Pisloader
Pisloader is a malware family that is notable due to its use of DNS as a C2 protocol as well as its use of anti-analysis tactics. It has been used by APT18 and is similar to another malware family, HTTPBrowser, that has been used by the group. [1]
Techniques Used
| Domain | ID | Name | Use | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | T1071 | .004 | Application Layer Protocol: DNS | |
| Enterprise | T1547 | .001 | Boot or Logon Autostart Execution: Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder |
Pisloader establishes persistence via a Registry Run key.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1059 | .003 | Command and Scripting Interpreter: Windows Command Shell |
Pisloader uses cmd.exe to set the Registry Run key value. It also has a command to spawn a command shell.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1132 | .001 | Data Encoding: Standard Encoding |
Responses from the Pisloader C2 server are base32-encoded.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1083 | File and Directory Discovery |
Pisloader has commands to list drives on the victim machine and to list file information for a given directory.[1] |
|
| Enterprise | T1105 | Ingress Tool Transfer |
Pisloader has a command to upload a file to the victim machine.[1] |
|
| Enterprise | T1027 | Obfuscated Files or Information |
Pisloader obfuscates files by splitting strings into smaller sub-strings and including "garbage" strings that are never used. The malware also uses return-oriented programming (ROP) technique and single-byte XOR to obfuscate data.[1] |
|
| Enterprise | T1082 | System Information Discovery |
Pisloader has a command to collect victim system information, including the system name and OS version.[1] |
|
| Enterprise | T1016 | System Network Configuration Discovery |
Pisloader has a command to collect the victim's IP address.[1] |
|