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	"id": "1a0e9f8d-217f-4fb7-aef7-119ddb9bf4e4",
	"created_at": "2026-04-06T00:10:39.455416Z",
	"updated_at": "2026-04-10T03:21:11.148791Z",
	"deleted_at": null,
	"sha1_hash": "d8e0aeefdff1f88a74b068af2ec3ac24dc7d9411",
	"title": "eSentire Threat Intelligence: GootLoader Striking with a New Infection Technique",
	"llm_title": "",
	"authors": "",
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	"plain_text": "eSentire Threat Intelligence: GootLoader Striking with a New\r\nInfection Technique\r\nBy eSentire Threat Response Unit (TRU)\r\nArchived: 2026-04-05 20:03:16 UTC\r\nOn December 2, 2022, one of our 24/7 SOC Cyber Analysts escalated an incident involving the GootLoader\r\nmalware at a pharmaceutical company. eSentire’s Threat Response Unit (TRU) responded quickly and proceeded\r\nwith an in-depth threat investigation of GootLoader.\r\neSentire leveraged Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to quarantine and prevent the threat (Figure 1).\r\nFigure 1: The malicious ZIP archive was delivered via a compromised WordPress website\r\nGootLoader Initial Stage Analysis\r\nTRU proceeded to conduct a deep analysis of the GootLoader payload and made a notable discovery: the\r\ncompromised WordPress website serving the payload generated different names for the ZIP archives when\r\ndifferent users visited the page, shown in Figure 2 above. Some examples of the names generated were:\r\nUaw_fca_contract_2019_highlights_78352\r\nTelecommunications_franchise_agreement_13105\r\nVwr_bio_agreement_85841\r\nStandard_agreement_calculation_hplc_11285\r\nBased on analysis, TRU also determined that the last five digits of the filename can also change.\r\nhttps://www.esentire.com/blog/gootloader-striking-with-a-new-infection-technique\r\nPage 1 of 9\n\nFigure 2: Gootloader new infection chain\r\nThe initial malicious JavaScript code is mixed with legitimate Sizzle.js JavaScript Library (Figure 3).\r\nhttps://www.esentire.com/blog/gootloader-striking-with-a-new-infection-technique\r\nPage 2 of 9\n\nFigure 3: Malicious code is highlighted in red color\r\nFor the initial infection, the first obfuscated script is executed via wscript.exe process. After the script finishes\r\nexecuting, it sleeps for ~12 seconds before spawning a secondary JS script. The second JS file is another\r\nobfuscated script with approximately 40 MB in size. The script is padded with garbage strings as shown in Figure\r\n4.\r\nFigure 4: The secondary JS is padded with garbage strings\r\nThis is a departure from the previous GootLoader persistence technique. Specifically after communicating\r\nwith the C2 server and domain join checks, the scheduled task was created to decode the registry values\r\ncontaining the payload (see our analysis on GootLoader delivering IcedID).\r\nThe current persistence mechanism is achieved right after the successful infection without the malware\r\ncommunicating with the C2. The persistence is created via a scheduled task using Schedule.Service COMObject\r\n(Figure 5). The secondary JS file is dropped under C:\\Users\\\u003cusername\u003e\\AppData\\Roaming path under one of the\r\nexisting folders on the machine and runs at each logon attempt. The task name and JS script file contains\r\nrandomly generated words.\r\nFigure 5: Scheduled Task\r\nThe secondary JS script will spawn a PowerShell process with the command line “pOWErsHELl” that contains\r\nthe script shown in Figure 6.\r\nhttps://www.esentire.com/blog/gootloader-striking-with-a-new-infection-technique\r\nPage 3 of 9\n\nFigure 6: PowerShell script spawned from the secondary JS script\r\nThe script retrieves the list of applications under the Desktop folder of the infected user, gets the processes\r\nrunning on the host, operating system, environment variables, list of running user processes that use GUI\r\nexcluding background and system processes, the drives that has 50 MB free space or greater. The gathered\r\ninformation then is base64-encoded and compressed to be sent out over POST requests to WordPress domains\r\nwith the tags in the Cookie field over HTTP/HTTPs (Figures 7-8). Please note that the tags will change based on\r\nthe JS payload:\r\n0D2B9F9A72 – contains environment variables and OS information\r\n0D2B9F9A721 – contains list of running processes\r\n0D2B9F9A722 – contains list of running user processes that use GUI\r\n0D2B9F9A723 – contains the list of applications under the Desktop folder\r\n0D2B9F9A724 – local disk letter\r\nThe user-agent used: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML like Gecko)\r\nChrome/107.0.0.0 Safari/537.36;\r\nFigure 7: Traffic capture of a successful GootLoader infection\r\nhttps://www.esentire.com/blog/gootloader-striking-with-a-new-infection-technique\r\nPage 4 of 9\n\nhttps://www.esentire.com/blog/gootloader-striking-with-a-new-infection-technique\r\nPage 5 of 9\n\nFigure 8: Beacon connections to contacted domains\r\nOn November 21, GootLoader Sites mentioned that GootLoader has access to approximately 34k domains.\r\nWith the new infection technique, a threat actor can consistently receive the fingerprinted information on the host\r\nwhile having access to it and make further decisions on whether to deploy additional malware or not.