December 20, 2023

Ivanti Sentry Vulnerability | Analysis & Insights

Darktrace observed a critical vulnerability in Ivanti Sentry's cybersecurity. Learn how this almost become a huge threat and how we stopped it in its tracks.

Written by

Sam Lister

Specialist Security Researcher

Inside the SOC

Darktrace cyber analysts are world-class experts in threat intelligence, threat hunting and incident response, and provide 24/7 SOC support to thousands of Darktrace customers around the globe. Inside the SOC is exclusively authored by these experts, providing analysis of cyber incidents and threat trends, based on real-world experience in the field.

Written by

Sam Lister

Specialist Security Researcher

Dec 2023

In an increasingly interconnected digital landscape, the prevalence of critical vulnerabilities in internet-facing systems stands as an open invitation to malicious actors. These vulnerabilities serve as a near limitless resource, granting attackers a continually array of entry points into targeted networks.

In the final week of August 2023, Darktrace observed malicious actors validating exploits for one such critical vulnerability, likely the critical RCE vulnerability, CVE-2023-38035, on Ivanti Sentry servers within multiple customer networks. Shortly after these successful tests were carried out, malicious actors were seen delivering crypto-mining and reconnaissance tools onto vulnerable Ivanti Sentry servers.

Fortunately, Darktrace DETECT™ was able to identify this post-exploitation activity on the compromised servers at the earliest possible stage, allowing the customer security teams to take action against affected devices. In environments where Darktrace RESPOND™ was enabled in autonomous response mode, Darktrace was further able inhibit the identified post-exploitation activity and stop malicious actors from progressing towards their end goals.

Exploitation of Vulnerabilities in Ivanti Products

The software provider, Ivanti, offers a variety of widely used endpoint management, service management, and security solutions. In July and August 2023, the Norwegian cybersecurity company, Mnemonic, disclosed three vulnerabilities in Ivanti products [1]/[2]/[3]; two in Ivanti's endpoint management solution, Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile (EPMM) (formerly called 'MobileIron Core'), and one in Ivanti’s security gateway solution, Ivanti Sentry (formerly called 'MobileIron Sentry'):

CVE-2023-35078

CVSS Score: 10.0
Affected Product: Ivanti EPMM
Details from Ivanti: [4]/[5]/[6]
Vulnerability type: Authentication bypass

CVE-2023-35081

CVSS Score: 7.2
Affected Product: Ivanti EPMM
Details from Ivanti: [7]/[8]/[9]
Vulnerability type: Directory traversal

CVE-2023-38035

CVSS Score:
Affected Product: Ivanti Sentry
Details from Ivanti: [10]/[11]/[12]
Vulnerability type: Authentication bypass

At the beginning of August 2023, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Norwegian National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NO) provided details of advanced persistent threat (APT) activity targeting EPMM systems within Norwegian private sector and government networks via exploitation of CVE-2023-35078 combined with suspected exploitation of CVE-2023-35081.

In an article published in August 2023 [12], Ivanti disclosed that a very limited number of their customers had been subjected to exploitation of the Ivanti Sentry vulnerability, CVE-2023-38035, and on the August 22, 2023, CISA added the Ivanti Sentry vulnerability, CVE-2023-38035 to its ‘Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalogue’. CVE-2023-38035 is a critical authentication bypass vulnerability affecting the System Manager Portal of Ivanti Sentry systems. The System Manager Portal, which is accessible by default on port 8433, is used for administration of the Ivanti Sentry system. Through exploitation of CVE-2023-38035, an unauthenticated actor with access to the System Manager Portal can achieve Remote Code Execution (RCE) on the underlying Ivanti Sentry system.

Observed Exploitation of CVE-2023-38035

On August 24, Darktrace observed Ivanti Sentry servers within several customer networks receiving successful SSL connections over port 8433 from the external endpoint, 34.77.65[.]112. The usage of port 8433 indicates that the System Manager Portal was accessed over the connections. Immediately after receiving these successful connections, Ivanti Sentry servers made GET requests over port 4444 to 34.77.65[.]112. The unusual string ‘Wget/1.14 (linux-gnu)’ appeared in the User-Agent headers of these requests, indicating that the command-line utility, wget, was abused to initiate the requests.

