Stealth / T1497.003
Time Based Checks
Sub-technique / Enterprise ATT&CK
Official MITRE entryAdversaries may employ various time-based methods to detect virtualization and analysis environments, particularly those that attempt to manipulate time mechanisms to simulate longer elapses of time. This may include enumerating time-based properties, such as uptime or the system clock.
Adversaries may use calls like GetTickCount and GetSystemTimeAsFileTime to discover if they are operating within a virtual machine or sandbox, or may be able to identify a sandbox accelerating time by sampling and calculating the expected value for an environment's timestamp before and after execution of a sleep function.(Citation: ISACA Malware Tricks)
Parent technique: T1497 Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion