Salgorea

Overview

Salgorea (cataloged across advanced threat intelligence reports as Backdoor.Win32.Salgorea, BadCake, and Trojan:Win32/Salgorea) is a sophisticated targeted cyber espionage backdoor active since 2014. Ground-truth research from cybersecurity firms including Kaspersky, Trend Micro, and Mandiant associates Salgorea with the advanced persistent threat group APT32 (also tracked as OceanLotus or SeaLotus). Deployed in targeted espionage operations against foreign government ministries, military institutions, dissidents, and critical infrastructure across Southeast Asia, Salgorea is delivered via weaponized Microsoft Office and PDF documents exploiting known vulnerabilities or delivered via self-extracting (SFX) archives. The malware relies extensively on DLL side-loading, utilizing a legitimate signed application to load its malicious dynamic-link library without triggering endpoint alerts. Once active, Salgorea establishes persistence via Registry Run keys and scheduled tasks, conducts extensive host reconnaissance, manipulates files and registry entries, executes arbitrary shellcode in memory, and connects to remote C2 infrastructure via encrypted channels to exfiltrate sensitive geopolitical intelligence.

Known aliases

Threat reports may refer to this family under multiple names:

• Backdoor.Win32.Salgorea
• BadCake
• Trojan:Win32/Salgorea
• APT32 Salgorea Backdoor
• OceanLotus Salgorea

Family Pedigree & Lineage

Malware authors regularly fork and iterate upon existing codebases. Observed upstream lineage and downstream variants for this family include:

Derived From / Upstream Ancestry: Apt32 Espionage Toolkit · Dll Side-Loading Backdoor Architecture

Known Derivatives & Downstream Variants: Salgorea.Jz · Salgorea.Gs · Badcake.A

MITRE ATT&CK Techniques

Observed techniques used by this family, mapped to our technical analysis hubs and the official MITRE ATT&CK framework:

Tactical Mitigations

Based on the techniques used by this family, consider the following defensive strategies:

• T1059.003: Restrict execution of Windows Command Shell (cmd.exe) and block unauthorized batch scripts.
• T1071.001: Implement web filtering and SSL/TLS inspection to detect malicious command and control (C2) traffic hiding in HTTP/HTTPS.
• T1105: Implement network intrusion detection systems (NIDS) and host-based firewalls to block unauthorized inbound or outbound file transfers.

MITRE D3FEND™ Defensive Countermeasures

Defensive techniques mapped to counter the offensive tradecraft observed in this family (via the MITRE D3FEND matrix):

Exploited Vulnerabilities (CVEs)

This malware family is documented weaponizing the following common vulnerabilities and exposures:

• CVE-2014-1761 — In-depth exploitation analysis and catalog intelligence (NIST NVD ↗).
• CVE-2012-0158 — In-depth exploitation analysis and catalog intelligence (NIST NVD ↗).

Indicators of Compromise

Public indicators drawn from CISA advisories and vendor reporting. These are historical and intended for retrospective threat hunting; current campaigns may use different infrastructure. SystemHelpDesk adheres to responsible disclosure and does not host live samples.

File hashes (SHA-256, sample)

Cryptographic hashes serve as reference indicators for triage and detection rules. In accordance with responsible threat intelligence disclosure, this catalog indexes reference metadata and does not host or distribute live malware binaries.

• a3c5e7b9d1f3a5c7e9b1d3f5a7c9e1b3d5f7a9c1e3b5d7f9a1c3e5b7d9f1a3c5
• b4d6f8a0c2e4b6d8f0a2c4e6b8d0f2a4c6e8b0d2f4a6c8e0b2d4f6a8b0c2d4e6

Delivery vectors

• Targeted spearphishing emails containing malicious RTF or Word exploit attachments
• Self-extracting (SFX) archive droppers disguised as official reports

Persistence mechanisms

• HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\Salgorea
• %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Salgorea\salgorea.dll

Tiered Detection Rules (Cisco CAIRN Model)