Figure 1: Event Log data for an Ivanti Sentry system showing the device breaching a range of DETECT models after contacting 34.77.65[.]112.The suspicious behavior highlighted by DETECT was subsequently investigated by Darktrace’s Cyber AI Analyst™, which was able to weave together these separate behaviors into single incidents representing the whole attack chain.

‍

Figure 2: AI Analyst Incident representing a chain of suspicious activities from an Ivanti Sentry server.

In cases where Darktrace RESPOND was enabled in autonomous response mode, RESPOND was able to automatically enforce the Ivanti Sentry server’s normal pattern of life, thus blocking further exploit testing.

Figure 3: Event Log for an Ivanti Sentry server showing the device receiving a RESPOND action immediately after trying to 34.77.65[.]112.

The GET requests to 34.77.65[.]112 were responded to with the following HTML document:

Figure 4: Snapshot of the HTML document returned by 34.77.65[.]112.

None of the links within this HTML document were functional. Furthermore, the devices’ downloads of these HTML documents do not appear to have elicited further malicious activities. These facts suggest that the observed 34.77.65[.]112 activities were representative of a malicious actor validating exploits (likely for CVE-2023-38035) on Ivanti Sentry systems.

Over the next 24 hours, these Ivanti Sentry systems received successful SSL connections over port 8433 from a variety of suspicious external endpoints, such as 122.161.66[.]161. These connections resulted in Ivanti Sentry systems making HTTP GET requests to subdomains of ‘oast[.]site’ and ‘oast[.]live’. Strings containing ‘curl’ appeared in the User-Agent headers of these requests, indicating that the command-line utility, cURL, was abused to initiate the requests.

These ‘oast[.]site’ and ‘oast[.]live’ domains are used by the out-of-band application security testing (OAST) service, Interactsh. Malicious actors are known to abuse this service to carry out out-of-band (OOB) exploit testing. It, therefore, seems likely that these activities were also representative of a malicious actor validating exploits for CVE-2023-38035 on Ivanti Sentry systems.

Figure 5: Event Log for Ivanti Sentry system showing the device contacting an 'oast[.]site' endpoint after receiving connections from the suspicious, external endpoint 122.161.66[.]161.

The actors seen validating exploits for CVE-2023-38035 may have been conducting such activities in preparation for their own subsequent malicious activities. However, given the variety of attack chains which ensued from these exploit validation activities, it is also possible that they were carried out by Initial Access Brokers (IABs) The activities which ensued from exploit validation activities identified by Darktrace fell into two categories: internal network reconnaissance and cryptocurrency mining.

Reconnaissance Activities

In one of the reconnaissance cases, immediately after receiving successful SSL connections over port 8443 from the external endpoints 190.2.131[.]204 and 45.159.248[.]179, an Ivanti Sentry system was seen making a long SSL connection over port 443 to 23.92.29[.]148, and making wget GET requests over port 4444 with the Target URIs '/ncat' and ‘/TxPortMap’ to the external endpoints, 45.86.162[.]147 and 195.123.240[.]183.

Figure 6: Event Log data for an Ivanti Sentry system showing the device making connections to the external endpoints, 45.86.162[.]147, 23.92.29[.]148, and 195.123.240[.]183, immediately after receiving connections from rare external endpoints.

The Ivanti Sentry system then went on to scan for open SMB ports on systems within the internal network. This activity likely resulted from an attacker dropping a port scanning utility on the vulnerable Ivanti Sentry system.

Figure 7: Event Log data for an Ivanti Sentry server showing the device breaching several DETECT models after downloading a port scanning tool from 195.123.240[.]183.

In another reconnaissance case, Darktrace observed multiple wget HTTP requests with Target URIs such as ‘/awp.tar.gz’ and ‘/resp.tar.gz’ to a suspicious, external server (78.128.113[.]130). Shortly after making these requests, the Ivanti Sentry system started to scan for open SMB ports and to respond to LLMNR queries from other internal devices. These behaviors indicate that the server may have installed an LLMNR poisoning tool, such as Responder. The Ivanti Sentry server also went on to conduct further information-gathering activities, such as LDAP reconnaissance, HTTP-based vulnerability scanning, HTTP-based password searching, and RDP port scanning.

Figure 8: Event Log data for an Ivanti Sentry system showing the device making connections to 78.128.113[.]130, scanning for an open SMB port on internal endpoints, and responding to LLMNR queries from internal endpoints.

