Qilin Sample Executes File Encryption, Spreader Behavior, and Tor-Based Extortion Workflow


Zero‑Dwell Threat Intelligence Report

A narrative, executive‑ready view into the malware’s behavior, exposure, and reliable defenses.
Generated: 2025-11-20 08:39:11 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
21w5zcxsa.exe
Type
Win32 Executable MS Visual C++ (generic)
SHA‑1
bffd9c326ea64854659f893c647af4c2587c3599
MD5
999cd2cd1e3757f45dffedcc76042cfa
First Seen
2025-11-14 19:58:07.334643
Last Analysis
2025-11-15 20:48:21.038472
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
2025-09-25 22:02:35 UTC First VirusTotal submission
2025-11-19 12:50:02 UTC Latest analysis snapshot 54 days, 14 hours, 47 minutes
2025-11-20 08:39:11 UTC Report generation time 55 days, 10 hours, 36 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: 57. Missed: 16. Coverage: 78.1%.

Detected Vendors

  • Xcitium
  • +56 additional vendors (names not provided)

List includes Xcitium plus an additional 56 vendors per the provided summary.

Missed Vendors

  • Acronis
  • Antiy-AVL
  • Baidu
  • Bkav
  • ClamAV
  • CMC
  • google_safebrowsing
  • Gridinsoft
  • Jiangmin
  • SUPERAntiSpyware
  • TACHYON
  • tehtris
  • Trapmine
  • VirIT
  • 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 (70.97% 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 44 70.97%
Device 6 9.68%
File System 4 6.45%
Process 3 4.84%
Hooking 2 3.23%
Registry 2 3.23%
Misc 1 1.61%

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

  • T1083 – check if file exists
  • T1082 – enumerate disk volumes
  • T1497.001 – reference anti-VM strings
  • T1059 – accept command line arguments
  • T1007 – query service status
  • T1497.001 – reference anti-VM strings targeting VMWare
  • T1027 – encode data using XOR
  • T1543.003 – stop service
  • T1489 – stop service
  • T1027 – encrypt data using RC4 PRGA
  • T1033 – get session user name
  • T1087 – get session user name
  • T1083 – get common file path
  • T1222 – set file attributes
  • T1543.003 – modify service
  • T1569.002 – modify service
  • T1082 – get MAC address on Windows
  • T1082 – get hostname
  • T1529 – shutdown system
  • T1082 – get system information on Windows
  • T1027 – encode data using Base64
  • T1112 – delete registry value
  • T1135 – enumerate network shares
  • T1027 – encrypt data using AES via x86 extensions
  • T1082 – get disk information
  • T1082 – query environment variable
  • T1027 – encrypt data using HC-128 via WolfSSL
  • T1016 – get local IPv4 addresses
  • T1497.001 – reference anti-VM strings targeting VirtualPC
  • T1497.001 – reference anti-VM strings targeting Xen
  • T1497.001 – reference anti-VM strings targeting Parallels
  • T1129 – parse PE header
  • T1057 – enumerate process modules
  • T1012 – query or enumerate registry value
  • T1497.001 – reference anti-VM strings targeting VirtualBox
  • T1134 – modify access privileges
  • T1129 – link many functions at runtime
  • T1007 – enumerate services
  • T1490 – delete volume shadow copies
  • T1070.004 – delete volume shadow copies
  • T1027.005 – contain obfuscated stackstrings
  • T1547.001 – persist via Run registry key
  • T1027 – encrypt data using speck
  • T1129 – link function at runtime on Windows
  • T1027 – encrypt data using Salsa20 or ChaCha
  • T1071 – Binary file triggered multiple YARA rules
  • T1106 – Guard pages use detected – possible anti-debugging.
  • T1055 – Contains .tls (Thread Local Storage) section
  • T1027 – The binary likely contains encrypted or compressed data
  • T1027.002 – The binary likely contains encrypted or compressed data
  • T1569.002 – Found PSEXEC tool (often used for remote process execution)
  • T1542.003 – May use bcdedit to modify the Windows boot settings
  • 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)
  • 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.

Contacted Domains

Domain IP Country ASN/Org
www.msftncsi.com 23.200.3.20 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
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 3.24407696723938 udp
192.168.56.13 224.0.0.252 49311 5355 5.728399991989136 udp
192.168.56.13 224.0.0.252 55150 5355 3.172476053237915 udp
192.168.56.13 224.0.0.252 60010 5355 5.354539155960083 udp
192.168.56.13 224.0.0.252 62406 5355 3.1746630668640137 udp
192.168.56.13 224.0.0.252 63527 5355 4.242782115936279 udp
192.168.56.13 239.255.255.250 52252 3702 3.180509090423584 udp
192.168.56.13 8.8.4.4 54879 53 7.978517055511475 udp
192.168.56.13 8.8.4.4 54881 53 7.181235074996948 udp
192.168.56.13 8.8.8.8 54879 53 8.977975130081177 udp
192.168.56.13 8.8.8.8 54881 53 8.181523084640503 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

32

Registry Set

0

Services Started

0

Services Opened

0

Registry Opened (Top 25)

Key
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\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\GRE_Initialize
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters\RpcCacheTimeout
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Segment Heap
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\SdbUpdates\ManifestedMergeStubSdbs
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Safer\CodeIdentifiers
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\CustomLocale
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\OLEAUT
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Disable8And16BitMitigation
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Display
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\AppModel\Lookaside\user
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Wow64\x86
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\RestartManager
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Policies\Microsoft\MUI\Settings
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\OSDATA\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\AppModel\Lookaside\machine
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\CurrentControlSet\control\NetworkProvider\HwOrder
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Ole
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Policies\Microsoft\Cryptography\Configuration
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\CurrentControlSet\control\NetworkProvider\ProviderOrder
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\OLE\Tracing
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\MUI\UILanguages\en-US
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\file.exe
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\GRE_Initialize
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\OLE
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Ole\FeatureDevelopmentProperties
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\SdbUpdates
Show all (32 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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