PLENET
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.
Groups observed using it
3 distinct threat actors attributed by public researchers. Open in Mallory to see the full evidence chain and overlapping campaigns.
Volexity identified two previously undocumented (at the time of discovery) malware families: PLENET , a malware family written in .NET Core and compiled to native code using the Native AOT features added in .NET 7. The analyzed sample was written for Linux target systems. This malware was referred to as “GRIMBOLT” by Google Cloud.
Volexity identified two previously undocumented (at the time of discovery) malware families: PLENET , a malware family written in .NET Core and compiled to native code using the Native AOT features added in .NET 7. The analyzed sample was written for Linux target systems. This malware was referred to as “GRIMBOLT” by Google Cloud.
Volexity identified two previously undocumented (at the time of discovery) malware families: PLENET , a malware family written in .NET Core and compiled to native code using the Native AOT features added in .NET 7. The analyzed sample was written for Linux target systems. This malware was referred to as “GRIMBOLT” by Google Cloud.
Techniques & procedures
8 distinct techniques documented for this family, organized by ATT&CK tactic.
Execution
1 techniqueThe command string is parsed out of the server response... There are three supported command types... builtin Executes command text on the native shell.
Lateral Movement
3 techniquesThis access was used to pivot into the victim organization’s network again, and deploy PLENET.
Volexity’s investigation determined that VerdantBamboo was able to access the Storage Sync system using valid credentials via secure shell (SSH) with an unprivileged account named egnyteservice.
That access was then used to further connect to systems internally and deploy additional custom malware to a Synology NAS appliance.
Command and Control
4 techniquesPLENET demonstrates similar design patterns to BRICKSTORM. Like BRICKSTORM, PLENET C2 traffic uses the WebSocket protocol
These BRICKSTORM instances use the websocket protocol handler for connecting to the C2.
The threat actor then connected over SSH to deploy a previously undocumented backdoor, which Volexity tracks under the name PLENET.
The appliance was also making TLS connections to one of Google’s public DNS servers (8.8.8.8). It appeared to be using Google to perform queries via DNS over HTTPS
IOCs tracked for this family
3 indicators attributed across vendor reports, sandbox runs, and researcher write-ups. Full values are available in Mallory.
File hashes (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256) from samples and reports.
Recent activity
1 sources tracked across advisories and community write-ups. News coverage will land here when it surfaces.
No news coverage yet. Advisories and community discussion only.
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.