Gelsemium

MITRE ATT&CK: S0666 View on attack.mitre.org

Aliases: Gelsevirine, Gelsenicine, Gelsemine, Gelsemium

First seen
2014-01-01 00:00:00
Malware type
dropper, loader, backdoor
Family
Malware family
Operating systems
windows
Last IoC activity
2026-06-25 09:55:40
Profile updated
2026-07-07 13:23:11

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

Targeted regions: country_code:vn country_code:my country_code:th

Context

Gelsemium is a modular malware comprised of a dropper (Gelsemine), a loader (Gelsenicine), and main (Gelsevirine) plug-ins written using the Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) framework. Gelsemium has been used by the Gelsemium group since at least 2014.

Detection coverage

  • 9 YARA rules
  • 537 Sigma rules

Malware & tools used

  • Dynamic Resolution (attack-pattern)
  • Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information (attack-pattern)
  • Bypass User Account Control (attack-pattern)
  • Non-Application Layer Protocol (attack-pattern)
  • Windows Service (attack-pattern)
  • File Deletion (attack-pattern)
  • Reflective Code Loading (attack-pattern)
  • Print Processors (attack-pattern)
  • Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder (attack-pattern)
  • Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion (attack-pattern)
  • Fileless Storage (attack-pattern)
  • Modify Registry (attack-pattern)
  • Process Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • DNS (attack-pattern)
  • File and Directory Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • System Information Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • Security Software Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • Ingress Tool Transfer (attack-pattern)
  • System Owner/User Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • Fallback Channels (attack-pattern)
  • Data from Local System (attack-pattern)
  • Dynamic-link Library Injection (attack-pattern)
  • Access Token Manipulation (attack-pattern)
  • Timestomp (attack-pattern)
  • Query Registry (attack-pattern)

Detection rules

  • ARKBIRD_SOLG_APT_Gelsemium_Gelsemine_June_2021_1 (yara-rule)
  • ARKBIRD_SOLG_APT_Gelsemium_Gelsenicine_June_2021_2 (yara-rule)
  • ARKBIRD_SOLG_APT_Gelsemium_Gelsenicine_June_2021_1 (yara-rule)
  • ARKBIRD_SOLG_APT_Gelsemium_Gelsevirine_June_2021_1 (yara-rule)
  • DITEKSHEN_MALWARE_Win_Gelsemine (yara-rule)
  • SEKOIA_Apt_Gelsemium_Firewood_Backdoor (yara-rule)
  • SEKOIA_Apt_Gelsemium_Wolfsbane_Backdoor (yara-rule)
  • SEKOIA_Apt_Gelsemium_Wolfsbane_Launcher (yara-rule)
  • SEKOIA_Apt_Gelsemium_Wolfsbane_Rootkit (yara-rule)

Reports & references

  • ESET — Eset Gelsemium (report)
  • MITRE ATT&CK — S0666 (report)

External references