In November 2015, we released our first in-house macOS sandbox, Box of Apples, followed by an update in March 2018 that introduced HTML behavior reports, desktop screenshots, and process trees. Over the past decade, the macOS ecosystem and the threat landscape targeting it have changed dramatically. Apple transitioned its hardware architecture from Intel (x86_64) to Apple Silicon (ARM64), hardened its operating system security model, and deprecated legacy dynamic tracing mechanisms. At the same time, macOS threat actors have shifted toward native ARM64 binaries, multi-stage social engineering installers, credential-harvesting AppleScripts, and evasive infostealers.

Today, we are excited to introduce macOS Mirage, our brand-new, ground-up dynamic analysis sandbox built natively for Apple Silicon and macOS 26. macOS Mirage replaces Box of Apples as part of the VirusTotal Multi-Sandbox project, delivering high-fidelity behavioral telemetry, automated Sigma behavioral detections mapped to MITRE ATT&CK, and—exclusively within our Private Scanning product offering—full Interactive Live Analysis.

Why We Built macOS Mirage: Beyond Box of Apples

Box of Apples was designed for an era of Intel-based Macs and relied on dtrace scripts to monitor system calls. As macOS evolved, two structural shifts required a completely new approach:

1. Native Apple Silicon (ARM64) Execution: Modern macOS applications and malware families are compiled natively for Apple Silicon or distributed as Universal Mach-O binaries. Running modern samples on legacy Intel hardware either fails outright or misses architecture-specific execution paths. macOS Mirage runs natively on bare-metal Apple Silicon hardware with Apple's native virtualization stack and macOS 26, ensuring authentic execution fidelity.
2. Modern Kernel-Backed Behavioral Telemetry: In modern macOS releases, System Integrity Protection (SIP) restricts legacy dtrace hooks, and high syscall volumes could cause event drops. macOS Mirage uses modern, kernel-supported macOS security instrumentation to capture process creation, command-line arguments, file system modifications, persistence installation, and access to sensitive credential stores without losing events.

Rich GUI Execution and Persistence Tracking

Many macOS samples package their payloads inside disk images (.dmg) or application bundles (.app) that initialize graphical windows, register background services, or trigger system notifications during execution. macOS Mirage provides full graphics acceleration and desktop monitoring, capturing both visual screenshots and underlying system modifications in real time.

Figure 1: Dynamic detonation of a macOS application in macOS Mirage, capturing both the application GUI and a macOS system notification alerting to a newly registered persistent background Login Item.

Figure 2: Full window management, 3D rendering, and Dock process tracking inside macOS Mirage.

In addition to capturing screenshots to show what a user would see on screen, macOS Mirage automatically monitors security-sensitive locations across the operating system, including:

• Persistence Mechanisms: LaunchAgents, LaunchDaemons, Login Items, and cron jobs.
• Shell & Environment Profiles: Modifications to .zshrc, .bashrc, .zshenv, and /etc/profile.
• Credential & Privacy Stores: Unauthorized access to Keychain databases (login.keychain-db), browser cookie and credential stores, SSH keys, and the Transparency, Consent, and Control (TCC.db) database.
• System & Network Configuration: Changes to /etc/hosts, /etc/resolv.conf, and /private/etc/sudoers.

New Behavioral Detections with Sigma Rules: Catching a macOS Info-Stealer in Action

To help analysts quickly identify malicious behavior without sifting through thousands of raw file and process events, macOS Mirage evaluates runtime telemetry against a curated library of macOS Sigma rules and maps every detection directly to MITRE ATT&CK techniques.

Let's look at a real-world example of a macOS info-stealer and credential-phishing sample analyzed by macOS Mirage on VirusTotal: be77bca22f078d57058535ddcf26a39a752a8df030392cb45ba6a60e06651878

When executed inside macOS Mirage, the binary (unix51436504) performs a multi-stage credential theft and persistence chain:

1. AppleScript Password Phishing: The malware invokes /usr/bin/osascript to display a deceptive system prompt titled "Password Request" asking the user: "Please enter device password to continue."
2. Local Credential Validation & LaunchDaemon Persistence: It validates the harvested password against local Directory Services (dscl . authonly) and invokes sudo -S to copy /tmp/daemonplist to /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.somedaemon.plist.
3. Keychain, Browser & Notes Harvesting: The sample opens the user's Keychain (/Users/admin/Library/Keychains/login.keychain-db), Safari cookies (Cookies.binarycookies), Apple Notes database (NoteStore.sqlite), SSH keys (authorized_keys, known_hosts), and .zsh_history, staging the stolen files under /tmp/lksopo while continuously polling the clipboard via pbpaste.
4. Secondary Payload Download, Exfiltration & Cleanup: Using ditto, the malware compresses the staging directory into /tmp/lksopo.zip, exfiltrates the archive via an HTTP POST request (curl -X POST), downloads a secondary bot payload (curl -o /tmp/binaryexe), and deletes the staging directory (rm -rf /tmp/lksopo) to cover its tracks.

Figure 3: macOS Mirage screenshot capturing the deceptive AppleScript "Password Request" phishing dialog displayed by sample be77bca22f078d57058535ddcf26a39a752a8df030392cb45ba6a60e06651878.

From this single detonation, macOS Mirage automatically generates a high-confidence malicious verdict (macos_osascript_credential_phishing) and triggers 7 distinct Sigma rules spanning the entire attack lifecycle:

Hunting Related Threats with VirusTotal Intelligence Pivots

At the time of analysis, sample be77bca22f078d57058535ddcf26a39a752a8df030392cb45ba6a60e06651878 was detected by only 6 out of 76 static antivirus engines. Moreover, during execution inside macOS Mirage, the first-stage dropper downloaded and executed a 12.9 MB universal Mach-O second-stage bot (f7dcdc4167ec267aef007f9d5f98e9e0314185e5355effd3e304b6fa686ea84c) alongside a LaunchDaemon persistence property list (d7dd630f67e03d2945185838dca887211ea3693c91fc0bd0d2e257948bb3b678, 0/75 AV detections). When that second-stage binary is detonated in isolation, it exits in under a second because it depends on hidden state files (~/.bhost, ~/.phost, ~/.username, ~/.pwd) written to disk by the first-stage dropper. Because macOS Mirage tracks the full multi-stage process tree on macOS 26, analysts can pivot directly on runtime command lines, dropped artifacts, network URI patterns, and Sigma detections across VirusTotal Intelligence to uncover entire clusters of active macOS campaigns. For a complete reference of supported file and behavior query syntax, see the VirusTotal Search Modifiers Full List.

1. Process & Command-Line Pivots (behaviour_processes)

• Custom Exfiltration curl Headers: Hunts samples exfiltrating staged archives with custom buildid: and username: HTTP headers across rotating C2 servers: behaviour_processes:"curl -X POST -H buildid:"
• AppleScript Phishing Dialog Variable: Pinpoints samples spawning osascript with the passwen password dialog variable: behaviour_processes:"set passwen to display dialog"
• Second-Stage Bot Payload Delivery: Matches command lines downloading the persistent implant from /web/bot: behaviour_processes:"/web/bot"
• Staging Archive Compression via ditto: Identifies Mach-O stealers compressing harvested credentials in /tmp/ using Apple's ditto utility: behaviour_processes:"ditto -c -k --sequesterRsrc /tmp/" type:macho

2. Dropped File & Hidden State File Pivots (behaviour_files)

• Hidden Bot C2 Configuration in $HOME: Finds samples writing hidden bot configuration files (~/.bhost, ~/.phost, ~/.botid) into the user's home directory: behaviour_files:".bhost"
• Hidden Second-Stage Bot Executable: Matches samples dropping the persistent second-stage payload to $HOME/.binaryexe: behaviour_files:".binaryexe"
• LaunchDaemon Persistence Plist: Uncovers samples installing system-wide persistence at /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.somedaemon.plist: behaviour_files:"/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.somedaemon.plist"

3. C2 & Network Pivots (behaviour_network)

• Infrastructure-Agnostic Bot Check-In URI: Matches the /api/v1/bot/joinsystem// check-in endpoint across all C2 IP addresses: behaviour_network:"/api/v1/bot/joinsystem"
• Exfiltration Collector Server: Pivots on samples posting stolen Keychain, Safari cookie, and Notes archives to 109.238.87.111: behaviour_network:109.238.87.111
• Second-Stage Bot C2 Server: Pivots on samples retrieving /web/bot and polling /api/v1/bot/actions/ on 193.178.159.129: behaviour_network:193.178.159.129

4. macOS Mirage Verdict, Sigma & MITRE ATT&CK Pivots

• macOS Mirage Credential Phishing Verdict: Surfaces Mach-O stealers convicted by macOS Mirage's macos_osascript_credential_phishing detection across distinct malware builders (commandbuild-* and macos-stealer-v2-*): sandbox_name:"VirusTotal MacOS Mirage" behaviour:"macos_osascript_credential_phishing"
• macOS Mirage PASSWORD_DIALOG Behavioral Tag: Finds Mach-O binaries displaying deceptive credential prompts during macOS Mirage execution: sandbox_name:"VirusTotal MacOS Mirage" behaviour_tags:PASSWORD_DIALOG type:macho p:5+
• Sigma Suspicious /tmp/ Execution in macOS Mirage: Hunts samples matching Sigma rule b8017658b8eef8b1293176d76212e600b660d0a36a4f5dc80141324fae360bbf (Potentially Suspicious Execution From Tmp Folder): sandbox_name:"VirusTotal MacOS Mirage" sigma_rule:b8017658b8eef8b1293176d76212e600b660d0a36a4f5dc80141324fae360bbf p:5+
• MITRE ATT&CK Keychain Credential Access (T1555.001): Identifies Mach-O samples flagged by macOS Mirage for targeting macOS Keychain credentials: sandbox_name:"VirusTotal MacOS Mirage" attack_technique:T1555.001 type:macho p:5+

Interactive Live Analysis (Exclusive to Private Scanning)

While automated dynamic analysis and Sigma behavioral detections are available on VirusTotal reports, sophisticated macOS threats often require human interaction to detonate completely. Malware may hide behind multi-step custom installer wizards, require a password to unlock a disk image, or pause execution until realistic user input is provided—just like the "Password Request" dialog shown above.

To empower incident responders and malware analysts, Interactive Live Analysis with macOS Mirage is available exclusively as part of our Private Scanning product offering in Google Threat Intelligence and VirusTotal Enterprise:

• Real-Time Mouse & Keyboard Control: Analysts can step directly into the running macOS 26 desktop inside their web browser to click buttons, navigate prompts, open Terminal, or manually interact with suspicious applications.
• Host-to-Guest Clipboard ("Send as Keystrokes"): Analysts can paste passwords, decryption keys, URLs, or terminal commands from their local workstation directly into the sandbox VM as simulated keystrokes.
• Extended Session Timeouts & Network Control: Interactive sessions can run for extended durations (up to 30 minutes) and can be configured with custom network routing modes—including full isolation, simulated internet services, HTTPS MITM inspection, or Tor routing.
• Complete Tenant Privacy: All files, interactive sessions, screenshots, and behavioral reports generated in Private Scanning remain strictly isolated within your organization's private environment and are never shared publicly.

Figure 4: Selecting macOS Mirage and enabling Live Interaction inside the Private Scanning configuration modal.

Figure 5: Using the "Send as keystrokes" clipboard bridge during a live interactive macOS Mirage session in Private Scanning.

Try It Out and Share Your Feedback

macOS Mirage is part of our ongoing commitment to expanding multi-platform dynamic analysis across VirusTotal and Google Threat Intelligence. To view the new behavioral reports on public samples, navigate to the Behavior tab on any macOS file report in VirusTotal to inspect process trees, file system changes, network activity, screenshots, and Sigma rule matches. Enterprise customers using Private Scanning can select MacOS Mirage directly from the scan configuration dialog to launch automated or live interactive sessions.

If you find any issues or have feature requests, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Happy hunting!

An investigation into a threat actor bypassing AI safety controls to coordinate credential theft, VoIP fraud planning, and database exfiltration.

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Overview

During recent website cleanup work, we analyzed a WordPress compromise where the same backdoor kept returning within seconds of every removal, no matter how carefully the visible files were deleted. Throughout this article, we’ll refer to this family of malware as SC, named after the “SC_” markers found in the injected content.

What makes SC worth documenting is how it survives. The payload lives in at least eight places at once, spread across files, the database, and shared memory, and every one of those places can rebuild all the others.

Continue reading SC WordPress Malware: A Self-Healing Mesh of Loaders, Drop-Ins, and a Blockchain-Controlled Backdoor at Sucuri Blog.

Since January 2026, Microsoft has observed Russian state threat actor Star Blizzard evolve their detection evasion capabilities through large-scale phishing campaigns, the use of accounts on compromised websites, and a novel malware delivery technique that Microsoft tracks as “RedFlick”. These changes represent a notable shift in the actor’s operational tradecraft and support ongoing cyberespionage activity targeting Ukrainian individuals and institutions as well as international non-government organizations (NGOs), Western think tanks, governments, and other organizations associated with international policy—particularly those with a nexus in supporting Ukraine.

As part of this evolution, Star Blizzard adopted RedFlick, a malware delivery technique that helps evade detection by initiating a set of scheduled tasks to deploy the actor’s custom backdoor, CosmicPulse. This technique is a notable departure from the actor’s previous use of ClickFix-based infection chains which required victims to complete multiple actions before CosmicPulse could be installed. By contrast, the RedFlick infection flow only requires a single user interaction, reducing friction in the compromise process. Combined with the actor’s shift toward large-scale phishing operations during the same period, these changes likely improve Star Blizzard’s ability to reach more targets, evade detection, and increase the likelihood of successful compromise.

This blog provides updated technical analysis of Star Blizzard’s tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) observed throughout 2026, building on our 2025 and 2023 blogs. It details the actor’s evolving phishing, persistence, and malware delivery techniques, and provides recommendations, indicators of compromise (IOCs), detections, and hunting guidance to help organizations identify and defend against RedFlick-related activity. As with any observed nation-state actor activity, Microsoft directly notifies customers that have been targeted or compromised, providing them with recommendations and mitigations to secure their accounts.

Star Blizzard TTPs observed in 2026

Star Blizzard is attributed by the United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) as subordinate to the Russian Federal Security Service Centre (FSB) Centre 18. Star Blizzard periodically overhauls their TTPs to avoid detection, often in response to public exposure of the actor’s campaigns that have involved targeted social engineering through messaging apps and credential theft. Since Google Threat Intelligence Group published its report on Star Blizzard’s COLDCOPY malware in October 2025, Microsoft observed the actor refine their initial access and evasive techniques to include:

• Moving away from targeted spear phishing to large-scale initial contact phishing campaigns
• Using compromised websites to create accounts to send phishing emails
• Updating malware deployment to facilitate the installation of a CosmicPulse downloader

As of the writing of this blog, the RedFlick campaigns have targeted Ukrainian individuals and institutions, as well as international NGOs, think tanks, governments, and financial institutions that have supported Ukraine politically or financially. Microsoft has observed this activity affect over 100 organizations primarily in the United States and United Kingdom, consistent with Star Blizzard’s longstanding targeting priorities.

