HotCroissant

MITRE ATT&CK: S0431 View on attack.mitre.org

Aliases: HotCroissant

Malware type
rat
Family
Malware family
Operating systems
windows
Related IoCs
1
Last IoC activity
2026-02-14 00:18:42
Profile updated
2026-07-07 14:45:21

Targeted industries: government-and-public-sector defense-and-aerospace financial-services

Context

HotCroissant is a remote access trojan (RAT) attributed by U.S. government entities to malicious North Korean government cyber activity, tracked collectively as HIDDEN COBRA. HotCroissant shares numerous code similarities with Rifdoor.

Detection coverage

  • 1 YARA rules
  • 301 Sigma rules

Malware & tools used

  • Exfiltration Over C2 Channel (attack-pattern)
  • Symmetric Cryptography (attack-pattern)
  • File Deletion (attack-pattern)
  • Native API (attack-pattern)
  • Software Packing (attack-pattern)
  • File and Directory Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • Service Stop (attack-pattern)
  • Ingress Tool Transfer (attack-pattern)
  • Windows Command Shell (attack-pattern)
  • Process Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • System Service Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • System Owner/User Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • Encrypted/Encoded File (attack-pattern)
  • Application Window Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • Software Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • System Information Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • Screen Capture (attack-pattern)
  • System Network Configuration Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • Scheduled Task (attack-pattern)
  • Hidden Window (attack-pattern)

Used by threat actors

Detection rules

  • MALPEDIA_Win_Hotcroissant_Auto (yara-rule)

Reports & references

  • labs.sentinelone.com — Dprk Hidden Cobra Update North Korean Malicious Cyber Activity (report)
  • malpedia.caad.fkie.fraunhofer.de — Win.Hotcroissant (report)
  • carbonblack.com — Vmware Carbon Black Tau Threat Analysis The Evolution Of Lazarus (report)
  • us-cert.gov — Ar20 045D (report)
  • MITRE ATT&CK — S0431 (report)

External references