SOUNDBITE
SOUNDBITE is a malware family associated with the Vietnam-aligned cyber espionage group APT32, also known as OceanLotus. FireEye/Mandiant identified it as one of APT32’s signature malware families, alongside WINDSHIELD, KOMPROGO, and PHOREAL, and reported its use in targeted intrusions against private-sector organizations and other victims aligned with Vietnamese state interests. Reported targeting tied to APT32 activity includes corporations with business interests in Vietnam, particularly in manufacturing, consumer products, hospitality, network security, technology infrastructure, banking, and media, as well as foreign governments, dissidents, journalists, and members of the Vietnamese diaspora. The broader APT32 intrusion activity described in the source material relied heavily on spear-phishing emails delivering ActiveMime '.mht' lure documents disguised as '.doc' files that prompted victims to enable macros and then downloaded multiple payloads; however, the content does not explicitly state that SOUNDBITE itself was always the payload delivered by that vector. High-confidence capabilities directly attributed to SOUNDBITE in the content are enumerating application windows and modifying the Windows Registry. The content also states that an APT32 backdoor modified the Registry to store backdoor configuration, but it does not explicitly confirm that this specific behavior belongs to SOUNDBITE rather than another APT32 implant. FireEye reported SOUNDBITE in APT32 activity affecting consumer products organizations in the Philippines and United States in 2016. An alias relationship is also noted in the content: SOUNDBITE is referred to as 'Denis.' No specific hashes, filenames, mutexes, or command-and-control indicators are provided for SOUNDBITE in the supplied material.
Hunt this family in your stack
Mallory pivots from this family to the IOCs, detections, and named campaigns that touch your stack, and pages you when something new lands.
Vulnerabilities exploited
1 CVE Mallory has correlated with this family across public research and vendor advisories. Each row links to the full Mallory page for that vulnerability.
During one investigation, APT32 was observed using a privilege escalation exploit (CVE-2016-7255) masquerading as a Windows hotfix.
Groups observed using it
1 distinct threat actor attributed by public researchers. Open in Mallory to see the full evidence chain and overlapping campaigns.
Some of the key tools in its arsenal include SOUNDBITE (aka Denis), PHOREAL (aka Rizzo), WINDSHIELD (aka Remy), and, more recently, SPECTRALVIPER...
Techniques & procedures
10 distinct techniques documented for this family, organized by ATT&CK tactic.
Initial Access
1 technique
Initial Access
Execution
2 techniques
Execution
Persistence
1 technique
Persistence
Stealth
1 technique
Stealth
Defense Impairment
1 technique
Defense Impairment
Discovery
3 techniques
Discovery
Multiple malware families are described as identifying/enumerating open windows or capturing foreground window titles (e.g., via EnumWindows, GetForegroundWindow, GetWindowText) to understand user activity and provide context for keylogging/screencapture.
The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors collecting host details such as OS version, hostname, architecture, CPU, memory, BIOS, domain, language, and other configuration data; e.g., "APT41 uses multiple built-in commands such as systeminfo and net config Workstation to enumerate victim system basic configuration information."
IOCs tracked for this family
61 indicators attributed across vendor reports, sandbox runs, and researcher write-ups. Full values are available in Mallory.
IPs, domains, and DNS infrastructure linked to this family.
File hashes (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256) from samples and reports.
Recent activity
9 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
A malware tool identified as part of OceanLotus's arsenal.
Backdoor using DNS for C2, with process creation, file upload, shell command execution, file/directory and registry manipulation, window enumeration, and system information gathering.
Malware capable of modifying the Windows Registry.
Enumerates application windows.
The version that knows your environment.
Match every observed IP, domain, and hash against your live telemetry.
Named campaigns wielding this family, with evidence pinned to each claim.
CVEs this family uses for access and lateral movement.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Every documented technique, ranked by evidence weight.
Reddit, Mastodon, and CTI community discussion around this family.