Microsoft continues to observe some previously reported Star Blizzard phishing techniques throughout 2026; however, the TTPs discussed in this blog have been associated primarily with the actor’s new larger-scale phishing campaigns.

Larger-scale initial contact phishing

Microsoft previously reported on Star Blizzard’s spear-phishing campaigns observed during 2023-2024. During these operations, the actor continued to rely on their conventional TTPs such as initiating email contact with targets before sending a follow-up containing a malicious link, to actor-controlled/compromised infrastructure purposed for credential theft, while impersonating known political or diplomatic figures to lure victims into responding.

In 2026, Microsoft observed Star Blizzard shift from exclusively targeted spear-phishing operations to also conducting larger-scale phishing campaigns. The larger-scale phishing operations were observed at a scale not previously seen from the actor, ranging from tens to hundreds of email messages per campaign. This change likely reflects the actor’s adoption of a mass-mailing phishing platform to automate campaign execution and increase the likelihood of successful compromises by significantly expanding the initial targeting pool. The progression of these campaigns is summarized in the following timeline, including examples of Star Blizzard’s phishing subject lines, targeting details, and the malware delivery methods observed across each campaign:

• January
  • “Повідомлення про результати податкової перевірки” (Notice of tax audit results) – Campaign targeting unidentified Ukraine persons with an attached RedFlick lure.
• February
  • “списання з Вашого рахунку за оплату штрафу” (Debiting from your account for payment of a fine) – Campaign targeting unidentified Ukraine persons with an attached RedFlick lure.
• March
  • “Invitation to an IISS [Private Roundtable/Closed-Door Discussion] on European Security” – Initial contact campaign targeting government officials, security researchers, academia, media, and NGOs. Respondents received a RedFlick lure attachment.
  • “Invitation to a Closed CES Roundtable Discussion” – Initial contact campaign targeting US and Europe technology-sector organizations. Respondents received a RedFlick lure attachment.
  • “Atlantic Council Closed-Door Strategic Discussion” – Initial contact campaign targeting government officials, foreign policy practitioners, security researchers, academia, media, and NGOs. Respondents received a link to DarkSword iOS backdoor installation.
• April
  • “Closed-Door Online Session on Global Capital Allocation & M&A” – Initial contact campaign targeting international financial organizations and researchers. Respondents received a RedFlick lure attachment.
• May
  • “Future of Peace Operations Forum – A Closed Strategic Dialogue” – Initial contact campaign targeting diplomatic and multilateral organizations. Respondents received a RedFlick lure attachment.
  • “Future of Liberty Forum” – Initial contact campaign targeting employees of a US-based think tank. Respondents received a RedFlick lure attachment.
• June
  • “Invitation to the MAMA Summit on the Current Situation Surrounding the Ukrainian Crisis” – Initial contact campaign targeting incumbent/former diplomatic staff. Respondents received a RedFlick lure attachment.
  • “Invitation to the Chatham House London Conference 2026 – 9 July 2026” – Initial contact campaign targeting think tanks, NGOs, and national parliamentary. Respondents received a RedFlick lure attachment.
• July
  • “Thought you might find this USUBC roundtable of interest” – Initial contact campaign targeting think tanks, NGOs, and Ukraine civil society. Respondents received a RedFlick lure attachment.
  • “Інформація щодо тимчасового відключення водопостачання” (Information about temporary water supply shutdown) – Targeted Kyiv-based hotels with an attached RedFlick lure.
• August
  • “Payment Advice Note from 06.08.2026” – Targeted employees of an international financial organization with an attached RedFlick lure.

Once a recipient responds to the initial phishing email, Star Blizzard typically sends a follow-up message containing a password-protected RAR or ZIP archive. The archive contains files that initiate the RedFlick infection flow. The password is included as an image in the follow-up email shown in Figure 1, along with additional examples of Star Blizzard follow-up emails below:

Since January 2026, Microsoft observed at least 13 distinct large-scale phishing campaigns targeting primarily NGOs, think tanks, and government organizations worldwide. The earliest campaigns, observed between January and February, targeted unspecified users of the Ukraine email provider Ukr.net. These emails impersonated Ukrainian authorities and were themed as notifications of a tax audit or outstanding fine.

Beginning in March 2026, Star Blizzard expanded targeting outside of Ukraine. Subsequent campaigns frequently used lures themed as invitations to conferences or events purportedly organized by a reputable think tank or NGO. Microsoft also observed the actor target multiple individuals within the same organization, with phishing emails often crafted to appear as internal communications originating from the targeted organization itself. The actor’s shift from Ukraine-focused operations to global targets could indicate Star Blizzard initially targeted Ukraine to test their new capabilities.

The large-scale campaigns have demonstrated capabilities previously unassociated with Star Blizzard. For example, a campaign observed in mid-August 2026 employed steganography to conceal identifiers. Throughout 2026, Star Blizzard has also continued to develop additional operational capabilities. Notably, ProofPoint reported in March that the actor had targeted vulnerable Apple iOS devices to deploy the DarkSword backdoor.

Creating accounts on compromised websites

Since March 2026, Star Blizzard has made another notable change to their TTPs to support the higher-volume phishing operations, using accounts created on compromised websites to send phishing emails to targets. This change coincided with the actor’s shift to larger-scale phishing campaigns and has been observed almost exclusively in support of these operations. Previously, the actor would create accounts on free email services (predominantly using Protonmail and Microsoft consumer accounts) to impersonate an individual that would be well known to the prospective target, whether it was a political figure, academic, or former diplomat. In the large-scale campaigns, Star Blizzard has used accounts created on websites hosted on CPanel and WordPress, using the same account name across multiple website domains. Microsoft Threat Intelligence assesses with high confidence that these websites have been compromised by Star Blizzard for this purpose.

Updating malware delivery and installation TTPs

Between January and August 2026, Microsoft observed multiple waves of Star Blizzard phishing campaigns alongside notable changes in the actor’s initial access TTPs, particularly the use of RedFlick scheduled tasks. During this period, Microsoft observed three significant shifts in the threat actor’s delivery techniques.

From ClickFix to VHDX

In mid-January 2026, Microsoft observed the use of a malicious Virtual Hard Disk v2 (VHDX), delivered through a phishing email containing a password-protected ZIP file. The VHDX file ships a malicious LNK file disguised as a PDF document, alongside a hidden directory containing a BAT script and a legitimate decoy PDF.

When the victim opens the LNK file, conhost.exe is launched in a hidden window and cmd.exe is subsequently spawned to execute the embedded BAT script:

The BAT file opens the decoy PDF and invokes SSH.exe with PermitLocalCommand enabled, ultimately downloading and executing a remotely hosted MSI installer:

In multiple campaigns, Microsoft observed an MSI installer creating a scheduled task that uses control.exe to download and execute a remotely hosted CosmicPulse downloader masquerading as a Control Panel applet (CPL). Unlike earlier campaigns that relied on ClickFix lures and user interaction, this approach relies on compiling the CosmicPulse downloader as a Control Panel applet DLL.

The shift from interactive user execution to remote execution and masquerading as a CPL item highlights an evolution in both persistence and defense evasion techniques.

CosmicPulse downloader

The Control Panel applet DLL is a downloader with the sole purpose of downloading and installing a version of CosmicPulse, a malicious Python backdoor, on the target device. The downloader is also known publically as NOROBOT or BAITSWITCH.

Similar to previous versions, this downloader downloads, persists, and executes a version of CosmicPulse on the infected device. Upon execution, it downloads two ZIP files and stores them on disk. It then writes an encrypted AES key to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.mollis registry key. One ZIP file contains a Python 3.8 64-bit package and a Python file that serves as the CosmicPulse bootstrapper. The bootstrapper reads the encrypted key from the registry, recovers it using an embedded key in AES-ECB mode, and then uses the recovered key to decode the CosmicPulse payload (also known as YESROBOT) contained in the second ZIP file. The below image shows the process of the CosmicPulse installation.

Since January 2026, Microsoft has observed the CosmicPulse backdoor going through various little changes to circumvent existing signatures. However, the capabilities and purpose of this backdoor remain the same as described in previous articles.

Persistence through multiple scheduled tasks

In April 2026, Microsoft observed Star Blizzard changing persistence tactics to include RedFlick scheduled tasks. Whereas a malicious MSI file installed a single scheduled task in January—by April, the actor’s MSI installer created three scheduled tasks masquerading as legitimate network components, each with their own purpose. The TTPs have overlaps with the spear-phishing campaigns reported by the Digital Security Lab Ukraine (DLUA) in June 2026. In at least one incident, Microsoft has observed either the first or third task deploying an instance of CosmicPulse on the infected machine.

Task 1 – Registration beaconing and dynamic DLL execution task

The first task masquerades as a legitimate Internet Quality Test Connection task. The scheduled command serves two purposes. First, it sends a UTF-16 and Base64-encoded string containing the network or computer name and the username of the infected device to the C2 server. Thereby, it exfiltrates basic information about the infected host.

Second, an attacker-controlled DLL can be executed remotely through invoking Control_RunDLL from Shell32.dll. Microsoft was unable to obtain a variant of this payload. The task uses a WebDAV UNC path to access the remote payload, allowing the resource to be retrieved over HTTP rather than through a conventional SMB network share.

Task 2 – Supporting task

The second installed task, named Network Configuration Manager, supports the WebDAV-based execution used by the other tasks. The invoked command causes Windows to treat the UNC-style path as a WebDAV resource and process it through the WebDAV redirector and associated WebClient functionality.

Through WebDAV, Windows applications can interact with a remote web resource as though it is a file or folder path while the underlying communication is performed using HTTP/HTTPS rather than conventional SMB. The task therefore prepares the WebDAV client functionality required by the other scheduled tasks.

Task 3 – CosmicPulse downloader execution

The third installed task, named System Health Monitor, uses control.exe to access a remote path hosted on the hardcoded C2 server and execute the next stage.

Hiding payloads in PDF files

In July 2026, Microsoft observed another change in Star Blizzard’s delivery techniques, this time involving a multistage execution chain.

The phishing email contains a password-protected RAR archive nested inside a ZIP file. After the archive is opened, it exposes an LNK file.

When executed, the LNK file uses conhost.exe and curl to download a PDF from an actor-controlled server:

After downloading the PDF, the command runs a second PowerShell payload. This payload searches the PDF for the magic header cAB, extracts the subsequent 208 bytes of Base64-encoded data, and executes the decoded command through PowerShell. The resulting conhost command, shown below, attempts to download and install another MSI file:

As in previous campaigns, the Python installer contains obfuscated PowerShell code. When executed, the code attempts to create two additional scheduled tasks. The first scheduled task again serves as a helper task, consistent with the supporting tasks observed in previous campaigns. The second scheduled task attempts to download and execute a CPL applet again.

Star Blizzard’s shift from ClickFix-based delivery chains to VHDX files, expanded use of scheduled tasks for persistence, and concealment of payloads within PDF files demonstrate the actor’s continued ability to adapt their delivery methods in response to evolving defenses. The actor’s recent use of PDFs to conceal payloads further illustrates efforts to bypass layered defenses through increasingly complex execution chains. Taken together, these changes demonstrate Star Blizzard’s continued efforts to streamline malware deployment, reduce required user interaction, and improve operational scalability while maintaining its longstanding espionage objectives.

Defending against Star Blizzard and RedFlick-related activity

Microsoft Threat Intelligence advises organizations that are most likely at risk—primarily those in government, NGOs, or think tanks adjacent to Ukraine policy or support—to implement the following recommendations to mitigate against Star Blizzard activity.

Protecting against Star Blizzard phishing

As previously reported, Star Blizzard’s success relies on sophisticated, targeted phishing lures that trick users into engaging with the actor by impersonating trusted contacts. While Star Blizzard has changed their overall TTPs, the actor continues to employ the same phishing patterns against users:

• Star Blizzard continues to impersonate trusted contacts that users or organizations would expect an email from. Star Blizzard also continues using email from free providers such as Proton @proton[.]me, particularly in Evilginx spear-phishing operations observed throughout 2026. However, despite the actor’s recent shift toward leveraging compromised legitimate websites that impersonate real individuals associated with a target’s organization, users can still remain vigilant for other Star Blizzard TTPs, several of which have been observed in previous campaigns:
  • Star Blizzard continues to make initial contact with a target by sending an email, usually without an attachment.
  • If a user engages, Star Blizzard will follow up with an email with an attachment. In this particular campaign, it has been an archive file such as a RAR or ZIP.
  • The email sender contains names of actual persons and organizations they belong to—however, the organization is not within the root or registered domain itself but in the username or local part of the email address. This should draw a red flag to the email’s authenticity. When in doubt, directly contact the person you think sent the email using a previously established and trusted contact method such as known email address or phone number.
  • The emails in these RedFlick campaigns are often sent in bulk.
• To best mitigate against this activity, Microsoft suggests the following policies to strengthen network environments against Star Blizzard phishing operations:
  • Using phishing resistant authentication methods.
  • Lockdown account access using Conditional Access policies.
  • Use advanced anti-phishing solutions like Microsoft Defender for Office 365 that monitor and scan incoming emails and visited websites.
  • Turn on Safe Links and Safe Attachments for Office 365.

