IRONHALO
- First seen
- 2020-12-01 00:00:00
- Malware type
- downloader
- Profile updated
- 2026-07-07 12:35:50
Targeted industries: government-and-public-sector technology-and-telecommunications
Context
IRONHALO is a downloader that uses the HTTP protocol to retrieve a Base64 encoded payload from a hard-coded command-and-control (CnC) server and uniform resource locator (URL) path. The encoded payload is written to a temporary file, decoded and executed in a hidden window. The encoded and decoded payloads are written to files named igfxHK[%rand%].dat and igfxHK[%rand%].exe respectively, where [%rand%] is a 4-byte hexadecimal number based on the current timestamp. It persists by copying itself to the current user’s Startup folder.
Detection coverage
- 1 YARA rules
Detection rules
- MALPEDIA_Win_Ironhalo_Auto (yara-rule)
Reports & references
- Mandiant — The Eps Awakens (report)
- Mandiant — The Eps Awakens Part Two (report)
- slideshare.net — Cb19 Cyber Threat Landscape In Japan Revealing Threat In The Shadow By Chi En Shen Ashley Oleg Bondarenko (report)
- malpedia.caad.fkie.fraunhofer.de — Win.Ironhalo (report)
- Broadcom/Symantec — 2015 122210 5128 99 (report)