Zero‑Dwell Threat Intelligence Report
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.
Extended Dwell Time Impact
For 12+ hours, this malware remained undetected — a half-day window that permitted the adversary to complete initial execution, establish basic persistence, and perform initial system enumeration.
Comparative Context
Industry studies report a median dwell time closer to 21–24 days. This case represents rapid detection and containment within hours rather than days.
Timeline
| Time (UTC) | Event | Elapsed |
|---|---|---|
| 2025-04-30 01:26:22 UTC | First VirusTotal submission | — |
| 2025-10-17 08:45:31 UTC | Latest analysis snapshot | 170 days, 7 hours, 19 minutes |
| 2025-11-20 08:42:41 UTC | Report generation time | 204 days, 7 hours, 16 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: 58. Missed: 15. Coverage: 79.5%.
Detected Vendors
- Xcitium
- +57 additional vendors (names not provided)
List includes Xcitium plus an additional 57 vendors per the provided summary.
Missed Vendors
- Acronis
- Baidu
- CMC
- google_safebrowsing
- Gridinsoft
- Kingsoft
- Malwarebytes
- SentinelOne
- SUPERAntiSpyware
- TACHYON
- tehtris
- Trapmine
- TrendMicro
- 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 (92.91% 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 | 275 | 92.91% |
| Process | 7 | 2.36% |
| Device | 6 | 2.03% |
| File System | 4 | 1.35% |
| Registry | 2 | 0.68% |
| Hooking | 1 | 0.34% |
| Misc | 1 | 0.34% |
MITRE ATT&CK Mapping
- T1129 – link many functions at runtime
- T1027 – encrypt data using RC4 PRGA
- T1082 – get system information on Windows
- T1027 – encode data using XOR
- T1057 – enumerate process modules
- T1027 – encode data using Base64
- T1083 – get common file path
- T1027 – encrypt data using speck
- T1059 – accept command line arguments
- T1129 – parse PE header
- T1129 – link function at runtime on Windows
- 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.
- 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)
- T1056 – Creates a DirectInput object (often for capturing keystrokes)
- 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
- 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.
Observed IPs
| IP | Country | ASN/Org |
|---|---|---|
| 224.0.0.252 | — | — |
| 8.8.4.4 | United States | Google LLC |
| 8.8.8.8 | United States | Google LLC |
DNS Queries
| Request | Type |
|---|---|
| 5isohu.com | A |
Contacted IPs
| IP | Country | ASN/Org |
|---|---|---|
| 224.0.0.252 | — | — |
| 8.8.4.4 | United States | Google LLC |
| 8.8.8.8 | United States | Google LLC |
Port Distribution
| Port | Count | Protocols |
|---|---|---|
| 137 | 1 | udp |
| 5355 | 4 | udp |
| 53 | 2 | udp |
UDP Packets
| Source IP | Dest IP | Sport | Dport | Time | Proto |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 192.168.56.14 | 192.168.56.255 | 137 | 137 | 3.078907012939453 | udp |
| 192.168.56.14 | 224.0.0.252 | 51209 | 5355 | 3.0097901821136475 | udp |
| 192.168.56.14 | 224.0.0.252 | 53401 | 5355 | 5.5611960887908936 | udp |
| 192.168.56.14 | 224.0.0.252 | 55094 | 5355 | 5.563748121261597 | udp |
| 192.168.56.14 | 224.0.0.252 | 55848 | 5355 | 3.0102319717407227 | udp |
| 192.168.56.14 | 8.8.4.4 | 52815 | 53 | 8.390941143035889 | udp |
| 192.168.56.14 | 8.8.8.8 | 52815 | 53 | 9.39141297340393 | 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.
30
7
0
0
Registry Opened (Top 25)
| Key |
|---|
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\GRE_Initialize\DisableMetaFiles |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\GRE_Initialize |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\GRE_Initialize\DisableUmpdBufferSizeCheck |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\WaitToKillServiceTimeout |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\RestartManager |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\file.exe |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Ole\FeatureDevelopmentProperties |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\OLE |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\RestartManager |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\AppModel\Lookaside\Packages |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Policies\Microsoft\Cryptography\Configuration |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\CurrentControlSet\control\NetworkProvider\HwOrder |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\GRE_Initialize |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Display |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Wow64\x86 |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\OLE\Tracing |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\CurrentControlSet\control\NetworkProvider\ProviderOrder |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Segment Heap |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Safer\CodeIdentifiers |
| HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\CustomLocale |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Disable8And16BitMitigation |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\OLEAUT |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Policies\Microsoft\MUI\Settings |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\MUI\UILanguages\en-US |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Ole |
Show all (30 total)
Registry Set (Top 25)
| Key | Value |
|---|---|
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Google\Update\UsageStats\Daily\Booleans\is_system_install | None |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Google\Update\UsageStats\Daily\Counts\goopdate_constructor | None |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Google\Update\UsageStats\Daily\Counts\goopdate_main | None |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Google\Update\UsageStats\Daily\Integers\omaha_version | None |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Google\Update\UsageStats\Daily\Integers\windows_major_version | None |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Google\Update\UsageStats\Daily\Integers\windows_minor_version | None |
| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Google\Update\UsageStats\Daily\Integers\windows_sp_major_version | None |
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.