Microsoft also recommends the following mitigations to reduce the impact of this threat

• Run endpoint detection and response (EDR) in block mode so that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can block malicious artifacts, even when your non-Microsoft antivirus does not detect the threat, or when Microsoft Defender Antivirus is running in passive mode. EDR in block mode works behind the scenes to remediate malicious artifacts that are detected post-compromise.
• Encourage users to use Microsoft Edge and other web browsers that support Microsoft Defender SmartScreen, which identifies and blocks malicious websites, including phishing sites, scam sites, and sites that host malware.
• Configure investigation and remediation in full automated mode to allow Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to take immediate action on alerts to resolve breaches, significantly reducing alert volume.
• Turn on cloud-delivered protection and automatic sample submission in Microsoft Defender Antivirus to cover rapidly evolving attacker tools, techniques, and behaviors. These capabilities use artificial intelligence and machine learning to quickly identify and stop new and unknown threats.
• Use security defaults as a baseline set of policies to improve identity security posture. For more granular control, enable Conditional Access policies. Conditional Access policies evaluate sign-in requests using additional identity driven signals like user or group membership, IP location information, and device status, among others, and are enforced for suspicious sign-ins. Organizations can protect themselves from attacks that leverage stolen credentials by enabling policies such as compliant devices or trusted IP address requirements.
• Implement continuous access evaluation.
• Turn on Microsoft Defender Antivirus real-time protection.
• Continuously monitor suspicious or anomalous activities. Investigate sign-in attempts with suspicious characteristics (for example, location, ISP, user agent, and use of anonymizer services).
• Turn on Zero-hour auto purge (ZAP) in Defender for Office 365 to quarantine sent mail in response to newly-acquired threat intelligence and retroactively neutralize malicious phishing, spam, or malware messages that have already been delivered to mailboxes.
• Enable network protection to prevent applications or users from accessing malicious domains and other malicious content on the internet.
• Configure Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to recheck links on click. Safe Links provides URL scanning and rewriting of inbound email messages in mail flow, and time-of-click verification of URLs and links in email messages, other Office 365 applications such as Teams, and other locations such as SharePoint Online. Safe Links scanning occurs in addition to the regular anti-spam and anti-malware protection in inbound email messages in Exchange Online Protection (EOP). Safe Links scanning can help protect your organization from malicious links that are used in phishing and other attacks.
• Use the Attack Simulator in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to organize realistic, yet safe, simulated phishing and password attack campaigns in your organization by training end users against clicking URLs in unsolicited messages and disclosing their credentials. Training should include checking for poor spelling and grammar in phishing emails or the application’s consent screen as well as spoofed app names, logos, and domain URLs appearing to originate from legitimate applications or companies. Note that Attack Simulator testing only supports phishing emails containing links at this time.
• Microsoft Defender customers can turn on attack surface reduction rules to prevent common attack techniques:
  • Block executable files from running unless they meet a prevalence, age, or trusted list criterion
  • Block execution of potentially obfuscated scripts
• Utilize Windows Firewall, Windows Firewall with Advanced Security, or an enterprise firewall/filtering solution to help prevent or restrict outbound SSH connection attempts to external or public networks that are not essential for business.

Microsoft Defender detections

Microsoft Defender customers can refer to the list of applicable detections below. Microsoft Defender coordinates detection, prevention, investigation, and response across endpoints, identities, email, apps to provide integrated protection against attacks like the threat discussed in this blog.

Microsoft Security Copilot

Microsoft Security Copilot is embedded in Microsoft Defender and provides security teams with AI-powered capabilities to summarize incidents, analyze files and scripts, summarize identities, use guided responses, and generate device summaries, hunting queries, and incident reports.

Customers can also deploy AI agents, including the following Microsoft Security Copilot agents, to perform security tasks efficiently:

• Threat Intelligence Briefing agent
• Phishing Triage agent
• Threat Hunting agent
• Dynamic Threat Detection agent

Security Copilot is also available as a standalone experience where customers can perform specific security-related tasks, such as incident investigation, user analysis, and vulnerability impact assessment. In addition, Security Copilot offers developer scenarios that allow customers to build, test, publish, and integrate AI agents and plugins to meet unique security needs.

Threat intelligence reports

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can use the following threat analytics reports in the Defender portal (requires license for at least one Defender XDR product) to get the most up-to-date information about the threat actor, malicious activity, and techniques discussed in this blog. These reports provide the intelligence, protection information, and recommended actions to prevent, mitigate, or respond to associated threats found in customer environments.

• Actor profile: Star Blizzard
• Tool profile: CosmicPulse
• Activity profile: New Star Blizzard spearphishing campaign targets WhatsApp accounts
• Threat overview: Evolving phishing threats

Microsoft Security Copilot customers can also use the Microsoft Security Copilot integration in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, either in the Security Copilot standalone portal or in the embedded experience in the Microsoft Defender portal to get more information about this threat actor.

Hunting queries

Microsoft Defender XDR

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can run the following advanced hunting queries to find related activity in their networks:

Conhost.exe invokes curl

The following query will detect the use of conhost.exe to launch curl to download a decoy PDF from an actor-controlled server, which Star Blizzard used in July 2026. (Note that this query may detect activity not related to Star Blizzard or necessarily malicious. Please investigate findings to determine if the activity is legitimate.)

DeviceProcessEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(7d)
| where FileName == "conhost.exe"
| where ProcessCommandLine has "curl"
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, AccountName, ProcessCommandLine, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, InitiatingProcessFileName, DeviceId, ProcessId, ProcessUniqueId, InitiatingProcessUniqueId

Invoke SSH to launch local command line

The following query will detect the invocation of SSH to initiate a local command prompt, which Star Blizzard used in January 2026 to download and execute a remotely hosted MSI installer. (Note that this query may detect activity not related to Star Blizzard or necessarily malicious. Please investigate findings to determine if the activity is legitimate.)

DeviceProcessEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(7d)
| where ProcessCommandLine has "ssh.exe"
| where ProcessCommandLine has "PermitLocalCommand=yes"
| where ProcessCommandLine has "LocalCommand=cmd.exe"
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, AccountName, ProcessCommandLine, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, InitiatingProcessParentFileName, DeviceId, ProcessId, InitiatingProcessId, ReportId

Persistence through scheduled tasks

The following query will detect Star Blizzard’s uniquely named scheduled tasks that attempt to masquerade as legitimately-named tasks, used for persistence by Star Blizzard in April 2026.

union isfuzzy=true
(
DeviceProcessEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(7d)
| where ProcessCommandLine has_any ("Internet Quality Test Connection","Network Configuration Manager","System Health Monitor") or AdditionalFields has_any ("Internet Quality Test Connection","Network Configuration Manager","System Health Monitor")
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, ActionType, ProcessCommandLine, AdditionalFields
, RegistryKey = tostring(dynamic(null)), RegistryValueName = tostring(dynamic(null))
, SourceTable = "DeviceProcessEvents"
, ProcessId, AccountName, AccountDomain, AccountSid
)
,
(
DeviceEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(7d)
| where ProcessCommandLine has_any ("Internet Quality Test Connection","Network Configuration Manager","System Health Monitor") or AdditionalFields has_any ("Internet Quality Test Connection","Network Configuration Manager","System Health Monitor") or RegistryKey has_any ("Internet Quality Test Connection","Network Configuration Manager","System Health Monitor") or RegistryValueName has_any ("Internet Quality Test Connection","Network Configuration Manager","System Health Monitor")
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, ActionType, ProcessCommandLine, AdditionalFields, RegistryKey, RegistryValueName
, SourceTable = "DeviceEvents"
, ProcessId = long(null), AccountName = "", AccountDomain = "", AccountSid = ""
)
,
(
DeviceRegistryEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(7d)
| where RegistryKey has_any ("Internet Quality Test Connection","Network Configuration Manager","System Health Monitor") or RegistryValueName has_any ("Internet Quality Test Connection","Network Configuration Manager","System Health Monitor") or RegistryValueData has_any ("Internet Quality Test Connection","Network Configuration Manager","System Health Monitor") or InitiatingProcessCommandLine has_any ("Internet Quality Test Connection","Network Configuration Manager","System Health Monitor")
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, ActionType
, ProcessCommandLine = InitiatingProcessCommandLine, AdditionalFields = ""
, RegistryKey, RegistryValueName
, SourceTable = "DeviceRegistryEvents"
, ProcessId = long(null), AccountName = "", AccountDomain = "", AccountSid = ""
)

Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel customers can use the TI Mapping analytics (a series of analytics all prefixed with ‘TI map’) to automatically match the malicious domain indicators mentioned in this blog post with data in their workspace. If the TI Map analytics are not currently deployed, customers can install the Threat Intelligence solution from the Microsoft Sentinel Content Hub to have the analytics rule deployed in their Sentinel workspace.

Detect network IP and domain indicators of compromise using ASIM

The following query checks IP addresses and domain IOCs across data sources supported by ASIM network session parser.

let lookback = 30d;
let ioc_ip_addr = dynamic(["103.245.231.248", "2.57.241.246", "89.125.209.168", "103.245.231.79", "45.84.59.66", "103.160.59.97"]);
let ioc_domains = dynamic(["etia.ca", "groy.cc", "gliderrompercycl.com", "muvb.net", "divekickspolic.org", "matjk.click", "bpdaersa.click", "stuseamandesilt.org", "Itechx.tel", "guach.net", "ruten.observer", "byveo.org", "secure-dns-hub.com", "qumel.link", "cyrna.top", "drasw.club"]);
_Im_NetworkSession(starttime=todatetime(ago(lookback)), endtime=now())
| where DstIpAddr in (ioc_ip_addr) or DstDomain has_any (ioc_domains)
| summarize FirstSeen=min(TimeGenerated), LastSeen=max(TimeGenerated), EventCount=count()
    by SrcIpAddr, DstIpAddr, DstDomain, Dvc, EventProduct, EventVendor

Detect Web Sessions IP and file hash indicators of compromise using ASIM

The following query checks IP addresses, domains, and file hash IOCs across data sources supported by ASIM web session parser.

let lookback = 30d;
let ioc_ip_addr = dynamic(["103.245.231.248", "2.57.241.246", "89.125.209.168", "103.245.231.79", "45.84.59.66", "103.160.59.97"]);
let ioc_domains = dynamic(["etia.ca", "groy.cc", "gliderrompercycl.com", "muvb.net", "divekickspolic.org", "matjk.click", "bpdaersa.click", "stuseamandesilt.org", "Itechx.tel", "guach.net", "ruten.observer", "byveo.org", "secure-dns-hub.com", "qumel.link", "cyrna.top", "drasw.club"]);
_Im_WebSession(starttime=todatetime(ago(lookback)), endtime=now())
| where DstIpAddr in (ioc_ip_addr)
    or DstDomain has_any (ioc_domains)
    or Url has_any (ioc_domains)
| summarize FirstSeen=min(TimeGenerated), LastSeen=max(TimeGenerated), EventCount=count()
    by SrcIpAddr, DstIpAddr, DstDomain, Url, Dvc, EventProduct, EventVendor

Indicators of compromise

References

• https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa23-341a
• https://www.zscaler.com/blogs/security-research/coldriver-updates-arsenal-baitswitch-and-simplefix
• https://dslua.org/publications/spearphishing-via-fake-urc-2026-invitations-targets-ukrainian-csos/
• https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/new-malware-russia-coldriver
• https://x.com/threatinsight/status/2037560142880006266

Learn more

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog.

To get notified about new publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), and Bluesky.

To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast.

The post Star Blizzard refines phishing and malware delivery with the RedFlick technique appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

The personalized versions of ChatGPT were used to impersonate legitimate products and trick users into executing PowerShell commands.

The post Hackers Use ChatGPT Custom GPTs in ClickFix Attacks appeared first on SecurityWeek.

We introduce OperTraitor, a tool to audit privileges of Kubernetes operators, identify excessive RBAC risks, and secure non-human identities.

The post OperTraitors: How Kubernetes Operators Betray Your Security Posture appeared first on Unit 42.

The malware framework uses a modular architecture and a custom executable file format for long-term persistence.

The post Daemon Tools Hackers’ NeedyMantis Malware Dissected by Microsoft appeared first on SecurityWeek.

MacSync is a relatively young, rapidly evolving family of crypto/info stealers. First advertised on the dark web in 2025 as Mac.c, the stealer was later renamed to MacSync by its creators. The initial versions were implemented as AppleScripts and closely resembled the AMOS stealer family, but over time, MacSync developed distinctive features of its own, including a backdoor module. In this report, we discuss a new infection chain that differs significantly from previous variants. We first spotted it in the wild in September 2026.

Key points:

• The developers of this family have overhauled their approach to payload delivery by replacing script-based droppers with binary ones.
• The main malicious payload now consists of modules written in Objective-C and Swift.
• At one stage of infection, the attackers use iCloud to deliver the next

Kaspersky solutions detect the threats described below under the following verdicts:

• HEUR:Trojan.OSX.MacSync.*
• HEUR:Trojan-PSW.OSX.MacSync.*
• HEUR:Trojan-Dropper.OSX.MacSync.*
• HEUR:Trojan-Downloader.OSX.MacSync.*

Technical details

Infection chain

MacSync is an infostealer distributed under the malware-as-a-service (MaaS) model, so the specific delivery method for the first stage of the infection chain is up to the operators. Recent public reports on MacSync have mostly focused on modules delivered through social engineering and ClickFix-style attacks. However, both then and now, the malware has also spread disguised as free or cracked versions of popular applications, as well as under the guise of new software. For example, we found MacSync masquerading as a nonexistent crypto wallet app called Toria; the attackers not only created a dedicated web page for it but also promoted it on X and Telegram:

The latest version of the infostealer we discovered starts the infection chain with malicious DMG images. Even within a single campaign built around one fake application, we found two different ways the infostealer and backdoor modules were delivered to the victim’s device. In one, the payload inside the DMG was a compiled JXA script that, once launched, decoded a shell script and passed it directly to the interpreter without writing it to disk. In the other version of the application, the same script appeared at a later stage of infection, after a chain of droppers and loaders had run. We’ll take a look at the second infection chain in detail, since it is more complex and technically interesting. The infection scheme is shown below:

It’s worth noting right away that MacSync shows shared traits at almost every stage:

• All temporary files are placed in the /tmp directory. The same directory is where *.lock files are created to prevent the malware from running again.
• Once its task is complete, the module removes traces of its activity: temporary files, its own logs, and so on.
• All binary files are in the FAT Mach-O format and target devices with both Apple and Intel processors.

Loader, Calendar, and Two Simple Droppers

In this infection chain, the payload on the disk image is an .APP application. When started, it first checks whether the whole bundle has the com.apple.quarantine extended quarantine attribute, and if it finds one, it runs the xattr -cr <app_name> command to remove all attributes. Next, it extracts an XOR-encrypted URL from its overlay and decrypts it with the key 73 6f 6e 6f 6d 61 62 6c 64 07. After the encrypted data, there are 8 bytes indicating the length of the ciphertext, followed by the magic word SONOMAC1. It’s worth noting that the malware reads the overlay backwards: it first locates the magic word, then reads the data size, and then uses the size to determine the boundaries of the data block containing the ciphertext.

The resulting URL is a link to the next-stage downloader script. In some cases, this link pointed directly to a file hosted on an attacker-controlled server; however, in at least one sample, the link pointed to a public iCloud calendar:

hxxp://caldav.icloud[.]com/published/2/MTk1NDMwMDMzNTUxOTU0M1aHCZ-nMxiyGzBTzPiodOf44DtKJ6PpjftAG28_ui2NCYMpL_vu4pF4ddsJ8ysg0QI7pR0VEIEbZYdilVZRw08

Contents of the downloaded calendar

After retrieving the calendar file from the server, the downloader creates an anonymous pipe, launches the interpreter to read commands from standard input (zsh -s), sets the pipe as standard input, and redirects the contents of the calendar into it line by line. Since a calendar is normally not a command, the interpreter treats the lines as invalid commands until it reaches the malicious payload after the DESCRIPTION: line. These commands ultimately download a .TAR.GZ archive from iCloud that contains an .APP bundle. The downloader removes the quarantine attribute from it, signs it with an ad-hoc signature, and executes it.