In cases where Darktrace RESPOND was active, reconnaissance activities resulted in RESPOND enforcing the Ivanti Sentry server’s pattern of life.

Figure 9: Event Log data for an Ivanti Sentry system receiving a RESPOND action as a result of its SMB port scanning activity.

Figure 10: Event Log data for an Ivanti Sentry system receiving a RESPOND action as a result of its LDAP reconnaissance activity.

Crypto-Mining Activities

In one of the cryptomining cases, Darktrace detected an Ivanti Sentry server making SSL connections to aelix[.]xyz and mining pool endpoints after receiving successful SSL connections over port 8443 from the external endpoint, 140.228.24[.]160.

Figure 11: Event Log data for an Ivanti Sentry system showing the device contacting aelix[.]xyz and mining pool endpoints immediately after receiving connections from the external endpoint, 140.228.24[.]160.

In a cryptomining case on another customer’s network, an Ivanti Sentry server was seen making GET requests indicative of Kinsing malware infection. These requests included wget GET requests to 185.122.204[.]197 with the Target URIs ‘/unk.sh’ and ‘/se.sh’ and a combination of GET and POST requests to 185.221.154[.]208 with the User-Agent header ‘Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/99.0.4844.51 Safari/537.36’ and the Target URIs, ‘/mg’, ‘/ki’, ‘/get’, ‘/h2’, ‘/ms’, and ‘/mu’. These network-based artefacts have been observed in previous Kinsing infections [13].

Figure 12: Event Log data for an Ivanti Sentry system showing the device displaying likely Kinsing C2 activity.

On customer environments where RESPOND was active, Darktrace was able to take swift autonomous action by blocking cryptomining connection attempts to malicious command-and-control (C2) infrastructure, in this case Kinsing servers.

Figure 13: Event Log data for an Ivanti Sentry server showing the device receiving a RESPOND action after attempting to contact Kinsing C2 infrastructure.

Fortunately, due to Darktrace DETECT+RESPOND prompt identification and targeted actions against these emerging threats, coupled with remediating steps taken by affected customers’ security teams, neither the cryptocurrency mining activities nor the network reconnaissance activities led to significant disruption.

Figure 14: Timeline of observed malicious activities.

Conclusion The inevitable presence of critical vulnerabilities in internet-facing systems underscores the perpetual challenge of defending against malicious intrusions. The near inexhaustible supply of entry routes into organizations’ networks available to malicious actors necessitates a more proactive and vigilant approach to network security.

While it is, of course, essential for organizations to secure their digital environments through the regular patching of software and keeping abreast of developing vulnerabilities that could impact their network, it is equally important to have a safeguard in place to mitigate against attackers who do manage to exploit newly discovered vulnerabilities.

In the case of Ivanti Sentry, Darktrace observed malicious actors validating exploits against affected servers on customer networks just a few days after the public disclosure of the critical vulnerability. This activity was followed up by a variety of malicious and disruptive, activities including cryptocurrency mining and internal network reconnaissance.

Darktrace DETECT immediately detected post-exploitation activities on compromised Ivanti Sentry servers, enabling security teams to intervene at the earliest possible stage. Darktrace RESPOND, when active, autonomously inhibited detected post-exploitation activities. These DETECT detections, along with their accompanying RESPOND interventions, prevented malicious actors from being able to progress further towards their likely harmful objectives.

Credit to Sam Lister, Senior Cyber Analyst, and Trent Kessler, SOC Analyst

‍

Appendices

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Initial Access techniques:

Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190)

Credential Access techniques:

Unsecured Credentials: Credentials In Files (T1552.001)
Adversary-in-the-Middle: LLMNR/NBT-NS Poisoning and SMB Relay (T1557.001)

Discovery

Network Service Discovery (T1046)
Remote System Discovery (T1018)
Account Discovery: Domain Account (T1087.002)

Command and Control techniques:

Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols (T1071.001)
Ingress Tool Transfer (T1105)
Non-Standard Port (T1571)
Encrypted Channel: Asymmetric Cryptography (T1573.002)

Impact techniques

Resource Hijacking (T1496)

List of IoCs

Exploit testing IoCs:

· 34.77.65[.]112

· Wget/1.14 (linux-gnu)

· cjjovo7mhpt7geo8aqlgxp7ypod6dqaiz.oast[.]site • 178.128.16[.]97

· curl/7.19.7 (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.19.7 NSS/3.27.1 zlib/1.2.3 libidn/1.18 libssh2/1.4.2

