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Mallory
MalwareExploits 4 CVEs

RustDuck

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For your environment

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.

EXPLOITED CVES

Vulnerabilities exploited

4 CVEs Mallory has correlated with this family across public research and vendor advisories. Each row links to the full Mallory page for that vulnerability.

4 CVES
CVE-2017-17215Remote Code Execution in Huawei HG532 SOAP Service

A new two-stage malware family called RustDuck is hijacking home routers, IP cameras, Android boxes, and poorly secured servers, then stitching them into a network built to knock websites and online services offline.

via the hacker newsthehackernews.com
CVE-2024-1781Command Injection in TOTOLINK X6000R AX3000 setWizardCfg

A new two-stage malware family called RustDuck is hijacking home routers, IP cameras, Android boxes, and poorly secured servers, then stitching them into a network built to knock websites and online services offline.

via the hacker newsthehackernews.com
CVE-2025-29635Command Injection in D-Link DIR-823X /goform/set_prohibiting

A new two-stage malware family called RustDuck is hijacking home routers, IP cameras, Android boxes, and poorly secured servers, then stitching them into a network built to knock websites and online services offline.

via the hacker newsthehackernews.com
CVE-2018-8007Privilege Escalation and RCE via HTTP API in Apache CouchDB

A new two-stage malware family called RustDuck is hijacking home routers, IP cameras, Android boxes, and poorly secured servers, then stitching them into a network built to knock websites and online services offline.

via the hacker newsthehackernews.com
MITRE ATT&CK

Techniques & procedures

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

Initial Access

1 technique
T1190Exploit Public-Facing ApplicationEvidence1

The second is unpatched device bugs... RustDuck goes after exposed Android debugging interfaces and flaws in gear from TVT (DVRs and cameras), Ruijie, TP-Link, and ZTE, plus a handful of named, years-old vulnerabilities... The third path is web software. RustDuck also targets known holes in ThinkPHP, Jenkins, and Hadoop YARN

Execution

1 technique
T1059Command and Scripting InterpreterEvidence1

CVE-2025-29635, a command-injection flaw in discontinued D-Link DIR-823X routers... CVE-2024-1781, a command-injection bug in Totolink X6000R routers

Stealth

3 techniques
T1070Indicator RemovalEvidence1

Cross a threshold, and the malware erases its traces and quits before anyone can watch it run.

T1497Virtualization/Sandbox EvasionEvidence1

Before doing anything, RustDuck runs a checklist to decide whether it has landed in a security researcher's lab instead of on a real victim's device. It looks for analysis tools like Wireshark and gdb, for debuggers attached to its own process, for the fingerprints of a honeypot trap, even for virtual-machine hardware.

T1622Debugger EvasionEvidence1

It looks for analysis tools like Wireshark and gdb, for debuggers attached to its own process... Each hit adds points to a risk score. Cross a threshold, and the malware erases its traces and quits before anyone can watch it run.

Credential Access

1 technique
T1110Brute ForceEvidence1

The first is the oldest in the book: devices left on the internet with weak or default passwords on their remote-login services (Telnet and SSH). Guess the password, walk in.

Discovery

2 techniques
T1497Virtualization/Sandbox EvasionEvidence1

Before doing anything, RustDuck runs a checklist to decide whether it has landed in a security researcher's lab instead of on a real victim's device. It looks for analysis tools like Wireshark and gdb, for debuggers attached to its own process, for the fingerprints of a honeypot trap, even for virtual-machine hardware.

T1622Debugger EvasionEvidence1

It looks for analysis tools like Wireshark and gdb, for debuggers attached to its own process... Each hit adds points to a risk score. Cross a threshold, and the malware erases its traces and quits before anyone can watch it run.

Command and Control

3 techniques
T1071Application Layer ProtocolEvidence1

It derives its keys with HKDF-SHA256 and a Curve25519 exchange, rotates them every ten minutes, and dresses the connection up to look like ordinary encrypted web traffic so it blends in.

T1105Ingress Tool TransferEvidence1

Once a device checks in, the operators can send a short list of orders: start an attack, stop it, report status, switch to new control servers, or quietly upgrade the malware to a newer build.

T1568Dynamic ResolutionEvidence1

The control addresses lean on free dynamic-DNS services like duckdns.org, which is where the "Duck" in the name comes from.

Impact

1 technique
T1498Network Denial of ServiceEvidence1

The end goal is a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack: flooding a target with junk traffic from the infected machines until it buckles.

INDICATORS OF COMPROMISE

IOCs tracked for this family

1 indicator attributed across vendor reports, sandbox runs, and researcher write-ups. Full values are available in Mallory.

View more in app
Network
1 tracked

IPs, domains, and DNS infrastructure linked to this family.

TypeValueLatest sighting
ip.v4●●●●●●●●●●●●View more in apptoday
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.
IOC matching1

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

Threat actor attribution

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

Exploited vulnerabilities4

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 mapping10

Every documented technique, ranked by evidence weight.

Researcher chatter

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