s not necessary. Many of these unauthorized connections originate from VPN servers, of course.
Name & OS Information
Inside ad.trace you will find the hacker’s display name after “Incoming session request”. Right next to that field you will see their AnyDesk ID. You may also see references to the hacker’s operating system.
Here the connection came from a Linux machine and they’d set their display name to “IT Dep” in an attempt to look legitimate.
Data Exfiltration
AnyDesk also supports file transfer both ways. Hackers can upload malware or exfiltrate sensitive company data directly through the session. In the ad.trace logs you will sometimes see references such as “Preparing files in …” which indicate file operations were taking place.
This line alone does not always tell you what exact files were transferred, especially if the hacker worked out of temporary directories. However, correlating those timestamps with Windows forensic artifacts can show exactly what the hacker copied.
In our case, files stored in the Documents folder were exfiltrated.
Summary
Given how widespread AnyDesk is, you should always treat its logs as high priority artifacts. AnyDesk is one RMM tool, and there are plenty more out there being actively abused for persistence. Make sure their logs are consistently collected and ingested into your SIEM so you can spot suspicious activity outside business hours.
If you’re interested in digital forensics, we recommend our training for both beginners and those looking to advance their forensic skills.
Our team also provides digital forensics services. If you need any support during an investigation, we’re always happy to help. Contact us at hackers-arise@protonmail.com
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