· cjk45q1chpqflh938kughtrfzgwiofns3.oast[.]site • 178.128.16[.]97

· curl/7.29.0

Kinsing-related IoCs:

· 185.122.204[.]197

· /unk.sh

· /se.sh

· 185.221.154[.]208

· 45.15.158[.]124

· Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/99.0.4844.51 Safari/537.36

· /mg

· /ki

· /get

· /h2

· /ms

· /mu

· vocaltube[.]ru • 185.154.53[.]140

· 92.255.110[.]4

· 194.87.254[.]160

Responder-related IoCs:

· 78.128.113[.]130

· 78.128.113[.]34

· /awp.tar.gz

· /ivanty

· /resp.tar.gz

Crypto-miner related IoCs:

· 140.228.24[.]160

· aelix[.]xyz • 104.21.60[.]147 / 172.67.197[.]200

· c8446f59cca2149cb5f56ced4b448c8d (JA3 client fingerprint)

· b5eefe582e146aed29a21747a572e11c (JA3 client fingerprint)

· pool.supportxmr[.]com

· xmr.2miners[.]com

· monerooceans[.]stream

· xmr-eu2.nanopool[.]org

Port scanner-related IoCs:

· 122.161.66[.]161

· 192.241.235[.]32

· 45.86.162[.]147

· /ncat

· Wget/1.14 (linux-gnu)

· 45.159.248[.]179

· 142.93.115[.]146

· 23.92.29[.]148

· /TxPortMap

· 195.123.240.183

· 6935a8d379e086ea1aed159b8abcb0bc8acf220bd1cbc0a84fd806f14014bca7 (SHA256 hash of downloaded file)

Darktrace DETECT Model Breaches

· Anomalous Server Activity / New User Agent from Internet Facing System

· Device / New User Agent

· Anomalous Connection / New User Agent to IP Without Hostname

· Device / New User Agent and New IP

· Anomalous Connection / Application Protocol on Uncommon Port

· Anomalous Connection / Callback on Web Facing Device

· Compromise / High Volume of Connections with Beacon Score

· Compromise / Large Number of Suspicious Failed Connections

· Compromise / High Volume of Connections with Beacon Score

· Compromise / Beacon for 4 Days

· Compromise / Agent Beacon (Short Period)