\r\nIndicators of Compromise\r\nContacted domain momo[.]com/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nContacted domain diariojudio[.]com/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nContacted domain hortencollection[.]com/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nContacted domain willowdragonstonecommunity[.]org/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nContacted domain afxotec[.]gr/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nContacted domain blog[.]bayareadisc[.]org/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nContacted domain diagnosa[.]net/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nContacted domain vivporn[.]com/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nContacted domain arinanikitina[.]com/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nContacted domain legit-helpers[.]com/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nContacted domain kumpulantukang[.]com/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nContacted domain aaa-media-solutions[.]de/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nContacted domain hbi-wohnen[.]de/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nContacted domain mentecounseling[.]com/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nContacted domain sert-service[.]ru/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nContacted domain cafeintra[.]nickit[.]dk/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nContacted domain meerlezen[.]nl/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nContacted domain svezazdravlje[.]site/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nhttps://www.esentire.com/blog/gootloader-striking-with-a-new-infection-technique\r\nPage 6 of 9\n\nContacted domain thegreatideaz[.]com/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nContacted domain cardinalconstruction[.]ca/xmlrpc[.]php\r\nHow eSentire is Responding\r\nOur Threat Response Unit (TRU) combines threat intelligence obtained from research and security incidents to\r\ncreate action-oriented outcomes for our customers. We are taking a full-scale response approach to fight modern\r\ncybersecurity threats by deploying countermeasures, such as:\r\nPerforming global threat hunts for indicators associated with GootLoader\r\nOur detection content is supported by investigation runbooks, ensuring our SOC (Security Operations Center)\r\nanalysts respond rapidly to any intrusion attempts related to a known malware Tactics, Techniques, and\r\nProcedures. In addition, TRU closely monitors the threat landscape and constantly addresses capability gaps and\r\nconducts retroactive threat hunts to assess customer impact.\r\nRecommendations from eSentire’s Threat Response Unit (TRU) \r\nWe recommend implementing the following controls to help secure your organization against GootLoader\r\nmalware:\r\nConfirm that all devices are protected with Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solutions\r\nImplement a Phishing and Security Awareness Training (PSAT) program that informs and educates\r\nemployees on emerging threats in the threat landscape.\r\nEnsure that standard procedures are in place for employees to submit potentially malicious content for\r\nreview.\r\nAddress security issues in Active Directory by thoroughly reviewing and securing SYSVOL permissions,\r\nimplementing Least-Privilege administrative models and patching any known vulnerabilities.\r\nWhile the TTPs used by adversaries grow in sophistication, they lead to a certain level of difficulties at which\r\ncritical business decisions must be made. Preventing the various attack paths utilized by the modern threat actor\r\nrequires actively monitoring the threat landscape, developing, and deploying endpoint detection, and the ability to\r\ninvestigate logs \u0026 network data during active intrusions.\r\neSentire’s TRU is a world-class team of threat researchers who develop new detections enriched by original threat\r\nintelligence and leverage new machine learning models that correlate multi-signal data and automate rapid\r\nresponse to advanced threats.\r\nIf you are not currently engaged with an MDR provider, eSentire MDR can help you reclaim the advantage and\r\nput your business ahead of disruption.\r\nLearn what it means to have an elite team of Threat Hunters and Researchers that works for you. Connect with an\r\neSentire Security Specialist.\r\nhttps://www.esentire.com/blog/gootloader-striking-with-a-new-infection-technique\r\nPage 7 of 9\n\nAppendix\r\nhttps://twitter.com/GootLoaderSites/status/1594888020058337281?s=20\u0026t=PwGqmHiqKVu2KKJlbzioRw\r\nTo learn how your organization can build cyber resilience and prevent business disruption with eSentire’s Next\r\nLevel MDR, connect with an eSentire Security Specialist now.\r\nGET STARTED\r\nABOUT ESENTIRE’S THREAT RESPONSE UNIT (TRU)\r\nhttps://www.esentire.com/blog/gootloader-striking-with-a-new-infection-technique\r\nPage 8 of 9\n\nThe eSentire Threat Response Unit (TRU) is an industry-leading threat research team committed to helping your\r\norganization become more resilient. TRU is an elite team of threat hunters and researchers that supports our 24/7\r\nSecurity Operations Centers (SOCs), builds threat detection models across the eSentire XDR Cloud Platform, and\r\nworks as an extension of your security team to continuously improve our Managed Detection and Response\r\nservice. By providing complete visibility across your attack surface and performing global threat sweeps and\r\nproactive hypothesis-driven threat hunts augmented by original threat research, we are laser-focused on defending\r\nyour organization against known and unknown threats.\r\nSource: https://www.esentire.com/blog/gootloader-striking-with-a-new-infection-technique\r\nhttps://www.esentire.com/blog/gootloader-striking-with-a-new-infection-technique\r\nPage 9 of 9",
	"extraction_quality": 1,
	"language": "EN",
	"sources": [
		"Malpedia"
	],
	"references": [
		"https://www.esentire.com/blog/gootloader-striking-with-a-new-infection-technique"
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	"threat_actors": [],
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