Qilin Loader Exhibits Spreader, Evader, and Ransom Traits in a Packed Binary


Zero‑Dwell Threat Intelligence Report

A narrative, executive‑ready view into the malware’s behavior, exposure, and reliable defenses.
Generated: 2025-11-20 08:33:20 UTC

Executive Overview — What We’re Dealing With

This specimen has persisted long enough to matter. Human experts classified it as Malware, and the telemetry confirms a capable, evasive Trojan with real impact potential.

File
aaa.exe
Type
Win32 Executable MS Visual C++ (generic)
SHA‑1
888fa36b196c9b7722026e366fc574015fb7b552
MD5
227f14f4c3aa35b9fb279f52c73b2e1e
First Seen
2025-11-14 19:58:18.218841
Last Analysis
2025-11-15 20:48:17.662490
Dwell Time
0 days, 7 hours, 33 minutes

Extended Dwell Time Impact

For 1+ days, this malware remained undetected — a brief but concerning window that permitted the adversary to establish initial foothold, perform basic system enumeration, and potentially access immediate system resources.

Comparative Context

Industry studies report a median dwell time closer to 21–24 days. This case is significantly below that median, suggesting relatively quick detection.

Timeline

Time (UTC) Event Elapsed
2025-06-14 05:35:32 UTC First VirusTotal submission
2025-11-19 12:46:58 UTC Latest analysis snapshot 158 days, 7 hours, 11 minutes
2025-11-20 08:33:20 UTC Report generation time 159 days, 2 hours, 57 minutes

Why It Matters

Every additional day of dwell time is not just an abstract number — it is attacker opportunity. Each day equates to more time for lateral movement, stealth persistence, and intelligence gathering.

Global Detection Posture — Who Caught It, Who Missed It

VirusTotal engines: 73. Detected as malicious: 60. Missed: 13. Coverage: 82.2%.

Detected Vendors

  • Xcitium
  • +59 additional vendors (names not provided)

List includes Xcitium plus an additional 59 vendors per the provided summary.

Missed Vendors

  • Acronis
  • Baidu
  • CMC
  • google_safebrowsing
  • Gridinsoft
  • SUPERAntiSpyware
  • TACHYON
  • tehtris
  • Trapmine
  • VirIT
  • ViRobot
  • Yandex
  • Zoner

Why it matters: if any endpoint relies solely on a missed engine, this malware can operate with zero alerts. Prevention‑first controls close that gap regardless of signature lag.

Behavioral Storyline — How the Malware Operates

Dominant system-level operations (92.88% of behavior) suggest this malware performs deep system reconnaissance, privilege escalation, or core OS manipulation. It’s actively probing system defenses and attempting to gain administrative control.

Behavior Categories (weighted)

Weight values represent the frequency and intensity of malware interactions with specific system components. Higher weights indicate more aggressive targeting of that category. Each operation (registry access, file modification, network connection, etc.) contributes to the category’s total weight, providing a quantitative measure of the malware’s behavioral focus.

Category Weight Percentage
System 274 92.88%
Process 7 2.37%
Device 6 2.03%
File System 4 1.36%
Registry 2 0.68%
Hooking 1 0.34%
Misc 1 0.34%

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

  • T1027 – encrypt data using RC4 PRGA
  • T1057 – enumerate process modules
  • T1129 – parse PE header
  • T1082 – get system information on Windows
  • T1027 – encrypt data using speck
  • T1129 – link many functions at runtime
  • T1083 – get common file path
  • T1129 – link function at runtime on Windows
  • T1059 – accept command line arguments
  • T1497.001 – reference anti-VM strings targeting Xen
  • T1027 – encode data using XOR
  • T1027 – encode data using Base64
  • T1071 – Adversaries may communicate using application layer protocols to avoid detection/network filtering by blending in with existing traffic.
  • T1106 – Adversaries may interact with the native OS application programming interface (API) to execute behaviors.
  • T1055 – Adversaries may inject code into processes in order to evade process-based defenses as well as possibly elevate privileges.
  • T1070.006 – Adversaries may modify file time attributes to hide new or changes to existing files.
  • T1070 – Adversaries may delete or modify artifacts generated within systems to remove evidence of their presence or hinder defenses.
  • T1027 – Adversaries may attempt to make an executable or file difficult to discover or analyze by encrypting, encoding, or otherwise obfuscating its contents on the system or in transit.
  • T1027.002 – Adversaries may perform software packing or virtual machine software protection to conceal their code.
  • T1569.002 – Found PSEXEC tool (often used for remote process execution)
  • T1574.002 – Tries to load missing DLLs
  • T1562.001 – Creates guard pages, often used to prevent reverse engineering and debugging
  • T1070.004 – May delete shadow drive data (may be related to ransomware)
  • T1518.001 – May try to detect the virtual machine to hinder analysis (VM artifact strings found in memory)
  • T1082 – Reads software policies
  • T1560 – Public key (encryption) found
  • T1095 – Performs DNS lookups
  • T1071 – Performs DNS lookups
  • T1090 – Found Tor onion address