· Device / Large Number of Model Breaches

· Anomalous Server Activity / Rare External from Server

· Compromise / Large Number of Suspicious Successful Connections

· Compromise / Monero Mining

· Compromise / High Priority Crypto Currency Mining

· Compromise / Sustained TCP Beaconing Activity To Rare Endpoint

· Device / Internet Facing Device with High Priority Alert

· Device / Suspicious SMB Scanning Activity

· Device / Internet Facing Device with High Priority Alert

· Device / Network Scan

· Device / Unusual LDAP Bind and Search Activity

· Compliance / Vulnerable Name Resolution

· Device / Anomalous SMB Followed By Multiple Model Breaches

· Device / New User Agent To Internal Server

· Anomalous Connection / Suspicious HTTP Activity

· Anomalous Connection / Unusual Internal Connections

· Anomalous Connection / Suspicious HTTP Activity

· Device / RDP Scan

· Device / Large Number of Model Breaches

· Compromise / Beaconing Activity To External Rare

· Compromise / Beacon to Young Endpoint

· Anomalous Connection / Suspicious HTTP Activity

· Compromise / Suspicious Internal Use Of Web Protocol

· Anomalous File / EXE from Rare External Location

· Anomalous File / Internet Facing System File Download

· Device / Suspicious SMB Scanning Activity

· Device / Internet Facing Device with High Priority Alert

· Device / Network Scan

· Device / Initial Breach Chain Compromise

References

[1] https://www.mnemonic.io/resources/blog/ivanti-endpoint-manager-mobile-epmm-authentication-bypass-vulnerability/
‍[2] https://www.mnemonic.io/resources/blog/threat-advisory-remote-file-write-vulnerability-in-ivanti-epmm/
‍[3] https://www.mnemonic.io/resources/blog/threat-advisory-remote-code-execution-vulnerability-in-ivanti-sentry/
‍[4] https://www.ivanti.com/blog/cve-2023-35078-new-ivanti-epmm-vulnerability
‍[5] https://forums.ivanti.com/s/article/CVE-2023-35078-Remote-unauthenticated-API-access-vulnerability?language=en_US
‍[6] https://forums.ivanti.com/s/article/KB-Remote-unauthenticated-API-access-vulnerability-CVE-2023-35078?language=en_US
‍[7] https://www.ivanti.com/blog/cve-2023-35081-new-ivanti-epmm-vulnerability
‍[8] https://forums.ivanti.com/s/article/CVE-2023-35081-Arbitrary-File-Write?language=en_US
‍[9] https://forums.ivanti.com/s/article/KB-Arbitrary-File-Write-CVE-2023-35081?language=en_US
‍[10] https://www.ivanti.com/blog/cve-2023-38035-vulnerability-affecting-ivanti-sentry
‍[11] https://forums.ivanti.com/s/article/CVE-2023-38035-API-Authentication-Bypass-on-Sentry-Administrator-Interface?language=en_US
‍[12] https://forums.ivanti.com/s/article/KB-API-Authentication-Bypass-on-Sentry-Administrator-Interface-CVE-2023-38035?language=en_US
‍[13] https://isc.sans.edu/diary/Your+Business+Data+and+Machine+Learning+at+Risk+Attacks+Against+Apache+NiFi/29900

Written by

Sam Lister

Specialist Security Researcher

Inside the SOC

Written by

Sam Lister

Specialist Security Researcher

Malware Research Lead

Senior Director of Product, Cloud | Darktrace

Watch the NIS2 Webinar

Blog

Cloud

January 13, 2026

Runtime Is Where Cloud Security Really Counts: The Importance of Detection, Forensics and Real-Time Architecture Awareness

Introduction: Shifting focus from prevention to runtime

Cloud security has spent the last decade focused on prevention; tightening configurations, scanning for vulnerabilities, and enforcing best practices through Cloud Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP). These capabilities remain essential, but they are not where cloud attacks happen.

Attacks happen at runtime: the dynamic, ephemeral, constantly changing execution layer where applications run, permissions are granted, identities act, and workloads communicate. This is also the layer where defenders traditionally have the least visibility and the least time to respond.

Today’s threat landscape demands a fundamental shift. Reducing cloud risk now requires moving beyond static posture and CNAPP only approaches and embracing realtime behavioral detection across workloads and identities, paired with the ability to automatically preserve forensic evidence. Defenders need a continuous, real-time understanding of what “normal” looks like in their cloud environments, and AI capable of processing massive data streams to surface deviations that signal emerging attacker behavior.

Runtime: The layer where attacks happen

Runtime is the cloud in motion — containers starting and stopping, serverless functions being called, IAM roles being assumed, workloads auto scaling, and data flowing across hundreds of services. It’s also where attackers:

Weaponize stolen credentials
Escalate privileges
Pivot programmatically
Deploy malicious compute
Manipulate or exfiltrate data

The challenge is complex: runtime evidence is ephemeral. Containers vanish; critical process data disappears in seconds. By the time a human analyst begins investigating, the detail required to understand and respond to the alert, often is already gone. This volatility makes runtime the hardest layer to monitor, and the most important one to secure.

What Darktrace / CLOUD Brings to Runtime Defence

Darktrace / CLOUD is purpose-built for the cloud execution layer. It unifies the capabilities required to detect, contain, and understand attacks as they unfold, not hours or days later. Four elements define its value:

1. Behavioral, real-time detection

The platform learns normal activity across cloud services, identities, workloads, and data flows, then surfaces anomalies that signify real attacker behavior, even when no signature exists.

2. Automated forensic level artifact collection

The moment Darktrace detects a threat, it can automatically capture volatile forensic evidence; disk state, memory, logs, and process context, including from ephemeral resources. This preserves the truth of what happened before workloads terminate and evidence disappears.

3. AI-led investigation

Cyber AI Analyst assembles cloud behaviors into a coherent incident story, correlating identity activity, network flows, and Cloud workload behavior. Analysts no longer need to pivot across dashboards or reconstruct timelines manually.

4. Live architectural awareness

Darktrace continuously maps your cloud environment as it operates; including services, identities, connectivity, and data pathways. This real-time visibility makes anomalies clearer and investigations dramatically faster.

Together, these capabilities form a runtime-first security model.