We don’t know the contents of the scripts distributed from the attacker’s server, but they are very likely the same script found in the calendar event description.

The downloaded application is a dropper. The malicious payload it extracts is a zlib-compressed executable encrypted with AES in CBC mode, using the following key and initialization vector:

cb09ff86cabde4f8cee2d3cdec370c623bfa6c2b72ae9750fc9a7b299c65d7ca
3a1af2b397c6958e6c3ba3c75912d60e

The dropper decrypts and unpacks it, then places it at /tmp/.sys-<16-digit random value>.

Inside is another dropper, but unlike the previous stages, this one includes anti-debugging protection. In particular, it checks whether it’s running on a virtual machine by making sysctl queries with the kern.hv_vmm_present and machdep.cpu.brand_string parameters. It also sets the PT_DENY_ATTACH flag with ptrace to prevent a debugger from attaching to the process. The payload is a shell script encrypted with AES in CBC mode, using the following key and initialization vector:

3744f975113dfc552df982dcae699f9154a448e05a743bdfb641a463352bc13a
8d371f8a7a6dcc2655544ae13cbca03d

Payload of the second dropper

As shown in the screenshot above, the second dropper delivers a downloader script that retrieves the next-stage payload from the command-and-control server, decrypts it with AES in CBC mode using the following key and initialization vector, and then executes it in memory:

ff664112d3215c5d184689fc836e0dc6c1a47e42c34e70b2c3d356864bc4cb4c
09425f72de8bba18893dcd6f04115891

A couple more scripts

Inside the retrieved script, we can immediately spot several familiar indicators associated with the MacSync malware family:

• The main function in the script is named daemon_function.
• The stolen data is uploaded to the command-and-control server via PUT requests. The data in the requests is sent in 90-megabyte chunks. In earlier versions, the chunk sizes differed.
• One way to establish persistence on a system it uses is to inject a malicious command into the .ZSHRC, the configuration file for the ZSH interpreter, which contains commands that run each time the interpreter starts.
• The URL path where the backdoor executable is stored on the command-and-control server begins with the /loader/ directory.

The script performs the following tasks:

• Downloading and decrypting additional malicious modules: an infostealer, a backdoor, and a special utility for generating encryption keys and decrypting downloaded executable files
• Gaining persistence on the system
• Uploading data received from the infostealer module to the command-and-control server

One detail stands out: instead of the usual encryption algorithms (XOR, AES, and so on), the attackers took a different approach to delivering malicious modules at this stage. It involves a selfmade utility called pkgunpack that implements two commands: genkey and decrypt. The malicious payload is decrypted as follows:

1. The malware generates a public and private encryption key pair using genkey command from pkgunpack, whose generation function relies on an open implementation of the elliptic-curve Diffie-Hellman protocol on Curve25519: curve25519_donna.
2. The public key is encoded in base64 and sent to the command-and-control server together with a one-time code generated by the command $(date +%s)-${RANDOM}-$$.
3. The server responds with the following JSON:
   

   {
       "ok": true,
       "dek_wrap_b64":  <base64_encoded_encrypted_key> ,
       "build_pub_b64": "pFSxn/Uwg9bS45aVKCzA+8exSMfDHXpbpHC/f7G472w=",
       "crypto": "v2.5"
   }

   
   Here, build_pub_b64 is the server’s public key, which is also predefined in the script itself, and dek_wrap_b64 is a base64-encoded string that contains the payload encryption key. This key is encrypted on the server side with a shared secret computed from the public key generated with pkgunpack on the victim’s device.
4. Then decrypt command from pkgunpack utility decrypts the key:
   1. A shared secret is computed from the server’s known public key and the private key for the current session, using the same ECDH Curve25519 key exchange scheme that was used to generate the keys.
   2. The resulting shared secret is concatenated with the string sn-dek-wrap-v1, and a SHA-256 hash is computed from the result.
   3. Next, the dek_wrap_b64 block received from the server is decoded. It has the following structure:
      1. The first 5 bytes: additional authenticated data (AAD)
      2. The next 12 bytes: the initialization vector (IV)
      3. The rest: the ciphertext
   4. The ciphertext is decrypted with AES in GCM mode using the previously obtained key, IV, and AAD.
      

      Decoded dek_wrap_b64

5. The result is the key for decrypting the downloaded malicious payload. The payload, in turn, also contains an AAD and an IV in its header and is encrypted with AES GCM. The utility decrypts it and terminates.

Note that at each individual stage, the utility zeros out buffers after using encryption keys and data, apparently to impede forensic data collection and dynamic analysis of samples.

As mentioned earlier, at this stage, the script downloads only two modules: an infostealer and a backdoor. Once decrypted, both are .TAR.GZ archives; their contents are extracted, stripped of all extended attributes (such as com.apple.quarantine), and signed with an ad-hoc signature. The infostealer module runs first: it collects the data it needs, places it in a temporary folder, and compresses it into a .TAR.GZ archive, which the script then sends to the attackers’ server. Next, before launching the backdoor, the script sets up persistence for it and creates a backup copy. The backup copy, along with the other files it needs to operate, is placed in $HOME/Library/Application Support/System. This directory doesn’t exist in macOS by default; the script creates it. The backdoor disguises itself as the Finder application and achieves persistence in the system through the following methods:

• A LaunchAgent named com.apple.finder.agent
• Injection of a command that runs the .repair-run script when the ZSH interpreter starts from the .ZSHRC
• Injection of a similar command, which also runs the .repair-run script, into the global GIT pre-commit and post-checkout hooks

The .repair-run script checks whether the backdoor files exist, restores them from a backup if they are missing, and re-creates and reloads the LaunchAgent. At the same time, it kills the BTMNotificationAgent, NotificationCenter, and BackgroundTaskManagementAgent system processes to prevent the system from notifying the user about the new LaunchAgent.

One last thing worth noting about the script at this stage is its use of a custom HTTP header, X-Upload-Token, without which the C2 server responds to requests with errors. During our research, we observed the use of the following tokens: b8b4b88205a8f594b95a841bc37342898f34cad8a5a9e4a22ce69a31a1208650 and ff3ab9ef841630364818396f62e696b72aed162cf0b895b6643ef25dad79b51d. The backdoor later uses these same tokens to communicate with the C2 server.

Infostealer

The infostealer module ships as an .APP application, with its main executable written in Swift. As with previous AppleScript-based versions, the malware first asks the user for the administrator password. It adapts the window it displays to match the application it is impersonating. After the password is entered, the user sees a window that imitates a system notification about a corrupted application, offering to move it to the trash.

Fake stealer pop-up windows

Interestingly, instead of the method most macOS malware families use to verify a password, the dscl utility, the attackers used the Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) API. This is a fairly new technique for macOS malware, first observed in the wild in July 2026 in the Pam Stealer family. It apparently caught the attention of malware authors, and we may see it used more often going forward.

Password verification with PAM

Many strings in the stealer (file names, directory names, team IDs, and so on) are XOR-encrypted and stored in static arrays. The encryption keys differ between samples and are generated based on the ciphertext length.

String decryption

The set of data the stealer collects has expanded slightly compared to previous versions. The generalized list is as follows:

• Browser data: browsing history, cookies, crypto wallet extension data, saved logins and passwords, and Local State files
• Crypto wallet application data
• Telegram data
• Device login and password
• Keychain file
• System information: list of installed applications and running processes, device model, hardware, UUID, and so on
• Configuration files for SSH, ZSH, AWS, Kubernetes, GIT, and other services/programs
• ZSH and Bash command history
• Current user profile picture

The collected data is saved to a hidden directory in /tmp/.

The stealer module also has one interesting feature, disabled in all samples discovered so far and apparently still in development. Its purpose is to check whether the malicious application’s resources contain a file called KcHelper at <app_path>/Contents/Resources/Helpers, and, if the file is present, launch it with certain parameters. If this file is missing, a fallback function, _kc_grab_storage_item, is executed instead. Since KcHelper was not present among the application’s resources at the time of our research, we can only speculate about its purpose based on our analysis of this function. It first runs a command that modifies the partition_id of the keychain entry for a specific service so that three categories of applications can access it without user confirmation and without the keychain password:

• teamid: the application is signed with a certificate that has a specific teamID (in this case, the target application’s developer)
• apple: the application is an Apple service
• apple-tool: the application is an Apple command-line utility

security set-generic-password-partition-list -a <account_name> -s <service_name> -S <application_groups> -k <keychain_password> <keychain_path>

The stealer then uses the Security.framework API to try and retrieve the secret’s contents on its own, which still ends up triggering a confirmation request for the operation. It appears the threat actors plan to refine this feature in the future to gain unimpeded access to secrets even if the keychain password changes, but at this point, they haven’t managed to do so, which is why the feature is disabled. In the stealer’s encrypted strings, we saw examples of arguments for the command that modifies partition_id, which indicate that the attackers are after browser secrets. Example:

Chrome Safe Storage|Chrome|ChromeStorage|apple-tool:,apple:,teamid:EQHXZ8M8AV
Brave Safe Storage|Brave|BraveStorage|apple-tool:,apple:,teamid:KL8N8XSYF4

Code section responsible for changing access to keychain services

Backdoor

The backdoor is a Fat Mach-O executable written in Objective-C. It has two launch modes: a regular one and one with the --persist-status flag. In the second mode, it only checks how it was added to the persistence objects: as a Login Item or as a LaunchAgent. In standard mode, before proceeding to its main functionality, the backdoor also checks whether it has been added to autorun in any way. If not, it uses the same persistence mechanism as the parent script. However, for macOS versions older than 13.0, a separate helper executable stored inside the backdoor’s body is used regardless of whether autorun objects are present. The helper performs a single task: it uses the CoreServices.framework API to add the executable file passed to it as an argument to the Login Items.

As with the droppers from the early stages of the infection chain, the configuration for communicating with the C2 is stored in the executable’s overlay and encrypted with XOR using the same key. It consists of several strings separated by null bytes:

• AGNT1: a magic constant confirming that the configuration was decrypted correctly
• C2 server URL
• Access token: the same one used in the parent script
• BLD-150: the backdoor build number

The malware also writes logs to $HOME/Library/Logs/.sysnotif-agent.log and supports extended logging when launched with the LAUNCHER_DEBUG environment variable. Communication with the C2 takes place over HTTP. The server’s response should be a JSON file.

Although the backdoor offers several different commands, they all boil down to the same action: extract the base64-encoded AppleScript script from the script_b64 field in the server’s response and execute it. Individual command handlers then act as wrappers around the scripts, correctly populating telemetry and sending requests to the C2 server. Based on the command names and the messages sent to the server during their execution, we can reconstruct their purpose without having the scripts on hand. The backdoor supports the following commands:

• deploy_ext: deploy an extension downloaded from the server into the victim’s browser.
• deploy_ledger: replace the installed Ledger wallet with the version from the server.
• regrab: collect system information and/or specific files again. This time, the collected data is packaged into an archive typical for the MacSync family, at /tmp/osalogging.zip, unless a different path is specified in the archive_path field sent along with the command.
• live_browser: the only command executed without an AppleScript script. The backdoor checks for the presence of the sn_relay file among its resources, and if it’s not found, downloads and executes it. Its content and purpose remain a mystery to us, but based on the command name and the messages sent to the server, we can assume that the attackers somehow implement a MitM attack on traffic originating from the victim’s browser.

The section of the regrab command where the archive’s integrity is verified and its hash is calculated before it is sent

Takeaways

The new version of the MacSync infostealer differs quite significantly from its previously observed variants. The attackers have substantially overhauled their approach to executing the stealer’s and backdoor’s main malicious payload, moving from AppleScripts to full-fledged executable files written in Swift and Objective-C. It’s also worth noting the more complex infection chain: instead of obfuscated shell scripts delivered through ClickFix attacks, this version used binary droppers and loaders, some of which leveraged Apple’s infrastructure as one of the intermediate stages for delivering the malicious payload.

The nature of the data attackers seek to collect from a victim’s device, as well as the categories of applications the stealer disguises itself as, clearly indicates that this malware family primarily targets developers, crypto enthusiasts, and other users associated in some way with IT and the crypto space. MacSync’s compromise of software developers’ devices poses particular security risks for both end users and corporate systems, opening up expanded opportunities for attackers to further their intrusion.

Indicators of compromise

Stage one loader
26a0f7cdb9f7dc5ace9a40af825b1538
2d69812584269699fade26622e6490c5
7df1049cbd56c0bfa4a3364a379b4c2c
9f15fe9c4415cd668334339f705b94d8
fb90887592655a8c989e443c640167aa
6791dad263cac6d63ebba6a4b57e7d71

Malicious calendar (stage two)
3ded1d71a822b53b12c3b67bcaf633f5

Stage three dropper
781ce50001d4b449600afa347c9b0208
8e84b01d5ac9624f0b181ade0e737193
980e2134679bc0c609f7659882883d77
4203ec932bfcc0907f91732440d6d997
eb760d5c88f13f7ee0f8f86ba3407123
f9f70096aabb4d22a6657014f4853a53

Stage four dropper
3deeed48fd38f22e369f5c3092bd68a1

Stage five script
f97d24212fa6a21be0c4d211e10f044c

Stage six script
00d12d842596bf5ee1805effb4571d30
9a0043d900a9ac78c886c59c9a328fd0

Auxiliary .repair-run script
7212229c85852c3bffaf9740002b2f39

Infostealer
c53d0ea45dbc622afb7f16ea3eec78bc

Backdoor
fc3ba5ed282d77127efd0b0f2403531b

Auxiliary autorun tool
8dc8561349d144d4661bc66f2ec49f9f

URL
hxxps://toria[.]app/
hxxps://warpcast[.]asia/Toria.dmg
hxxps://streamyard.appstore.com[.]mx/installer.sh
hxxps://slack.apple03cloudstore[.]com/installer.sh
hxxps://toria.apple03cloudstore[.]com/
hxxps://waaako.appstore.com[.]mx/installer.sh
hxxps://toria.apple03cloudstore[.]com/e3c1a6b00bc31e14/stage2.enc hxxps://docsend.appstore.com[.]mx/dcc737d157ef4271/stage2.enc
hxxps://docsend.appstore.com[.]mx/dcc737d157ef4271/CoreUpdate.pkg.enc
hxxps://docsend.appstore.com[.]mx/dcc737d157ef4271/Helper.pkg.enc
hxxps://caldav.icloud[.]com/published/2/MTk1NDMwMDMzNTUxOTU0M1aHCZ-nMxiyGzBTzPiodOf44DtKJ6PpjftAG28_ui2NCYMpL_vu4pF4ddsJ8ysg0QI7pR0VEIEbZYdilVZRw08
hxxps://gateway.icloud[.]com/caldav/1_MTk1NDMwMDMzNTUxOTU0M0pybtJB186GzhogprwCQUjY3oZNiDFHH8WVo6bmgUtI/attach/4GE4TKNBTGAYDGMZVGUYTSNJUGOAALDAFMDOJBGWNUCYJLZRNDCLCO2YMQ3I64RLGMNXVG3KYBPWQOGYIEI7MPBDDYHECFDYVENTXIYFNDCPOVRMCTYI236RCYZAE63V5U3RTUYGUMO2CO7PKCLWMCXE73M7OPTHSGRWH5DXQ4PCUQU4ELZTLW54JSTK2H7VQ6PD26WOA2R7PPIQ6RTJWDEWP34U3HB4YWMXXC6EJ6PKWILSPYRSDEVY6QGMWSIUN6PR5W35KO3D4QZE7CFPUVBAEKI/Loader.app.tar.gz/YXR0YWNoYXR0YWNoYXR0YRhrE8mQ0E-b_dTUSGStQgTQ0ULFxCanei3Ke-EuEyQL

C2
hxxps://docsend.appstore[.]com[.]mx
hxxps://toria.apple03cloudstore[.]com

Over the past year, our Global Emergency Response Team (GERT) has investigated several incidents involving the NightEagle group (also tracked as APT-Q-95). This group has been active since at least 2023 and originally focused on organizations in Asia. We have now identified attacks by the group targeting businesses in Russia. This post examines both known and new tools NightEagle used in its latest campaign.

