MgBot
MgBot is a backdoor/implant associated uniquely in the provided content with the China-linked threat actor Daggerfly since at least 2012. The content also references reporting that Evasive Panda delivered MgBot via DNS poisoning, then executed the implant in memory by injecting it into legitimate processes and using DLL sideloading with a signed executable.
High-confidence capabilities described in the content include collection and credential theft from multiple sources. MgBot includes modules to collect information on Active Directory domain accounts; identify local users and administrators; gather information from USB thumb drives and CD-ROMs according to provided criteria; perform ARP scans of locally connected systems; and perform HTTP and server service scans. It can capture clipboard data and capture input and output audio streams from infected devices.
For credential and session theft, MgBot includes modules to steal stored credentials from Outlook and Foxmail, steal credentials from browsers and applications including Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Foxmail, QQBrowser, FileZilla, and WinSCP, and steal cookies from Firefox, Chrome, and Edge. The content further associates MgBot with credential access and collection behaviors including OS credential dumping, keylogging, clipboard collection, and web session cookie theft.
Targeting information is limited in the content, but one cited report states MgBot activity targeted South Korea, while Daggerfly is the threat actor most directly tied to MgBot usage. No specific standalone IOCs are provided in the content.
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Groups observed using it
1 distinct threat actor attributed by public researchers. Open in Mallory to see the full evidence chain and overlapping campaigns.
Daggerfly is uniquely associated with the use of MgBot since at least 2012.
Techniques & procedures
22 distinct techniques documented for this family, organized by ATT&CK tactic.
Credential Access
6 techniques
Credential Access
"APT42 has used custom malware to steal login and cookie data from common browsers." / "...extracts the web session cookie and sends it to the C2 server." / "...stole Chrome browser cookies by copying the Chrome profile directories of targeted users."
Agent Tesla has the ability to steal credentials from FTP clients and wireless profiles... APT33 has used a variety of publicly available tools like LaZagne to gather credentials... Mimikatz performs credential dumping to obtain account and password information useful in gaining access to additional systems and enterprise network resources. It contains functionality to acquire information about credentials in many ways, including from the credential vault and DPAPI.
The content repeatedly describes threat actors and malware stealing usernames, passwords, cookies, session tokens, and other saved credentials from web browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Edge, Opera, Safari, and Yandex.
Evilnum can collect email credentials from victims... Malteiro has obtained credentials from mail clients via NirSoft MailPassView... MgBot includes modules for stealing stored credentials from Outlook and Foxmail email client software... PLEAD has the ability to steal saved passwords from Microsoft Outlook.
Discovery
10 techniques
Discovery
During the 2015 Ukraine Electric Power Attack, Sandworm Team remotely discovered systems over LAN connections. OT systems were visible from the IT network as well, giving adversaries the ability to discover operational assets.
The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors collecting usernames, identifying logged-in users, running whoami/query user/quser, checking whether the current user is an administrator, enumerating user sessions, and gathering account details from compromised hosts.
The content repeatedly describes threat actors and malware performing network scanning, port scanning, service enumeration, OS fingerprinting, and identifying open ports/services across victim environments.
The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors obtaining lists of running processes, using utilities such as tasklist, ps, WMI, Get-Process, CreateToolhelp32Snapshot, EnumProcesses, and similar APIs/commands to enumerate active processes on victim systems.
The content notes checks for whether the current user is an administrator or privileged, including 'AsyncRAT can check if the current user of a compromised system is an administrator,' 'Gelsemium has the ability to distinguish between a standard user and an administrator,' and 'Wizard Spider has used whoami to identify the local user and their privileges.'
BADNEWS crawls the victim's local drives and collects documents with selected extensions; Machete searches the file system for files of interest; Rover searches for files on local drives based on a predefined list of file extensions.
Examples include 'Caterpillar WebShell can obtain a list of user accounts from a victim's machine,' 'DRATzarus can obtain a list of users from an infected machine,' 'Woody RAT can retrieve a list of user accounts and usernames from an infected machine,' and 'TrickBot can identify the user and groups the user belongs to on a compromised host.'
Collection
6 techniques
Collection
The content repeatedly describes threat actors and malware collecting, stealing, identifying, copying, or staging files, documents, credentials, logs, databases, and other information from compromised hosts or local systems.
AppleSeed can find and collect data from removable media devices. APT28 backdoor may collect the entire contents of an inserted USB device. Aria-body has the ability to collect data from USB devices. BADNEWS copies files with certain extensions from USB devices to a predefined directory.
Recent activity
40 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Backdoor delivered via DNS poisoning in a targeted espionage campaign (victims in Türkiye, China, India).
MgBot is a backdoor malware delivered via DNS poisoning by the Evasive Panda APT group.
Backdoor malware used in cyberespionage campaigns, delivered via DNS poisoning techniques.
MgBot is a modular remote access trojan (RAT) used for espionage, featuring keylogging, file theft, command execution, and is delivered via sophisticated DNS poisoning and fake update mechanisms.
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.