Matryoshka

MITRE ATT&CK: S0167 View on attack.mitre.org

Aliases: Matryoshka

First seen
2016-07-01 00:00:00
Malware type
rat, dropper, loader
Family
Malware family
Operating systems
windows
Profile updated
2026-07-07 13:21:34

Targeted industries: government-and-public-sector technology-and-telecommunications

Targeted regions: country_code:il country_code:de country_code:us

Context

Matryoshka is a malware framework used by CopyKittens that consists of a dropper, loader, and RAT. It has multiple versions; v1 was seen in the wild from July 2016 until January 2017. v2 has fewer commands and other minor differences.

Detection coverage

  • 7 YARA rules
  • 286 Sigma rules

Malware & tools used

  • Keylogging (attack-pattern)
  • Command and Scripting Interpreter (attack-pattern)
  • Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder (attack-pattern)
  • Dynamic-link Library Injection (attack-pattern)
  • Credentials from Password Stores (attack-pattern)
  • Obfuscated Files or Information (attack-pattern)
  • Screen Capture (attack-pattern)
  • DNS (attack-pattern)
  • Rundll32 (attack-pattern)
  • Scheduled Task (attack-pattern)

Used by threat actors

Detection rules

  • FIREEYE_RT_APT_Loader_Win_MATRYOSHKA_1 (yara-rule)
  • FIREEYE_RT_APT_Loader_Win64_MATRYOSHKA_2 (yara-rule)
  • FIREEYE_RT_APT_Loader_Win64_MATRYOSHKA_1 (yara-rule)
  • FIREEYE_RT_APT_Builder_Win64_MATRYOSHKA_1 (yara-rule)
  • FIREEYE_RT_APT_Dropper_Win64_MATRYOSHKA_1 (yara-rule)
  • FIREEYE_RT_APT_Dropper_Win_MATRYOSHKA_1 (yara-rule)
  • MALPEDIA_Win_Matryoshka_Rat_Auto (yara-rule)

Reports & references

  • clearskysec.com — Operation Wilted Tulip (report)
  • cdn2.hubspot.net — Copykittens (report)
  • MITRE ATT&CK — S0167 (report)
  • alienvault.com — Matryoshka Malware From Copykittens Group (report)

External references