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DELoader is a Windows malware family whose primary role is to load and execute additional payloads on an infected host. It has been observed creating a suspended explorer.exe process, decrypting an embedded DLL from its own body, and injecting that component into the target process. The injected code then retrieves an additional portable executable, validates that it is a PE file, and injects the downloaded payload into explorer.exe using remote-thread-based process injection. This behavior indicates a modular design centered on staging and execution of follow-on malware rather than direct monetization or standalone destructive effects.
DELoader has been associated with financially motivated activity and appears to have been used in campaigns with a notable concentration of victims in Germany and Austria. Reporting has linked its infrastructure and operational overlaps to activity involving domains registered under the same persona previously tied to Zeus-related campaigns and Android Marcher banking malware operations. Those overlaps suggest an operator or cluster of operators with a history of banking-malware distribution and regional targeting of German-speaking users, while some historical activity also extended to Australian banking targets.
Distribution evidence indicates DELoader was delivered through malicious email campaigns, including invoice-themed ZIP archives containing downloader components, and it has also been delivered as a secondary payload by Hancitor. In those observed chains, Hancitor acted as the initial downloader and subsequently installed DELoader alongside other malware families. DELoader therefore fits into broader intrusion ecosystems as an intermediate loader used to establish execution of additional malware on Windows systems.
The malware’s core capabilities include payload retrieval, in-memory loading, and process injection for execution under a legitimate Windows process, all of which support defense evasion and post-compromise staging. Available evidence supports Windows as the relevant platform.
Mallory pivots from this family to the IOCs, detections, and named campaigns that touch your stack, and pages you when something new lands.
7 distinct techniques documented for this family, organized by ATT&CK tactic.
From the above graph we can extract the infection chain for DELoader, which is delivered through malicious JavaScript downloaders: Since the JavaScript downloaders come from ZIP files with “invoice” themes, it is more or less sent to victims as an attachment to malicious emails.
The injected DLL then attempts to download a file from the link hxxp://remembermetoday4.asia/00/b.bin
then it started generating DNS queries for random 20-character alphabetic strings with .com as the top level domain (TLD)... This blog post shows how to reverse engineer the algorithm... The seed is based on the unix timestamp for the current date at time 00:00 UTC.
37 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.
Other indicator types observed in public reporting.
3 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Named as an example of malware historically delivered by Hancitor.
Additional malware payload referenced as being downloaded by Hancitor malspam campaigns.
A loader malware that creates a suspended explorer.exe process, decrypts an embedded DLL, injects it into explorer.exe, downloads an additional PE payload from C2, validates the MZ header, and injects the downloaded payload into explorer.exe using CreateRemoteThread.
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.