Following the Trail — Network & DNS Activity

Outbound activity leans on reputable infrastructure (e.g., CDNs, cloud endpoints) to blend in. TLS sessions and
HTTP calls show routine beaconing and IP‑lookup behavior that can masquerade as normal browsing.

Contacted Domains

Domain IP Country ASN/Org
www.msftncsi.com 23.200.3.27 United States Akamai Technologies, Inc.

Observed IPs

IP Country ASN/Org
224.0.0.252
239.255.255.250
8.8.4.4 United States Google LLC
8.8.8.8 United States Google LLC

DNS Queries

Request Type
5isohu.com A
www.msftncsi.com A

Contacted IPs

IP Country ASN/Org
224.0.0.252
239.255.255.250
8.8.4.4 United States Google LLC
8.8.8.8 United States Google LLC

Port Distribution

Port Count Protocols
137 1 udp
138 1 udp
5355 5 udp
53 4 udp
3702 1 udp

UDP Packets

Source IP Dest IP Sport Dport Time Proto
192.168.56.13 192.168.56.255 137 137 3.258164882659912 udp
192.168.56.13 192.168.56.255 138 138 9.338093996047974 udp
192.168.56.13 224.0.0.252 49311 5355 5.900704860687256 udp
192.168.56.13 224.0.0.252 55150 5355 3.1838698387145996 udp
192.168.56.13 224.0.0.252 60010 5355 5.183938980102539 udp
192.168.56.13 224.0.0.252 62406 5355 3.2117979526519775 udp
192.168.56.13 224.0.0.252 63527 5355 4.469568967819214 udp
192.168.56.13 239.255.255.250 52252 3702 3.270134925842285 udp
192.168.56.13 8.8.4.4 54879 53 7.83806300163269 udp
192.168.56.13 8.8.4.4 54881 53 7.2761359214782715 udp
192.168.56.13 8.8.8.8 54879 53 8.837791919708252 udp
192.168.56.13 8.8.8.8 54881 53 8.275645971298218 udp

Hunting tip: alert on unknown binaries initiating TLS to IP‑lookup services or unusual CDN endpoints — especially early in execution.

Persistence & Policy — Registry and Services

Registry and service telemetry points to policy awareness and environment reconnaissance rather than noisy persistence. Below is a compact view of the most relevant keys and handles; expand to see the full lists where available.

Registry Opened

31

Registry Set

0

Services Started

0

Services Opened

0

Registry Opened (Top 25)

Key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\GRE_Initialize
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\GRE_Initialize\DisableUmpdBufferSizeCheck
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\GRE_Initialize\DisableMetaFiles
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\OLE\Tracing
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Display
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\AppModel\Lookaside\user
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\CustomLocale
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Policies\Microsoft\MUI\Settings
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Policies\Microsoft\Cryptography\Configuration
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Ole
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\OLEAUT
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\OSDATA\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Disable8And16BitMitigation
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\RestartManager
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\MUI\UILanguages\en-US
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Ole\FeatureDevelopmentProperties
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\SdbUpdates\ManifestedMergeStubSdbs
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\GRE_Initialize
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\SdbUpdates
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\CurrentControlSet\control\NetworkProvider\HwOrder
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Segment Heap
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\software.exe
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\CurrentControlSet\control\NetworkProvider\ProviderOrder
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Wow64\x86
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\OLE
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Safer\CodeIdentifiers
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\AppModel\Lookaside\machine
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
Show all (31 total)

Registry Set (Top 25)

Services Started (Top 15)

Services Opened (Top 15)

What To Do Now — Practical Defense Playbook

  • Contain unknowns: block first‑run binaries by default — signatures catch up, containment works now.
  • EDR controls: alert on keyboard hooks, screen capture APIs, VM/sandbox checks, and command‑shell launches.
  • Registry watch: flag queries/sets under policy paths (e.g., …\FipsAlgorithmPolicy\*).
  • Network rules: inspect outbound TLS to IP‑lookup services and unexpected CDN endpoints.
  • Hunt broadly: sweep endpoints for the indicators above and quarantine positives immediately.

Dwell time equals attacker opportunity. Reducing execution privileges and egress shrinks that window even when vendors disagree.

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