Initial access

In most incidents, the attackers used compromised valid credentials to gain access to corporate VPNs. VPN connections originated from IP addresses in the Russian segment linked to Cloudflare WARP tunnels, as well as from IP addresses associated with European virtual infrastructure providers.

GhostContainer on Microsoft Exchange

Both during the initial access stage and as the attack progressed, the attackers deployed the GhostContainer backdoor on Microsoft Exchange servers. It incorporates components from several open-source projects, including the Neo-reGeorg tunnel, an exploit for the CVE-2020-0688 vulnerability, and the GhostWebShell class from the ysoserial utility. All of these components are publicly available on GitHub.

We were unable to determine the exact method the attackers used to deliver the backdoor to Microsoft Exchange servers. We believe with a high degree of confidence that they applied a technique already familiar to us: extracting the cryptographic keys used by Microsoft Exchange from the ASP.NET configuration, overwriting the VIEWSTATE framework parameter, and injecting a payload into it, which then launched the GhostContainer backdoor in memory.

The backdoor is a .NET assembly containing three classes that implement its core functionality:

• Stub: processes C2 commands delivered to the infected system through the x-owa-urlpostdata headers and evades detection by the Antimalware Scan Interface (AMSI) and Windows Event Log mechanisms by overwriting addresses in amsi.dll and ntdll.dll.
• App_Web_843e75cf5b63: accepts the fakePath and fakePageName parameters and creates virtual paths that redirect requests to the App_Web_8c9b251fb5b3 class.
• App_Web_8c9b251fb5b3: implements network traffic redirection (proxying) and socket forwarding functionality.

Kaspersky products detect the GhostContainer backdoor as Trojan.MSIL.GhostContainer.gen.

GhostContainer samples identified by the Similarity technology from Kaspersky Threat Analysis

Traffic redirection

Once the attackers gain sufficient privileges during an attack, they leverage RDP to move laterally within the internal network segment. To do this, they download and run tools for tunneling and redirecting network traffic.

The attackers used GitHub repositories to host their archived tools. The names of the repositories and archives were disguised to look legitimate:

• https://github[.]com/mirror-js/mirror-js/refs/heads/main/js/js-webpack.zip
• https://github[.]com/mirror-js/mirror-js/refs/heads/main/js/jsonp-pack.zip
• https://github[.]com/browserthemes/resourcepack/releases/download/main/resource-pack.zip

One of the repositories used for storing network tools

The files contained within the archives were also given names mimicking known legitimate software, though unrelated to the archive names:

• adobe_32.exe;
• AdobeSync.exe;
• trueconf.exe;
• 1cbroker.exe;
• 1c-office-plugin.exe;
• trueconf-broker.exe.

Across the incidents we investigated, we found two tools that the attackers combined for traffic tunneling.

1. Microsoft dev tunnels
   This is a legitimate Microsoft mechanism that allows local web services to be published for internet access on *.*.devtunnels.ms domains. The attackers used this tunneling capability to expose port 3389 (RDP) on the compromised system.
   

   Execution graph of adobe_32.exe in Kaspersky Research Sandbox

2. rdp2tcp
   This is a publicly available tool for tunneling TCP traffic over an established RDP connection. It includes a server component that runs on the target system and a client component that runs on the attacker’s side.

   When virtual channels are opened and closed, corresponding events with IDs 132 (channel opened) and 148 (channel closed) are logged in the Microsoft-Windows-RemoteDesktopServices-RdpCoreTS/Operational.evtx Windows log. These events contain the names of the channels (such as XPSRD, cliprdr, Microsoft::Windows::RDS::DisplayControl, and others) used by the RemoteFX module, which extends the capabilities of the RDP protocol.

   When the rdp2tcp tool is used, events with IDs 132 and 148 will contain the channel name rdp2tcp or other random alphanumeric combinations chosen by the attackers.

   

   Creation event for a channel named rdp2tcp (server component startup)

The combination of Microsoft dev tunnels and rdp2tcp allows the attackers to maintain network access by using legitimate services without opening additional suspicious ports.

The attackers also used the atexec utility from the Impacket toolkit to create scheduled tasks on target systems. These tasks enabled network port forwarding through standard Windows functionality:

netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=443 connectaddress=10.0.12.101 connectport=445

Lateral movement

To obtain elevated privileges and move laterally through the network, NightEagle exploited various vulnerabilities in Active Directory. The attackers used previously established tunnels to connect to internal infrastructure systems.

In one incident, they exploited a well-known RDP implementation vulnerability, CVE-2019-0708 (BlueKeep). They used the vulnerable mechanism to create a local account on the system and add it to the Administrators and Remote Desktop Users groups.

Contents of a system memory dump showing artifacts of the CVE-2019-0708 exploit

The attackers also requested Kerberos tickets with a non-standard combination of flags (Forwardable, Proxiable, Renewable) and attempted to replicate the Domain-Password object from the Active Directory database to impersonate the domain controller (a technique known as DCSync) after obtaining an account with sufficient privileges.

Through these methods, the attackers establish persistence in the infrastructure, obtain password hashes for domain accounts, use long-lived Kerberos tickets to gain legitimate access to target resources, and ultimately compromise domain controllers and the victim’s entire Active Directory infrastructure.

Takeaways

To expand the geographic scope of its targets, NightEagle is updating its methods and adopting new techniques for persistence and lateral movement. Despite the group’s efforts to stay hidden, timely detection of anomalies combined with a comprehensive approach to infrastructure protection can significantly hinder the attackers from achieving their goals. Since the attackers rely on known legitimate tools and infrastructure vulnerabilities, well-configured monitoring can help detect NightEagle’s presence on the network.

Detection by Kaspersky solutions

Kaspersky solutions reliably identify the malicious activity described above at various stages of the attack. We showed examples above of how Kaspersky Threat Analysis detects samples of the GhostContainer backdoor and the tunneling utility. This toolkit also includes the analytical solution Kaspersky Threat Attribution Engine (KTAE), which helps SOC analysts and incident responders determine which APT groups malware can be attributed to. The solution uses a proprietary comparison method that measures the similarity between analyzed samples of suspicious files and known malicious samples in Kaspersky’s collection.

The backdoor we discovered showed similarity to previously analyzed GhostContainer samples and a connection to the NightEagle APT group:

Backdoor analysis with KTAE

However, detection scenarios for this kind of attacks are not limited to file analysis. Deploying a backdoor on a target host produces numerous characteristic artifacts, which allow Kaspersky Endpoint Detection and Response Expert to alert users to anomalies in the infrastructure in a timely manner.

This malicious activity is detected by the following rules, available in the repository:

• Initial detection of the malicious signature occurs through the generic_ransomware_related_detection rule, based on EPP module events
• Detection of a malicious DLL’s .NET assembly being loaded via PowerShell: suspicious_assembly_loading_into_powershell_via_reflection
• Activity of tunneling and traffic redirection tools: detection_of_access_to_tunnel_domains_dns
• Use of tools from the Impacket toolkit, such as atexec:
  • impacket_possible_activity
  • attempt_to_download_hacktool_or_risktool_by_non_browser
  • credentials_dumping_tools_file_artifacts_creation
• Attempts to replicate an Active Directory database object to impersonate a domain controller: potential_dcsync_via_startupparameters

Process tree in KEDR Expert

Kaspersky Anti Targeted Attack (KATA) detects this malicious activity in network traffic. For example, the Exploit.CVE-2019-0708.TCP.C&C signature allows detecting attempts to exploit the CVE-2019-0708 (BlueKeep) vulnerability.

Alert card for the BlueKeep vulnerability exploitation

Beyond this activity, KATA also detects other NightEagle actions in network traffic, such as the following:

• Traffic redirection and tunneling variations
• Attacks on Active Directory (DCSync, attempts to compromise AD CS, and others)
• Lateral movement across the network

Indicators of compromise

Microsoft Threat Intelligence has identified NeedyMantis, a modular post-compromise malware family observed in a limited number of targeted operations affecting telecommunications organizations, universities, medical nonprofits, intergovernmental organizations, and government contractors. Based on observed activity, NeedyMantis is typically deployed after a threat actor has already established access to a target environment, indicating that the malware is used to maintain long-term access and support follow-on operations.

NeedyMantis activity dates back to at least October 2025. We discovered the malware family while analyzing and pivoting from research and indicators of compromise associated with the DAEMON Tools supply chain compromise, which Kaspersky previously reported on as part of its investigation into the campaign. Observed activity involving NeedyMantis has thus far aligned with activity that Microsoft associates with threat actors operating from China, although Microsoft has not determined whether all observed activity is attributable to the same operator.

While NeedyMantis employs techniques commonly used by modern malware, its architecture combines multiple loaders, custom encrypted file archives, a custom executable file format, and modular components that enable operators to evade analysis and extend functionality through additional modules. These characteristics, combined with its use in targeted intrusions, make NeedyMantis a useful case study for understanding how threat actors establish and maintain long-term access within victim environments.

In this blog, we analyze the NeedyMantis malware framework. We examine its packaging and deployment, custom archive format, loader architecture, command-and-control (C2) communications, and modular design. We also provide indicators of compromise (IOCs), Microsoft Defender detections, and mitigation guidance to help organizations defend against this threat and related activity.

Observed operators and targeting

At the time of writing, Microsoft has observed at least one threat actor using NeedyMantis malware: Storm-3069. Storm-3069 is Microsoft Threat Intelligence’s designator for activity associated with the DAEMON Tools supply chain compromise. While Microsoft assesses the activity originates from China, it has not attributed Storm-3069 to a Chinese nation-state actor. Microsoft identified NeedyMantis through follow-on analysis of indicators associated with Kaspersky’s investigation of the DAEMON Tools compromise.

Microsoft has observed additional NeedyMantis activity beyond Storm-3069’s activity in the DAEMON Tools campaign, indicating that the malware might be used by more than one operator. Observed activity involving NeedyMantis has thus far aligned with activity Microsoft associates with threat actors operating from China, such as targeting that aligns with Chinese interests and the use of selective deployment.

NeedyMantis has been observed in intrusions affecting telecommunications organizations, universities, intergovernmental organizations, medical nonprofits, and government contractors. Combined with the malware’s limited observed deployment and alignment with activity Microsoft associates with China-based threat actors, this victimology suggests NeedyMantis is deployed selectively rather than broadly. However, Microsoft has not determined whether all observed activity is attributable to the same threat actor or whether multiple actors have access to the malware.

Malware packaging and distribution

As previously mentioned, observed activity suggests that the malware is typically deployed after a threat actor has established access to a target environment. As a result, the methods used to gain access before NeedyMantis is deployed may vary across intrusions.

NeedyMantis is composed of multiple components written in C++ and x64 shellcode. The malware starts with a first-stage loader and a file archive. The loader and archive have been found packaged alongside legitimate software, with the first-stage loader–masquerading as a required DLL—being loaded through DLL sideloading.

Some of the open-source, software abused by the malware include: Poedit (translation), curl (data transfer), Vim (text editor), and TightVNC (remote access). Microsoft has also observed NeedyMantis masquerading as Microsoft Office, Broadcom, Intel, and NVIDIA DLL components. The following is a list of some of the DLL path names used by the malware:

• %ProgramFiles%\Poedit\WinSparkle.dll
• %ProgramData%\USOShared\libcurl.dll
• %ProgramData%\VIM\vim64.dll
• %ProgramData%\TightVNC\VIM\vim64.dll
• %ProgramData%\office\dbghelp.dll
• %ProgramData%\broadcom\dbghelp.dll
• %ProgramData%\Intel\jli.dll
• %ProgramFiles%\modifiable\nvml.dll
• %ProgramData%\ics\nvml.dll

The malware’s file archive is named the same as the loader DLL without the extension, for example WinSparkle or libcurl.

In one observed incident, an operator used the Impacket toolkit during hands-on-keyboard activity to copy the legitimate software, malicious DLL, and file archive from a network share and execute it on a targeted device. This activity occurred after the actor had already obtained access to the environment and illustrates one method by which NeedyMantis can be introduced during an intrusion post-compromise.

NeedyMantis is observed during the post-compromise stage of an intrusion after an actor has established access to the target environment. While one known user of the malware, Storm-3069, has been associated with supply chain compromises, Microsoft has not observed NeedyMantis itself being distributed through a supply chain compromise. However, supply chain activity remains one possible means by which an actor could gain the access necessary to deploy the malware.

NeedyMantis architecture and capabilities

First-stage loader

NeedyMantis’ first-stage loader is DLL sideloaded and launched when the legitimate software it is packaged with is run. Its only task is to extract the second-stage loader from its file archive and continue execution there.