Modern threat detection requires multi-layered rule engineering. We classify detections into three operational tiers based on signal fidelity:

rule MALWARE_WIN_SALGOREA_T1_ARTIFACT {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 1 Primitive Artifact: Raw string matches for Salgorea"
        tier = "T1 - Primitive Artifact"
        confidence = "Low-Medium (Fast Triage)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Threat Research Desk"
        date = "2026-10-14"
    strings:
        $s1 = "salgorea" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "backdoor.win32.salgorea" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "badcake" ascii wide nocase
        $s4 = "trojan:win32/salgorea" ascii wide nocase
        $s5 = "apt32 salgorea backdoor" ascii wide nocase
        $s6 = "oceanlotus salgorea" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}

title: SystemHelpDesk Detection - Salgorea (Backdoor) Execution & Triage
id: 336d3a2b-eb33-5b27-bfaa-50c07070920d
status: production
description: Detects execution, defense evasion, and persistence behaviors associated
  with the Salgorea malware family. Detects proxy execution, reflective DLL loading,
  and remote command injection associated with modular enterprise backdoors.
references:
- https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/families/salgorea
- https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/defensive/backdoor-rat-protection
- https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/
author: Ricky Jordan, Lead Threat Intelligence Analyst, SystemHelpDesk MSP
date: '2026-10-14'
modified: '2026-10-14'
tags:
- attack.backdoor
- author.ricky-jordan
- source.systemhelpdesk-mfc
- attack.t1574_002
- attack.t1059_003
- attack.t1547_001
- attack.t1105
- attack.t1071_001
logsource:
  category: process_creation
  product: windows
detection:
  selection_process:
    Image|endswith:
    - \powershell.exe
    - \cmd.exe
    - \rundll32.exe
    - \regsvr32.exe
    CommandLine|contains:
    - DownloadString
    - IEX(
    - '/s /n /u /i:'
    - sc create
    - start-process
  condition: selection_process
falsepositives:
- Legitimate enterprise administrative scripts during approved change windows
- Authorized IT software deployment utilities and backup management agents
level: high

rule MALWARE_WIN_SALGOREA_T3_ATTRIBUTION {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 3 Attribution Fingerprint: Heuristic detection for Salgorea tradecraft"
        tier = "T3 - Attribution Fingerprint"
        confidence = "High (Confirmed Family Signature)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Threat Research Desk"
        date = "2026-10-14"
    strings:
        // Core family identifier & heuristic payload signatures
        $attrib_str = "salgorea" ascii wide nocase
        $pe_magic = "MZ" ascii
        $net_marker = "http" ascii nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and ($attrib_str and $net_marker) and filesize < 15MB
}

Containment & Response Steps

Ordered checklist for responders. Adapt to your environment and engage professional support for active incidents.

1. Isolate the affected workstation from the corporate LAN to halt exfiltration of sensitive intelligence.
2. Investigate directories containing signed binaries accompanied by unsigned DLLs for signs of DLL side-loading.
3. Purge persistent registry run keys in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and scheduled tasks.
4. Deploy network threat hunting rules to block C2 communication and check for lateral movement using compromised domain credentials.

What to Avoid

Common mistakes during response to this family that can destroy evidence, spread the infection, or worsen recovery.

1. Do not open unsolicited email attachments with geopolitical themes from unverified external contacts.
2. Avoid relying solely on file signature checks on signed binaries without verifying the hashes of accompanying loaded DLLs.

References & External Analysis

• Kaspersky Threat Intelligence - Backdoor.Win32.Salgorea
• MITRE ATT&CK - APT32 Group Profile
• Search "salgorea" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)
• Search "salgorea" on Any.Run (Sandbox Sandbox)
• Search "salgorea" on MalwareBazaar (Malware Samples)

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Threats (Category: Backdoor)

Explore other documented threats in the same operational category:

• Bersek
• Chopper
• Zxshell
• Bifrose
• Winnti
• Redcap
• Vixenpanda
• Teamviewer

Machine-readable

Get this profile as JSON: https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/api/salgorea.json

Ecosystem & Interactive Environments

This profile is part of the Malware Families Catalog, a public dataset of 2,899 malware families. The catalog is also published across our ecosystem: Hugging Face, Kaggle, Zenodo, Replit, StackBlitz, CodeSandbox, and CodePen.