LightNeuron

MITRE ATT&CK: S0395 View on attack.mitre.org

Aliases: NETTRANS, XTRANS, LightNeuron

First seen
2014-01-01 00:00:00
Malware type
backdoor
Family
Malware family
Operating systems
windows, linux
Profile updated
2026-07-07 12:40:44

Targeted industries: government-and-public-sector

Targeted regions: country_code:ru country_code:pl country_code:br

Context

LightNeuron is a sophisticated backdoor that has targeted Microsoft Exchange servers since at least 2014. LightNeuron has been used by Turla to target diplomatic and foreign affairs-related organizations. The presence of certain strings in the malware suggests a Linux variant of LightNeuron exists.

Detection coverage

  • 1 YARA rules
  • 226 Sigma rules

Malware & tools used

  • Mail Protocols (attack-pattern)
  • Scheduled Transfer (attack-pattern)
  • Automated Exfiltration (attack-pattern)
  • Exfiltration Over C2 Channel (attack-pattern)
  • Encrypted/Encoded File (attack-pattern)
  • Steganography (attack-pattern)
  • Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information (attack-pattern)
  • Archive Collected Data (attack-pattern)
  • Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location (attack-pattern)
  • Remote Email Collection (attack-pattern)
  • System Information Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • Ingress Tool Transfer (attack-pattern)
  • Automated Collection (attack-pattern)
  • Symmetric Cryptography (attack-pattern)
  • Local Data Staging (attack-pattern)
  • Windows Command Shell (attack-pattern)
  • Data from Local System (attack-pattern)
  • Transmitted Data Manipulation (attack-pattern)
  • System Network Configuration Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • Native API (attack-pattern)
  • Transport Agent (attack-pattern)
  • File Deletion (attack-pattern)

Used by threat actors

Detection rules

  • MALPEDIA_Win_Lightneuron_Auto (yara-rule)

Reports & references

  • CrowdStrike — Report2020Crowdstrikeglobalthreatreport (report)
  • secureworks.com — Iron Hunter (report)
  • ti.qianxin.com — Cb78386A082F465F259B37Dae5Df4884 (report)
  • malpedia.caad.fkie.fraunhofer.de — Win.Lightneuron (report)
  • Kaspersky — 86487 (report)
  • ESET — Eset Lightneuron (report)
  • youtube.com — Watch (report)
  • ESET — Turla Lightneuron Email Too Far (report)
  • ESET — Tracking Turla New Backdoor Armenian Watering Holes (report)
  • Broadcom/Symantec — Waterbug Espionage Governments (report)
  • MITRE ATT&CK — S0395 (report)

External references