In the analyzed sample, the loader DLL was named WinSparkle.dll (SHA-256: e842dd7642c8e04b5ec20b6393848a9c904e4832930950c16664fe7800ba382e) and its file archive was named WinSparkle (SHA-256: 9cb68f986043a576e19d32184c583b7d8f571c7219d8dc0065dced1c13f077ef). NeedyMantis spoofed and replaced the WinSparkle software update component of the Poedit translation software.

The loader employs common anti-analysis techniques to hinder analysis, like obfuscating most of its important strings.

This technique is known as obfuscated stack strings because each piece of the string is built up one at a time on the function’s stack. Once built up, it is deobfuscated using various mathematical operations. Most of the obfuscated strings in this loader are Windows DLL and API names. These deobfuscated strings are used to resolve Windows APIs dynamically at runtime.

In addition to obfuscated strings, a lot of the code’s constant values are stored obfuscated as well.

Finally, the loader has two anti-debugger methods: one based on ProcessDebugFlags and the other using ThreadHideFromDebugger.

As noted above, the loader’s main objective is to extract the next stage from its file archive and launch it. In the analyzed sample, the next stage was named encryptbase64.ps1.

Custom file archives

NeedyMantis’ file archives are in an encrypted and compressed custom file format. To get access to the files, the outer layer of the archive is XOR-decoded and RtlDecompressBuffer decompressed. Once decompressed, there are individual file entries. In each file entry, the file’s name is XOR-decoded and its contents are RtlDecompressBuffer decompressed.

The file format’s offsets, XOR keys, and values change from sample to sample.

This archive contains the following 11 files:

• 7-zip.chm – Legitimate component of 7-Zip
• 7-zip.dll – Legitimate component of 7-Zip
• 7-zip32.dll – Legitimate component of 7-Zip
• 7z.exe – Legitimate component of 7-Zip
• Disk2vhd.dll – Legitimate Sysinternals component Disk2vhd
• main.dll – Legitimate Sysinternals component Ctrl2Cap
• kernel32.dll – Legitimate kernel32.dll
• encryptbase64.ps1 – Second-stage loader
• dnsapi.dll – Not a dnsapi.dll, but contains the malware’s configuration
• ws2_32.dll – Not a ws2_32.dll, but contains a WebSockets based communications DLL
• msvcrt140.dll – Not a msvcrt140.dll, but contains shellcode to load module DLLs and resolve exports

While this archive contains several legitimate software components, the malware’s functionality is implemented by the remaining files, discussed below.

Other analyzed NeedyMantis file archives have contained different file names and components. An older version of the malware, for example, used a libcurl (SHA-256: c82520eb03c084226be4eafbff46f56dca0aa8804a2a7f23a085a96afe71ef77) file archive, and it contained only four files:

• 300.c – Malware’s configuration
• 300.s – WebSockets-based communications DLL
• is – Persistence module using Windows Services
• m.l – Main component

Second-stage loader

In the analyzed sample, encryptbase64.ps1 was the second-stage loader. Despite its .ps1 PowerShell extension, the file contains x64 shellcode. Its purpose is to decode and decompress an embedded binary which is NeedyMantis’ main component.

This loader also has some anti-analysis functionality that differs from stage one. For string decoding, it locates two encoded blocks of data and XOR keys at calculated offsets and then decodes them. The first block, most relevantly, contains a few Windows DLL and API names that are resolved dynamically. The second block, shown below, contains a list of Windows DLL names and Windows API hash values:

The component uses a rotate right (ROR) based algorithm with a configurable rotation value (the analyzed sample used value 11) to resolve these Windows API hashes. Figure 5 shows a snippet of Python code reproducing the algorithm:

This second-stage loader’s objective is to extract embedded data, XOR-decode it, and then RtlDecompressBuffer decompress it. The location of the encoded data and XOR key are at calculated offsets, which change from sample to sample.

Once decoded the resulting data is a DLL that has been formatted using a custom executable file format. It is a minimized version of a PE file.

Main component

NeedyMantis’ main component orchestrates C2 communications and handles additional downloaded modules.

It creates a mutex named <username>-<process name>, such as Contoso-Poedit.exe. Like in the first-stage loader, most of the main component’s strings and constant values are stored as obfuscated stack strings.

Configuration

The malware’s configuration was stored in a dnsapi.dll file from the custom file archive. This file name spoofs a Windows networking library. In the sample analyzed, the file contains a 3448-byte binary structure. The structure includes the following fields:

• 0x00: Unknown (config contained “300”, but components also reference “400”)
• 0x1c: Communication component name (ws2_32.dll)
• 0x128: C2 port (443)
• 0x12c: C2 host (corp.tripswithengine[.]com)
• 0x334: C2 URI (/library/zip/)
• 0x53C: WinHttpOpen AccessType (0)
• 0x954: Proxy username (not set)
• 0xB5C: Proxy password (not set)
• 0xD64: Sleep time related (300)
• 0xD68: Sleep time related (300)

Communications DLL

As referenced in the configuration, NeedyMantis makes use of a communication component called ws2_32.dll. This component is also stored in the custom file archive. Like the config file, the file name spoofs a Windows networking library.

This communications DLL has one export named SystemInfo. As shown below in Figure 7, SystemInfo exposes 10 functions for the main component to initiate and maintain a WebSockets connection with the C2:

The library uses WinINet APIs for WebSockets. It also has a hard-coded user-agent of firefox/21.0.

We have also spotted a second version of the communications DLL in a file archive. It implements the same communications API but uses Libwebsockets (LWS) instead of WinINet.

Command and control

The initial C2 beacon is an HTTPS GET request, similar to Figure 8 below:

The Set-Cookie header contains system information. The header value can be Base64-decoded and RtlDecompressBuffer decompressed. Once decompressed it contains a JSON object. The key values are:

• c – Computer name
• u – Username
• o – Base64-encoded data, once decoded it contains line separated “
  • f – Files in ProgramFiles directory
  • pa – Parent process
  • p – Process name
  ” entries:
  • p – Process list

The connection is then converted to WebSockets and a binary C2 protocol is continued. The binary protocol is separated into a header and optional data components. The 44-byte header includes the following fields:

• 0x00: 16-byte XOR key
• 0x10: Uncompressed data length
• 0x14: Compressed data length
• 0x18: Command number
• 0x28: Data length
• 0x2c: Optional data

A 16-byte random XOR key is generated and the header is XOR-encoded, starting at offset 0x18. If there is any data, it is compressed with RtlCompressBuffer and optionally encrypted with RC4.

The initial messages of the binary protocol are a key exchange with the C2 server. The protocol is performed as such:

• 32-bytes are received from the C2 server, but then ignored
• A 1024-byte random buffer is created
• The first 32-bytes of this random buffer are used as the RC4 key for further communications
• A 256-byte buffer is created that starts with google.com followed by random bytes
• The 256-byte buffer is RC4 encrypted
• A random length between 292 and 1282 is picked
• The C2 protocol message data is structured as such:
  • 0x00: The random length
  • 0x04: RC4 encrypted google.com buffer
  • 0x104: The random 1024-byte buffer used to create the RC4 key (at least 32 bytes of it)
• This message data is compressed, but not RC4 encrypted
• A random command number between 1 and 45 is chosen
• The C2 server uses the buffer at offset 0x104 to recreate the RC4 key and presumably checks the RC4 encrypted google.com buffer
• The server sends back the random command number as an acknowledgement

Commands

The main component only has a handful of commands. Commands sent to the C2 include:

• 1110 – Sends computer name and username
• 1112 – Sends a hard-coded identifier (like 20001)
• 1150 – Keep alive

Commands received from the C2 include:

• 1020 – Load module
• 1030 – Unload module
• 1050 / 1150 – Dispatch data to module
• 1070 – Turn off active flags

The main component’s load, unload, and data dispatch commands show that NeedyMantis can extend its functionality through additional modules, but the capabilities of those modules remain unconfirmed.

Mitigation and protection guidance

Microsoft recommends the following mitigations to reduce the impact of this threat.

• Look for outbound connections in network egress traffic to corp.tripswithengine[.]com.
• Turn on cloud-delivered protection and block at first sight to rapidly identify and block new and unknown malware variants.
• Run Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) in block mode so that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can block malicious artifacts, even when your non-Microsoft antivirus does not detect the threat or when Microsoft Defender Antivirus is running in passive mode. EDR in block mode works behind the scenes to remediate malicious artifacts that are detected post-breach.    
• Enable network protection in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.
• Configure automatic attack disruption in Microsoft Defender XDR. Automatic attack disruption is designed to contain attacks in progress, limit the impact on an organization’s assets, and provide more time for security teams to remediate the attack fully.
• Microsoft Defender XDR customers can turn on the following attack surface reduction rules to prevent common attack techniques used by threat actors.
  • Block executable files from running unless they meet a prevalence, age, or trusted list criterion
  • Block execution of potentially obfuscated scripts

You can assess how an attack surface reduction rule might impact your network by opening the security recommendation for that rule in threat and vulnerability management. In the recommendation details pane, check the user impact to determine what percentage of your devices can accept a new policy enabling the rule in blocking mode without adverse impact to user productivity.

Microsoft Defender detections

Microsoft Defender customers can refer to the list of applicable detections below. Microsoft Defender coordinates detection, prevention, investigation, and response across endpoints, identities, email, apps to provide integrated protection against attacks like the threat discussed in this blog.

Microsoft Security Copilot

Microsoft Security Copilot is embedded in Microsoft Defender and provides security teams with AI-powered capabilities to summarize incidents, analyze files and scripts, summarize identities, use guided responses, and generate device summaries, hunting queries, and incident reports.

Customers can also deploy AI agents, including the following Microsoft Security Copilot agents, to perform security tasks efficiently:

• Threat Intelligence Briefing agent
• Phishing Triage agent
• Threat Hunting agent
• Dynamic Threat Detection agent

Security Copilot is also available as a standalone experience where customers can perform specific security-related tasks, such as incident investigation, user analysis, and vulnerability impact assessment. In addition, Security Copilot offers developer scenarios that allow customers to build, test, publish, and integrate AI agents and plugins to meet unique security needs.

Threat intelligence reports

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can use the following threat analytics reports in the Defender portal (requires license for at least one Defender XDR product) to get the most up-to-date information about the threat actor, malicious activity, and techniques discussed in this blog. These reports provide the intelligence, protection information, and recommended actions to prevent, mitigate, or respond to associated threats found in customer environments.

• Tool profile: NeedyMantis
• Actor profile: Storm-3069
• Tool profile: Impacket

Microsoft Security Copilot customers can also use the Microsoft Security Copilot integration in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, either in the Security Copilot standalone portal or in the embedded experience in the Microsoft Defender portal to get more information about this malware and associated activity.

Hunting queries

Microsoft Defender XDR

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can run the following advanced hunting queries to find related activity in their networks:

NeedyMantis masquerading as software

A listing of legitimate, unmodified application folders, along with malicious replacement DLL filenames sideloaded by NeedyMantis.

DeviceFileEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(7d)
| where (
    (FolderPath matches regex @"^[A-Za-z]:\\Program Files\\Poedit" and FileName == "WinSparkle.dll")
    or (FolderPath matches regex @"^[A-Za-z]:\\Program Files \(x86\)\\Poedit" and FileName == "WinSparkle.dll")
    or (FolderPath matches regex @"^[A-Za-z]:\\ProgramData\\USOShared" and FileName == "libcurl.dll")
    or (FolderPath matches regex @"^[A-Za-z]:\\ProgramData\\VIM" and FileName == "vim64.dll")
    or (FolderPath matches regex @"^[A-Za-z]:\\ProgramData\\TightVNC\\VIM" and FileName == "vim64.dll")
    or (FolderPath matches regex @"^[A-Za-z]:\\ProgramData\\office" and FileName == "dbghelp.dll")
    or (FolderPath matches regex @"^[A-Za-z]:\\ProgramData\\broadcom" and FileName == "dbghelp.dll")
    or (FolderPath matches regex @"^[A-Za-z]:\\ProgramData\\Intel" and FileName == "jli.dll")
    or (FolderPath matches regex @"^[A-Za-z]:\\Program Files\\modifiable" and FileName == "nvml.dll")
    or (FolderPath matches regex @"^[A-Za-z]:\\Program Files \(x86\)\\modifiable" and FileName == "nvml.dll")
    or (FolderPath matches regex @"^[A-Za-z]:\\ProgramData\\ics" and FileName == "nvml.dll")
)
| project Timestamp, DeviceId, DeviceName, ActionType, FolderPath, FileName,
          SHA1, SHA256, MD5,
          InitiatingProcessAccountDomain, InitiatingProcessAccountName, InitiatingProcessAccountSid,
          InitiatingProcessAccountUpn,
          InitiatingProcessMD5, InitiatingProcessSHA1, InitiatingProcessSHA256,
          InitiatingProcessFolderPath, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine,
          InitiatingProcessCreationTime,
          ReportId, TenantId

NeedyMantis C2

This query identifies connectivity to the NeedyMantis command and control site for this activity.

search in (DeviceNetworkEvents, EmailUrlInfo, UrlClickEvents, DeviceEvents, DeviceFileEvents, DeviceProcessEvents)
  "corp.tripswithengine.com"
| where Timestamp > ago(7d)
| extend SourceTable = $table
| project Timestamp,
          DeviceName,
          InitiatingProcessAccountName,
          InitiatingProcessAccountUpn,
          AccountName,
          AccountUpn,
          RemoteIP,
          LocalIP,
          IPAddress,
          RemoteUrl,
          Url,
          UrlDomain,
          FileOriginUrl,
          FileOriginReferrerUrl,
          FileOriginIP,
          ProcessCommandLine,
          InitiatingProcessCommandLine,
          InitiatingProcessFileName,
          FileName,
          FolderPath,
          NetworkMessageId,
          SourceTable

NeedyMantis communications DLL hard-coded user-agent

Identify connectivity utilizing the NeedyMantis hard-coded user-agent.

search in (DeviceNetworkEvents, DeviceEvents, UrlClickEvents, EmailUrlInfo)
  "Firefox/21.0"
| where Timestamp > ago(7d)
| extend SourceTable = $table
| project Timestamp,
          DeviceName = iff(isnull(DeviceName), "", DeviceName),
          AccountUpn = coalesce(InitiatingProcessAccountUpn, AccountUpn, ""),
          AccountName = coalesce(InitiatingProcessAccountName, AccountName, ""),
          RemoteIP = coalesce(RemoteIP, IPAddress, ""),
          Url = coalesce(RemoteUrl, Url, ""),
          UserAgent = AdditionalFields,
          SourceTable

Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel customers can use the TI Mapping analytics (a series of analytics all prefixed with ‘TI map’) to automatically match the malicious domain indicators mentioned in this blog post with data in their workspace. If the TI Map analytics are not currently deployed, customers can install the Threat Intelligence solution from the Microsoft Sentinel Content Hub to have the analytics rule deployed in their Sentinel workspace.

