MalwarePublished 22 Sep 2025Updated 22 Oct 2025

Suspected APT-C-00 Delivers Havoc Trojan

Source AlienVault OTX General

Description

A recent analysis of a suspicious trojan loader reveals similarities to the APT-C-00 (Ocean Lotus) group, a government-backed hacker organization targeting East Asian companies and government agencies. The sample, a DLL file with excellent evasion capabilities, uses hash algorithms to dynamically obtain API functions. It creates a mutex for single-instance execution, validates command-line parameters, adds itself to the registry for persistence, and sets up a VEH exception handler. The loader employs module hollowing to replace code in certmgr.dll with shellcode that reflectively loads the Havoc RAT. The tactics and development environment align with Ocean Lotus' known techniques, including the use of Mingw-w64 and similar initialization processes.

Impact

For European organizations, the presence of this malware could lead to significant confidentiality breaches, especially if targeted entities have business or governmental ties with East Asia or operate in sectors of geopolitical interest. The Havoc RAT enables attackers to gain persistent remote access, potentially leading to espionage, intellectual property theft, sabotage, or disruption of critical services. The use of advanced evasion and persistence techniques makes detection and removal challenging, increasing the risk of prolonged undetected compromise. European companies involved in international trade, technology, telecommunications, or government agencies could face data leaks or operational disruptions. Furthermore, the malware’s ability to hijack legitimate system processes and DLLs complicates forensic investigations and incident response, potentially delaying remediation and increasing damage scope.

Defensive guidance

European organizations should implement targeted detection strategies focusing on behavioral indicators such as unusual registry modifications, creation of mutexes with suspicious names, and the presence of vectored exception handlers. Monitoring for module hollowing activities, especially involving certmgr.dll or other critical system DLLs, is crucial. Endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions should be tuned to detect reflective DLL loading and process hollowing techniques. Network monitoring should include analysis of outbound connections to suspicious IPs like 46.37.124.147 and other known command and control servers associated with Havoc RAT. Employ application whitelisting to prevent unauthorized DLL sideloading and enforce strict code signing policies. Regularly update and audit system and security configurations to detect unauthorized registry persistence entries. Conduct threat hunting exercises using the provided file hashes to identify potential infections. Finally, enhance user awareness and restrict administrative privileges to limit malware execution capabilities.

Indicators of compromise

IP addresses 1

46.37.124.147

Hashes 11

2ca07512ba04df5d2d22a2c97d83cd5f
2da7798e8f7fbeafefbd297e3be5b21b
64062595582c36d0aed322e98108ff4b
6725c332b0fe684fbc94df399ab726bc
860c9bc3c291de45856218c2059e1117
963448d96d81138413f192dd80558d76
ca1376132df84cb3be08d43114ad32d7
4948caaf5cdc197bd276ca5d8c839518528f5d91
c1eda6f31cd07919561aba5bd9c6fc07ba9b8ddf
88a67b1b0875495b30e93ec925908ed2fade26005f5d50f59f8c45f51e2fc01b

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Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 22 Sep 2025, 19:44 UTC

MITRE ATT&CK techniques3 from threat tags

Technical details

Indicators of compromise

IP addresses 1

Hashes 11

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