Why CNAPP alone isn’t enough

CNAPP platforms excel at pre deployment checks all the way down to developer workstations, identifying misconfigurations, concerning permission combinations, vulnerable images, and risky infrastructure choices. But CNAPP’s breadth is also its limitation. CNAPP is about posture. Runtime defense is about behavior.

CNAPP tells you what could go wrong; runtime detection highlights what is going wrong right now.

It cannot preserve ephemeral evidence, correlate active behaviors across domains, or contain unfolding attacks with the precision and speed required during a real incident. Prevention remains essential, but prevention alone cannot stop an attacker who is already operating inside your cloud environment.

Real-world AWS Scenario: Why Runtime Monitoring Wins

A recent incident detected by Darktrace / CLOUD highlights how cloud compromises unfold, and why runtime visibility is non-negotiable. Each step below reflects detections that occur only when monitoring behavior in real time.

1. External Credential Use

Detection: Unusual external source for credential use: An attacker logs into a cloud account from a never-before-seen location, the earliest sign of account takeover.

2. AWS CLI Pivot

Detection: Unusual CLI activity: The attacker switches to programmatic access, issuing commands from a suspicious host to gain automation and stealth.

3. Credential Manipulation

Detection: Rare password reset: They reset or assign new passwords to establish persistence and bypass existing security controls.

4. Cloud Reconnaissance

Detection: Burst of resource discovery: The attacker enumerates buckets, roles, and services to map high value assets and plan next steps.

5. Privilege Escalation

Detection: Anomalous IAM update: Unauthorized policy updates or role changes grant the attacker elevated access or a backdoor.

6. Malicious Compute Deployment

Detection: Unusual EC2/Lambda/ECS creation: The attacker deploys compute resources for mining, lateral movement, or staging further tools.

7. Data Access or Tampering

Detection: Unusual S3 modifications: They alter S3 permissions or objects, often a prelude to data exfiltration or corruption.

Only some of these actions would appear in a posture scan, crucially after the fact.
Every one of these runtime detections is visible only through real-time behavioral monitoring while the attack is in progress.

The future of cloud security Is runtime-first

Cloud defense can no longer revolve solely around prevention. Modern attacks unfold in runtime, across a fast-changing mesh of workloads, services, and — critically — identities. To reduce risk, organizations must be able to detect, understand, and contain malicious activity as it happens, before ephemeral evidence disappears and before attacker's pivot across identity layers.

Darktrace / CLOUD delivers this shift by turning runtime, the most volatile and consequential layer in the cloud, into a fully defensible control point through unified visibility across behavior, workloads, and identities. It does this by providing:

Real-time behavior detection across workloads and identity activity ‍
Autonomous response actions for rapid containment ‍
Automated forensic level artifact preservation the moment events occur ‍
AI-driven investigation that separates weak signals from true attacker patterns ‍
Live cloud environment insight to understand context and impact instantly

Cloud security must evolve from securing what might go wrong to continuously understanding what is happening; in runtime, across identities, and at the speed attackers operate. Unifying runtime and identity visibility is how defenders regain the advantage.

[related-resource]

About the author

Adam Stevens

Senior Director of Product, Cloud | Darktrace

Blog

Network

January 12, 2026

Maduro Arrest Used as a Lure to Deliver Backdoor

maduro arrest used as lure to deliver backdoor

Introduction

Threat actors frequently exploit ongoing world events to trick users into opening and executing malicious files. Darktrace security researchers recently identified a threat group using reports around the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolàs Maduro on January 3, 2025, as a lure to deliver backdoor malware.

Technical Analysis

While the exact initial access method is unknown, it is likely that a spear-phishing email was sent to victims, containing a zip archive titled “US now deciding what’s next for Venezuela.zip”. This file included an executable named “Maduro to be taken to New York.exe” and a dynamic-link library (DLL), “kugou.dll”.

The binary “Maduro to be taken to New York.exe” is a legitimate binary (albeit with an expired signature) related to KuGou, a Chinese streaming platform. Its function is to load the DLL “kugou.dll” via DLL search order. In this instance, the expected DLL has been replaced with a malicious one with the same name to load it.

Once the DLL is executed, a directory is created C:\ProgramData\Technology360NB with the DLL copied into the directory along with the executable, renamed as “DataTechnology.exe”. A registry key is created for persistence in “HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\Lite360” to run DataTechnology.exe --DATA on log on.