NeedyMantis C2

This query identifies connectivity to the NeedyMantis command and control site for this activity.

search in (CommonSecurityLog, SecurityEvent, AzureDiagnostics)
  "corp.tripswithengine.com"
| where TimeGenerated > ago(7d)
| project TimeGenerated,
          DeviceName,
          Computer,
          SourceIP,
          SourcePort,
          SourceUserName,
          DestinationIP,
          DestinationPort,
          DestinationHostName,
          DestinationDnsDomain,
          RequestURL,
          ProcessName,
          DestinationUserName,
          SourceHostName,
          Message,
          $table

NeedyMantis communications DLL hard-code user-agent

Identify connectivity utilizing the NeedyMantis hard-code user-agent.

CommonSecurityLog
| where TimeGenerated > ago(7d)
| where RequestClientApplication contains "Firefox/21.0" or Message contains "Firefox/21.0"
| project TimeGenerated, DeviceName, SourceUserName, SourceIP, DestinationIP, RequestURL, RequestClientApplication

Indicators of compromise

References

• https://securelist.com/tr/daemon-tools-backdoor/119654/
• https://winsparkle.org/
• https://poedit.com/

Learn more

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog.

To get notified about new publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), and Bluesky.

To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast.

The post NeedyMantis: Unpacking a post-compromise malware family used in targeted operations appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

This is an impressive piece of malware. Its sophistication says nation-state to me, but there is no direct evidence and certainly no attribution.

MacSync is a relatively young, rapidly evolving family of crypto/info stealers. First advertised on the dark web in 2025 as Mac.c, the stealer was later renamed to MacSync by its creators. The initial versions were implemented as AppleScripts and closely resembled the AMOS stealer family, but over time, MacSync developed distinctive features of its own, including a backdoor module. In this report, we discuss a new infection chain that differs significantly from previous variants. We first spotted it in the wild in September 2026.

Key points:

• The developers of this family have overhauled their approach to payload delivery by replacing script-based droppers with binary ones.
• The main malicious payload now consists of modules written in Objective-C and Swift.
• At one stage of infection, the attackers use iCloud to deliver the next

Kaspersky solutions detect the threats described below under the following verdicts:

• HEUR:Trojan.OSX.MacSync.*
• HEUR:Trojan-PSW.OSX.MacSync.*
• HEUR:Trojan-Dropper.OSX.MacSync.*
• HEUR:Trojan-Downloader.OSX.MacSync.*

Technical details

Infection chain

MacSync is an infostealer distributed under the malware-as-a-service (MaaS) model, so the specific delivery method for the first stage of the infection chain is up to the operators. Recent public reports on MacSync have mostly focused on modules delivered through social engineering and ClickFix-style attacks. However, both then and now, the malware has also spread disguised as free or cracked versions of popular applications, as well as under the guise of new software. For example, we found MacSync masquerading as a nonexistent crypto wallet app called Toria; the attackers not only created a dedicated web page for it but also promoted it on X and Telegram:

The latest version of the infostealer we discovered starts the infection chain with malicious DMG images. Even within a single campaign built around one fake application, we found two different ways the infostealer and backdoor modules were delivered to the victim’s device. In one, the payload inside the DMG was a compiled JXA script that, once launched, decoded a shell script and passed it directly to the interpreter without writing it to disk. In the other version of the application, the same script appeared at a later stage of infection, after a chain of droppers and loaders had run. We’ll take a look at the second infection chain in detail, since it is more complex and technically interesting. The infection scheme is shown below:

It’s worth noting right away that MacSync shows shared traits at almost every stage:

• All temporary files are placed in the /tmp directory. The same directory is where *.lock files are created to prevent the malware from running again.
• Once its task is complete, the module removes traces of its activity: temporary files, its own logs, and so on.
• All binary files are in the FAT Mach-O format and target devices with both Apple and Intel processors.

Loader, Calendar, and Two Simple Droppers

In this infection chain, the payload on the disk image is an .APP application. When started, it first checks whether the whole bundle has the com.apple.quarantine extended quarantine attribute, and if it finds one, it runs the xattr -cr <app_name> command to remove all attributes. Next, it extracts an XOR-encrypted URL from its overlay and decrypts it with the key 73 6f 6e 6f 6d 61 62 6c 64 07. After the encrypted data, there are 8 bytes indicating the length of the ciphertext, followed by the magic word SONOMAC1. It’s worth noting that the malware reads the overlay backwards: it first locates the magic word, then reads the data size, and then uses the size to determine the boundaries of the data block containing the ciphertext.

The resulting URL is a link to the next-stage downloader script. In some cases, this link pointed directly to a file hosted on an attacker-controlled server; however, in at least one sample, the link pointed to a public iCloud calendar:

hxxp://caldav.icloud[.]com/published/2/MTk1NDMwMDMzNTUxOTU0M1aHCZ-nMxiyGzBTzPiodOf44DtKJ6PpjftAG28_ui2NCYMpL_vu4pF4ddsJ8ysg0QI7pR0VEIEbZYdilVZRw08

Contents of the downloaded calendar

After retrieving the calendar file from the server, the downloader creates an anonymous pipe, launches the interpreter to read commands from standard input (zsh -s), sets the pipe as standard input, and redirects the contents of the calendar into it line by line. Since a calendar is normally not a command, the interpreter treats the lines as invalid commands until it reaches the malicious payload after the DESCRIPTION: line. These commands ultimately download a .TAR.GZ archive from iCloud that contains an .APP bundle. The downloader removes the quarantine attribute from it, signs it with an ad-hoc signature, and executes it.

We don’t know the contents of the scripts distributed from the attacker’s server, but they are very likely the same script found in the calendar event description.

The downloaded application is a dropper. The malicious payload it extracts is a zlib-compressed executable encrypted with AES in CBC mode, using the following key and initialization vector:

cb09ff86cabde4f8cee2d3cdec370c623bfa6c2b72ae9750fc9a7b299c65d7ca
3a1af2b397c6958e6c3ba3c75912d60e

The dropper decrypts and unpacks it, then places it at /tmp/.sys-<16-digit random value>.

Inside is another dropper, but unlike the previous stages, this one includes anti-debugging protection. In particular, it checks whether it’s running on a virtual machine by making sysctl queries with the kern.hv_vmm_present and machdep.cpu.brand_string parameters. It also sets the PT_DENY_ATTACH flag with ptrace to prevent a debugger from attaching to the process. The payload is a shell script encrypted with AES in CBC mode, using the following key and initialization vector:

3744f975113dfc552df982dcae699f9154a448e05a743bdfb641a463352bc13a
8d371f8a7a6dcc2655544ae13cbca03d

Payload of the second dropper

As shown in the screenshot above, the second dropper delivers a downloader script that retrieves the next-stage payload from the command-and-control server, decrypts it with AES in CBC mode using the following key and initialization vector, and then executes it in memory:

ff664112d3215c5d184689fc836e0dc6c1a47e42c34e70b2c3d356864bc4cb4c
09425f72de8bba18893dcd6f04115891

A couple more scripts

Inside the retrieved script, we can immediately spot several familiar indicators associated with the MacSync malware family:

• The main function in the script is named daemon_function.
• The stolen data is uploaded to the command-and-control server via PUT requests. The data in the requests is sent in 90-megabyte chunks. In earlier versions, the chunk sizes differed.
• One way to establish persistence on a system it uses is to inject a malicious command into the .ZSHRC, the configuration file for the ZSH interpreter, which contains commands that run each time the interpreter starts.
• The URL path where the backdoor executable is stored on the command-and-control server begins with the /loader/ directory.

The script performs the following tasks:

• Downloading and decrypting additional malicious modules: an infostealer, a backdoor, and a special utility for generating encryption keys and decrypting downloaded executable files
• Gaining persistence on the system
• Uploading data received from the infostealer module to the command-and-control server

One detail stands out: instead of the usual encryption algorithms (XOR, AES, and so on), the attackers took a different approach to delivering malicious modules at this stage. It involves a selfmade utility called pkgunpack that implements two commands: genkey and decrypt. The malicious payload is decrypted as follows:

1. The malware generates a public and private encryption key pair using genkey command from pkgunpack, whose generation function relies on an open implementation of the elliptic-curve Diffie-Hellman protocol on Curve25519: curve25519_donna.
2. The public key is encoded in base64 and sent to the command-and-control server together with a one-time code generated by the command $(date +%s)-${RANDOM}-$$.
3. The server responds with the following JSON:
   

   {
       "ok": true,
       "dek_wrap_b64":  <base64_encoded_encrypted_key> ,
       "build_pub_b64": "pFSxn/Uwg9bS45aVKCzA+8exSMfDHXpbpHC/f7G472w=",
       "crypto": "v2.5"
   }

   
   Here, build_pub_b64 is the server’s public key, which is also predefined in the script itself, and dek_wrap_b64 is a base64-encoded string that contains the payload encryption key. This key is encrypted on the server side with a shared secret computed from the public key generated with pkgunpack on the victim’s device.
4. Then decrypt command from pkgunpack utility decrypts the key:
   1. A shared secret is computed from the server’s known public key and the private key for the current session, using the same ECDH Curve25519 key exchange scheme that was used to generate the keys.
   2. The resulting shared secret is concatenated with the string sn-dek-wrap-v1, and a SHA-256 hash is computed from the result.
   3. Next, the dek_wrap_b64 block received from the server is decoded. It has the following structure:
      1. The first 5 bytes: additional authenticated data (AAD)
      2. The next 12 bytes: the initialization vector (IV)
      3. The rest: the ciphertext
   4. The ciphertext is decrypted with AES in GCM mode using the previously obtained key, IV, and AAD.
      

      Decoded dek_wrap_b64

5. The result is the key for decrypting the downloaded malicious payload. The payload, in turn, also contains an AAD and an IV in its header and is encrypted with AES GCM. The utility decrypts it and terminates.

Note that at each individual stage, the utility zeros out buffers after using encryption keys and data, apparently to impede forensic data collection and dynamic analysis of samples.

As mentioned earlier, at this stage, the script downloads only two modules: an infostealer and a backdoor. Once decrypted, both are .TAR.GZ archives; their contents are extracted, stripped of all extended attributes (such as com.apple.quarantine), and signed with an ad-hoc signature. The infostealer module runs first: it collects the data it needs, places it in a temporary folder, and compresses it into a .TAR.GZ archive, which the script then sends to the attackers’ server. Next, before launching the backdoor, the script sets up persistence for it and creates a backup copy. The backup copy, along with the other files it needs to operate, is placed in $HOME/Library/Application Support/System. This directory doesn’t exist in macOS by default; the script creates it. The backdoor disguises itself as the Finder application and achieves persistence in the system through the following methods:

• A LaunchAgent named com.apple.finder.agent
• Injection of a command that runs the .repair-run script when the ZSH interpreter starts from the .ZSHRC
• Injection of a similar command, which also runs the .repair-run script, into the global GIT pre-commit and post-checkout hooks

The .repair-run script checks whether the backdoor files exist, restores them from a backup if they are missing, and re-creates and reloads the LaunchAgent. At the same time, it kills the BTMNotificationAgent, NotificationCenter, and BackgroundTaskManagementAgent system processes to prevent the system from notifying the user about the new LaunchAgent.

One last thing worth noting about the script at this stage is its use of a custom HTTP header, X-Upload-Token, without which the C2 server responds to requests with errors. During our research, we observed the use of the following tokens: b8b4b88205a8f594b95a841bc37342898f34cad8a5a9e4a22ce69a31a1208650 and ff3ab9ef841630364818396f62e696b72aed162cf0b895b6643ef25dad79b51d. The backdoor later uses these same tokens to communicate with the C2 server.

Infostealer

The infostealer module ships as an .APP application, with its main executable written in Swift. As with previous AppleScript-based versions, the malware first asks the user for the administrator password. It adapts the window it displays to match the application it is impersonating. After the password is entered, the user sees a window that imitates a system notification about a corrupted application, offering to move it to the trash.

Fake stealer pop-up windows

Interestingly, instead of the method most macOS malware families use to verify a password, the dscl utility, the attackers used the Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) API. This is a fairly new technique for macOS malware, first observed in the wild in July 2026 in the Pam Stealer family. It apparently caught the attention of malware authors, and we may see it used more often going forward.

Password verification with PAM

Many strings in the stealer (file names, directory names, team IDs, and so on) are XOR-encrypted and stored in static arrays. The encryption keys differ between samples and are generated based on the ciphertext length.

String decryption

The set of data the stealer collects has expanded slightly compared to previous versions. The generalized list is as follows:

• Browser data: browsing history, cookies, crypto wallet extension data, saved logins and passwords, and Local State files
• Crypto wallet application data
• Telegram data
• Device login and password
• Keychain file
• System information: list of installed applications and running processes, device model, hardware, UUID, and so on
• Configuration files for SSH, ZSH, AWS, Kubernetes, GIT, and other services/programs
• ZSH and Bash command history
• Current user profile picture

The collected data is saved to a hidden directory in /tmp/.

The stealer module also has one interesting feature, disabled in all samples discovered so far and apparently still in development. Its purpose is to check whether the malicious application’s resources contain a file called KcHelper at <app_path>/Contents/Resources/Helpers, and, if the file is present, launch it with certain parameters. If this file is missing, a fallback function, _kc_grab_storage_item, is executed instead. Since KcHelper was not present among the application’s resources at the time of our research, we can only speculate about its purpose based on our analysis of this function. It first runs a command that modifies the partition_id of the keychain entry for a specific service so that three categories of applications can access it without user confirmation and without the keychain password:

• teamid: the application is signed with a certificate that has a specific teamID (in this case, the target application’s developer)
• apple: the application is an Apple service
• apple-tool: the application is an Apple command-line utility

security set-generic-password-partition-list -a <account_name> -s <service_name> -S <application_groups> -k <keychain_password> <keychain_path>

The stealer then uses the Security.framework API to try and retrieve the secret’s contents on its own, which still ends up triggering a confirmation request for the operation. It appears the threat actors plan to refine this feature in the future to gain unimpeded access to secrets even if the keychain password changes, but at this point, they haven’t managed to do so, which is why the feature is disabled. In the stealer’s encrypted strings, we saw examples of arguments for the command that modifies partition_id, which indicate that the attackers are after browser secrets. Example:

Chrome Safe Storage|Chrome|ChromeStorage|apple-tool:,apple:,teamid:EQHXZ8M8AV
Brave Safe Storage|Brave|BraveStorage|apple-tool:,apple:,teamid:KL8N8XSYF4

Code section responsible for changing access to keychain services

Backdoor

The backdoor is a Fat Mach-O executable written in Objective-C. It has two launch modes: a regular one and one with the --persist-status flag. In the second mode, it only checks how it was added to the persistence objects: as a Login Item or as a LaunchAgent. In standard mode, before proceeding to its main functionality, the backdoor also checks whether it has been added to autorun in any way. If not, it uses the same persistence mechanism as the parent script. However, for macOS versions older than 13.0, a separate helper executable stored inside the backdoor’s body is used regardless of whether autorun objects are present. The helper performs a single task: it uses the CoreServices.framework API to add the executable file passed to it as an argument to the Login Items.