Figure 2. Registry key added for persistence.

Figure 3: Folder “Technology360NB” created.

During execution, a dialog box appears with the caption “Please restart your computer and try again, or contact the original author.”

Figure 4. Message box prompting user to restart.

Prompting the user to restart triggers the malware to run from the registry key with the command --DATA, and if the user doesn't, a forced restart is triggered. Once the system is reset, the malware begins periodic TLS connections to the command-and-control (C2) server 172.81.60[.]97 on port 443. While the encrypted traffic prevents direct inspection of commands or data, the regular beaconing and response traffic strongly imply that the malware has the ability to poll a remote server for instructions, configuration, or tasking.

Conclusion

Threat groups have long used geopolitical issues and other high-profile events to make malicious content appear more credible or urgent. Since the onset of the war in Ukraine, organizations have been repeatedly targeted with spear-phishing emails using subject lines related to the ongoing conflict, including references to prisoners of war [1]. Similarly, the Chinese threat group Mustang Panda frequently uses this tactic to deploy backdoors, using lures related to the Ukrainian war, conventions on Tibet [2], the South China Sea [3], and Taiwan [4].

The activity described in this blog shares similarities with previous Mustang Panda campaigns, including the use of a current-events archive, a directory created in ProgramData with a legitimate executable used to load a malicious DLL and run registry keys used for persistence. While there is an overlap of tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs), there is insufficient information available to confidently attribute this activity to a specific threat group. Users should remain vigilant, especially when opening email attachments.

Credit to Tara Gould (Malware Research Lead)
Edited by Ryan Traill (Analyst Content Lead)

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

172.81.60[.]97
8f81ce8ca6cdbc7d7eb10f4da5f470c6 - US now deciding what's next for Venezuela.zip
722bcd4b14aac3395f8a073050b9a578 - Maduro to be taken to New York.exe
aea6f6edbbbb0ab0f22568dcb503d731 - kugou.dll

References

[1] https://cert.gov.ua/article/6280422

[2] https://www.ibm.com/think/x-force/hive0154-mustang-panda-shifts-focus-tibetan-community-deploy-pubload-backdoor

[3] https://www.ibm.com/think/x-force/hive0154-targeting-us-philippines-pakistan-taiwan

[4] https://www.ibm.com/think/x-force/hive0154-targeting-us-philippines-pakistan-taiwan

About the author

Tara Gould

Malware Research Lead

Your data. Our AI.

Elevate your network security with Darktrace AI

Get a demo

Check out this article by Darktrace: Ivanti Sentry Vulnerability | Analysis & Insights

Ivanti Sentry Vulnerability | Analysis & Insights

Exploitation of Vulnerabilities in Ivanti Products

Observed Exploitation of CVE-2023-38035

Reconnaissance Activities

Crypto-Mining Activities

Appendices

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

List of IoCs

References

Maduro Arrest Used as a Lure to Deliver Backdoor

Runtime Is Where Cloud Security Really Counts: The Importance of Detection, Forensics and Real-Time Architecture Awareness

Enjoying the blog?

More in this series

Maduro Arrest Used as a Lure to Deliver Backdoor

Under Medusa’s Gaze: How Darktrace Uncovers RMM Abuse in Ransomware Campaigns

React2Shell: How Opportunist Attackers Exploited CVE-2025-55182 Within Hours

Blog

Cloud

January 13, 2026

Runtime Is Where Cloud Security Really Counts: The Importance of Detection, Forensics and Real-Time Architecture Awareness

Introduction: Shifting focus from prevention to runtime

Runtime: The layer where attacks happen

What Darktrace / CLOUD Brings to Runtime Defence

1. Behavioral, real-time detection

2. Automated forensic level artifact collection

3. AI-led investigation

4. Live architectural awareness

Why CNAPP alone isn’t enough

Real-world AWS Scenario: Why Runtime Monitoring Wins

1. External Credential Use

2. AWS CLI Pivot

3. Credential Manipulation

4. Cloud Reconnaissance

5. Privilege Escalation

6. Malicious Compute Deployment

7. Data Access or Tampering

The future of cloud security Is runtime-first

Blog

Network

January 12, 2026

Maduro Arrest Used as a Lure to Deliver Backdoor

Introduction

Technical Analysis

Conclusion

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

References