As with the droppers from the early stages of the infection chain, the configuration for communicating with the C2 is stored in the executable’s overlay and encrypted with XOR using the same key. It consists of several strings separated by null bytes:

• AGNT1: a magic constant confirming that the configuration was decrypted correctly
• C2 server URL
• Access token: the same one used in the parent script
• BLD-150: the backdoor build number

The malware also writes logs to $HOME/Library/Logs/.sysnotif-agent.log and supports extended logging when launched with the LAUNCHER_DEBUG environment variable. Communication with the C2 takes place over HTTP. The server’s response should be a JSON file.

Although the backdoor offers several different commands, they all boil down to the same action: extract the base64-encoded AppleScript script from the script_b64 field in the server’s response and execute it. Individual command handlers then act as wrappers around the scripts, correctly populating telemetry and sending requests to the C2 server. Based on the command names and the messages sent to the server during their execution, we can reconstruct their purpose without having the scripts on hand. The backdoor supports the following commands:

• deploy_ext: deploy an extension downloaded from the server into the victim’s browser.
• deploy_ledger: replace the installed Ledger wallet with the version from the server.
• regrab: collect system information and/or specific files again. This time, the collected data is packaged into an archive typical for the MacSync family, at /tmp/osalogging.zip, unless a different path is specified in the archive_path field sent along with the command.
• live_browser: the only command executed without an AppleScript script. The backdoor checks for the presence of the sn_relay file among its resources, and if it’s not found, downloads and executes it. Its content and purpose remain a mystery to us, but based on the command name and the messages sent to the server, we can assume that the attackers somehow implement a MitM attack on traffic originating from the victim’s browser.

The section of the regrab command where the archive’s integrity is verified and its hash is calculated before it is sent

Takeaways

The new version of the MacSync infostealer differs quite significantly from its previously observed variants. The attackers have substantially overhauled their approach to executing the stealer’s and backdoor’s main malicious payload, moving from AppleScripts to full-fledged executable files written in Swift and Objective-C. It’s also worth noting the more complex infection chain: instead of obfuscated shell scripts delivered through ClickFix attacks, this version used binary droppers and loaders, some of which leveraged Apple’s infrastructure as one of the intermediate stages for delivering the malicious payload.

The nature of the data attackers seek to collect from a victim’s device, as well as the categories of applications the stealer disguises itself as, clearly indicates that this malware family primarily targets developers, crypto enthusiasts, and other users associated in some way with IT and the crypto space. MacSync’s compromise of software developers’ devices poses particular security risks for both end users and corporate systems, opening up expanded opportunities for attackers to further their intrusion.

Indicators of compromise

Stage one loader
26a0f7cdb9f7dc5ace9a40af825b1538
2d69812584269699fade26622e6490c5
7df1049cbd56c0bfa4a3364a379b4c2c
9f15fe9c4415cd668334339f705b94d8
fb90887592655a8c989e443c640167aa
6791dad263cac6d63ebba6a4b57e7d71

Malicious calendar (stage two)
3ded1d71a822b53b12c3b67bcaf633f5

Stage three dropper
781ce50001d4b449600afa347c9b0208
8e84b01d5ac9624f0b181ade0e737193
980e2134679bc0c609f7659882883d77
4203ec932bfcc0907f91732440d6d997
eb760d5c88f13f7ee0f8f86ba3407123
f9f70096aabb4d22a6657014f4853a53

Stage four dropper
3deeed48fd38f22e369f5c3092bd68a1

Stage five script
f97d24212fa6a21be0c4d211e10f044c

Stage six script
00d12d842596bf5ee1805effb4571d30
9a0043d900a9ac78c886c59c9a328fd0

Auxiliary .repair-run script
7212229c85852c3bffaf9740002b2f39

Infostealer
c53d0ea45dbc622afb7f16ea3eec78bc

Backdoor
fc3ba5ed282d77127efd0b0f2403531b

Auxiliary autorun tool
8dc8561349d144d4661bc66f2ec49f9f

URL
hxxps://toria[.]app/
hxxps://warpcast[.]asia/Toria.dmg
hxxps://streamyard.appstore.com[.]mx/installer.sh
hxxps://slack.apple03cloudstore[.]com/installer.sh
hxxps://toria.apple03cloudstore[.]com/
hxxps://waaako.appstore.com[.]mx/installer.sh
hxxps://toria.apple03cloudstore[.]com/e3c1a6b00bc31e14/stage2.enc hxxps://docsend.appstore.com[.]mx/dcc737d157ef4271/stage2.enc
hxxps://docsend.appstore.com[.]mx/dcc737d157ef4271/CoreUpdate.pkg.enc
hxxps://docsend.appstore.com[.]mx/dcc737d157ef4271/Helper.pkg.enc
hxxps://caldav.icloud[.]com/published/2/MTk1NDMwMDMzNTUxOTU0M1aHCZ-nMxiyGzBTzPiodOf44DtKJ6PpjftAG28_ui2NCYMpL_vu4pF4ddsJ8ysg0QI7pR0VEIEbZYdilVZRw08
hxxps://gateway.icloud[.]com/caldav/1_MTk1NDMwMDMzNTUxOTU0M0pybtJB186GzhogprwCQUjY3oZNiDFHH8WVo6bmgUtI/attach/4GE4TKNBTGAYDGMZVGUYTSNJUGOAALDAFMDOJBGWNUCYJLZRNDCLCO2YMQ3I64RLGMNXVG3KYBPWQOGYIEI7MPBDDYHECFDYVENTXIYFNDCPOVRMCTYI236RCYZAE63V5U3RTUYGUMO2CO7PKCLWMCXE73M7OPTHSGRWH5DXQ4PCUQU4ELZTLW54JSTK2H7VQ6PD26WOA2R7PPIQ6RTJWDEWP34U3HB4YWMXXC6EJ6PKWILSPYRSDEVY6QGMWSIUN6PR5W35KO3D4QZE7CFPUVBAEKI/Loader.app.tar.gz/YXR0YWNoYXR0YWNoYXR0YRhrE8mQ0E-b_dTUSGStQgTQ0ULFxCanei3Ke-EuEyQL

C2
hxxps://docsend.appstore[.]com[.]mx
hxxps://toria.apple03cloudstore[.]com

Over the past year, our Global Emergency Response Team (GERT) has investigated several incidents involving the NightEagle group (also tracked as APT-Q-95). This group has been active since at least 2023 and originally focused on organizations in Asia. We have now identified attacks by the group targeting businesses in Russia. This post examines both known and new tools NightEagle used in its latest campaign.

Initial access

In most incidents, the attackers used compromised valid credentials to gain access to corporate VPNs. VPN connections originated from IP addresses in the Russian segment linked to Cloudflare WARP tunnels, as well as from IP addresses associated with European virtual infrastructure providers.

GhostContainer on Microsoft Exchange

Both during the initial access stage and as the attack progressed, the attackers deployed the GhostContainer backdoor on Microsoft Exchange servers. It incorporates components from several open-source projects, including the Neo-reGeorg tunnel, an exploit for the CVE-2020-0688 vulnerability, and the GhostWebShell class from the ysoserial utility. All of these components are publicly available on GitHub.

We were unable to determine the exact method the attackers used to deliver the backdoor to Microsoft Exchange servers. We believe with a high degree of confidence that they applied a technique already familiar to us: extracting the cryptographic keys used by Microsoft Exchange from the ASP.NET configuration, overwriting the VIEWSTATE framework parameter, and injecting a payload into it, which then launched the GhostContainer backdoor in memory.

The backdoor is a .NET assembly containing three classes that implement its core functionality:

• Stub: processes C2 commands delivered to the infected system through the x-owa-urlpostdata headers and evades detection by the Antimalware Scan Interface (AMSI) and Windows Event Log mechanisms by overwriting addresses in amsi.dll and ntdll.dll.
• App_Web_843e75cf5b63: accepts the fakePath and fakePageName parameters and creates virtual paths that redirect requests to the App_Web_8c9b251fb5b3 class.
• App_Web_8c9b251fb5b3: implements network traffic redirection (proxying) and socket forwarding functionality.

Kaspersky products detect the GhostContainer backdoor as Trojan.MSIL.GhostContainer.gen.

GhostContainer samples identified by the Similarity technology from Kaspersky Threat Analysis

Traffic redirection

Once the attackers gain sufficient privileges during an attack, they leverage RDP to move laterally within the internal network segment. To do this, they download and run tools for tunneling and redirecting network traffic.

The attackers used GitHub repositories to host their archived tools. The names of the repositories and archives were disguised to look legitimate:

• https://github[.]com/mirror-js/mirror-js/refs/heads/main/js/js-webpack.zip
• https://github[.]com/mirror-js/mirror-js/refs/heads/main/js/jsonp-pack.zip
• https://github[.]com/browserthemes/resourcepack/releases/download/main/resource-pack.zip

One of the repositories used for storing network tools

The files contained within the archives were also given names mimicking known legitimate software, though unrelated to the archive names:

• adobe_32.exe;
• AdobeSync.exe;
• trueconf.exe;
• 1cbroker.exe;
• 1c-office-plugin.exe;
• trueconf-broker.exe.

Across the incidents we investigated, we found two tools that the attackers combined for traffic tunneling.

1. Microsoft dev tunnels
   This is a legitimate Microsoft mechanism that allows local web services to be published for internet access on *.*.devtunnels.ms domains. The attackers used this tunneling capability to expose port 3389 (RDP) on the compromised system.
   

   Execution graph of adobe_32.exe in Kaspersky Research Sandbox

2. rdp2tcp
   This is a publicly available tool for tunneling TCP traffic over an established RDP connection. It includes a server component that runs on the target system and a client component that runs on the attacker’s side.

   When virtual channels are opened and closed, corresponding events with IDs 132 (channel opened) and 148 (channel closed) are logged in the Microsoft-Windows-RemoteDesktopServices-RdpCoreTS/Operational.evtx Windows log. These events contain the names of the channels (such as XPSRD, cliprdr, Microsoft::Windows::RDS::DisplayControl, and others) used by the RemoteFX module, which extends the capabilities of the RDP protocol.

   When the rdp2tcp tool is used, events with IDs 132 and 148 will contain the channel name rdp2tcp or other random alphanumeric combinations chosen by the attackers.

   

   Creation event for a channel named rdp2tcp (server component startup)

The combination of Microsoft dev tunnels and rdp2tcp allows the attackers to maintain network access by using legitimate services without opening additional suspicious ports.

The attackers also used the atexec utility from the Impacket toolkit to create scheduled tasks on target systems. These tasks enabled network port forwarding through standard Windows functionality:

netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=443 connectaddress=10.0.12.101 connectport=445

Lateral movement

To obtain elevated privileges and move laterally through the network, NightEagle exploited various vulnerabilities in Active Directory. The attackers used previously established tunnels to connect to internal infrastructure systems.

In one incident, they exploited a well-known RDP implementation vulnerability, CVE-2019-0708 (BlueKeep). They used the vulnerable mechanism to create a local account on the system and add it to the Administrators and Remote Desktop Users groups.

Contents of a system memory dump showing artifacts of the CVE-2019-0708 exploit

The attackers also requested Kerberos tickets with a non-standard combination of flags (Forwardable, Proxiable, Renewable) and attempted to replicate the Domain-Password object from the Active Directory database to impersonate the domain controller (a technique known as DCSync) after obtaining an account with sufficient privileges.

Through these methods, the attackers establish persistence in the infrastructure, obtain password hashes for domain accounts, use long-lived Kerberos tickets to gain legitimate access to target resources, and ultimately compromise domain controllers and the victim’s entire Active Directory infrastructure.

Takeaways

To expand the geographic scope of its targets, NightEagle is updating its methods and adopting new techniques for persistence and lateral movement. Despite the group’s efforts to stay hidden, timely detection of anomalies combined with a comprehensive approach to infrastructure protection can significantly hinder the attackers from achieving their goals. Since the attackers rely on known legitimate tools and infrastructure vulnerabilities, well-configured monitoring can help detect NightEagle’s presence on the network.

Detection by Kaspersky solutions

Kaspersky solutions reliably identify the malicious activity described above at various stages of the attack. We showed examples above of how Kaspersky Threat Analysis detects samples of the GhostContainer backdoor and the tunneling utility. This toolkit also includes the analytical solution Kaspersky Threat Attribution Engine (KTAE), which helps SOC analysts and incident responders determine which APT groups malware can be attributed to. The solution uses a proprietary comparison method that measures the similarity between analyzed samples of suspicious files and known malicious samples in Kaspersky’s collection.

The backdoor we discovered showed similarity to previously analyzed GhostContainer samples and a connection to the NightEagle APT group:

Backdoor analysis with KTAE

However, detection scenarios for this kind of attacks are not limited to file analysis. Deploying a backdoor on a target host produces numerous characteristic artifacts, which allow Kaspersky Endpoint Detection and Response Expert to alert users to anomalies in the infrastructure in a timely manner.

This malicious activity is detected by the following rules, available in the repository:

• Initial detection of the malicious signature occurs through the generic_ransomware_related_detection rule, based on EPP module events
• Detection of a malicious DLL’s .NET assembly being loaded via PowerShell: suspicious_assembly_loading_into_powershell_via_reflection
• Activity of tunneling and traffic redirection tools: detection_of_access_to_tunnel_domains_dns
• Use of tools from the Impacket toolkit, such as atexec:
  • impacket_possible_activity
  • attempt_to_download_hacktool_or_risktool_by_non_browser
  • credentials_dumping_tools_file_artifacts_creation
• Attempts to replicate an Active Directory database object to impersonate a domain controller: potential_dcsync_via_startupparameters

Process tree in KEDR Expert

Kaspersky Anti Targeted Attack (KATA) detects this malicious activity in network traffic. For example, the Exploit.CVE-2019-0708.TCP.C&C signature allows detecting attempts to exploit the CVE-2019-0708 (BlueKeep) vulnerability.

Alert card for the BlueKeep vulnerability exploitation

Beyond this activity, KATA also detects other NightEagle actions in network traffic, such as the following:

• Traffic redirection and tunneling variations
• Attacks on Active Directory (DCSync, attempts to compromise AD CS, and others)
• Lateral movement across the network

Indicators of compromise

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