Darkhotel

Overview

Backdoor:Win32/Darkhotel is an advanced, highly surgical cyber-espionage threat campaign and modular backdoor active since at least 2007, first publicly revealed by Kaspersky Lab researchers in November 2014. The group specializes in targeted intrusions against high-ranking corporate executives, CEOs, defense contractors, top venture capitalists, and government diplomats staying at luxury hotels across Asia and Europe. Darkhotel infiltrates luxury hotel Wi-Fi networks and guest authentication portals, tracking target guest reservations and serving deceptive fake software updates (masquerading as Google Toolbar, Adobe Flash Player, or Windows Messenger) signed with stolen, legitimate commercial code-signing digital certificates (including compromised 512-bit and 1024-bit MD5 certificates). Once installed on executive laptops, the Darkhotel backdoor deploys modular keyloggers, credential harvesters, and selective document exfiltration components, subsequently deleting all staging files from hotel network infrastructure to evade detection. Darkhotel also executes targeted spear-phishing campaigns delivering zero-day exploits (including CVE-2010-0188 and CVE-2014-0322) against high-profile political and economic targets.

Known aliases

Threat reports may refer to this family under multiple names:

• Darkhotel
• APT.Darkhotel
• Trojan.Darkhotel
• Tapaoux
• Fallout
• Karba

Threat Actor Attribution

Attribution is probabilistic, not a science. Each link below states its confidence level and the evidence behind it.

• East Asian State-Sponsored APT Syndicate High confidence
  Basis:
• Darkhotel Threat Group High confidence
  Basis:

Family Pedigree & Lineage

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

Known Derivatives & Downstream Variants: Darkhotel Tapaoux V1 · Karba Downloader · Dubnium / Fallout Module

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:

• T1056.001: Implement Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) to monitor for suspicious API calls related to keystroke interception. Enforce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to render stolen passwords useless.
• T1071.001: Implement web filtering and SSL/TLS inspection to detect malicious command and control (C2) traffic hiding in HTTP/HTTPS.
• T1566.001: Scan email attachments for malicious macros, scripts, or suspicious archive files.

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-2010-0188 — In-depth exploitation analysis and catalog intelligence (NIST NVD ↗).
• CVE-2014-0322 — In-depth exploitation analysis and catalog intelligence (NIST NVD ↗).
• CVE-2017-0199 — In-depth exploitation analysis and catalog intelligence (NIST NVD ↗).

Command & Control (C2) and Network Profile

How this family talks to its operators. C2 traffic can often identify a family even when its code and configuration are hard to analyse. Ports and patterns are historical and change between campaigns, so use them as hunting leads rather than block-only rules.

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.

• 2f82ba1851b415a782bca8ca2107455cf6433ae6506fbc3b53f0fa752243d467
• 7c58ab7df0c8f5379b1836171a4f00843657b8599426f8d0ab7cfeb702221b6c

Delivery vectors

• hotel_wifi_portal_injection
• spearphishing_attachment

Persistence mechanisms

• HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
• Scheduled Tasks

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_DARKHOTEL_T1_ARTIFACT {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 1 Primitive Artifact: Raw string matches for Darkhotel"
        tier = "T1 - Primitive Artifact"
        confidence = "Low-Medium (Fast Triage)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Threat Research Desk"
        date = "2026-10-14"
    strings:
        $s1 = "darkhotel" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "darkhotel" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "apt.darkhotel" ascii wide nocase
        $s4 = "trojan.darkhotel" ascii wide nocase
        $s5 = "tapaoux" ascii wide nocase
        $s6 = "fallout" ascii wide nocase
        $s7 = "karba" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}

title: SystemHelpDesk Detection - Darkhotel (Backdoor) Execution & Triage
id: f8eb6296-733e-5419-93f0-8f13ffcd47ce
status: production
description: Detects execution, defense evasion, and persistence behaviors associated
  with the Darkhotel 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/darkhotel
- 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.t1195_002
- attack.t1566_001
- attack.t1553_002
- attack.t1056_001
- attack.t1005
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_DARKHOTEL_T3_ATTRIBUTION {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 3 Attribution Fingerprint: Heuristic detection for Darkhotel 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 = "darkhotel" 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. Immediately disconnect corporate laptops from hotel Wi-Fi and establish isolated cellular network connectivity.
2. Perform memory and forensic analysis on endpoints that accepted software updates during travel.
3. Verify all digital code-signing certificates on newly executed executables against enterprise trust stores.
4. Enforce mandatory full-tunnel corporate VPN policies with always-on kill switches for all remote endpoints.

What to Avoid

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

1. Never accept or execute software update prompts delivered over hotel Wi-Fi portal pages.
2. Avoid connecting sensitive corporate laptops to public or hospitality Wi-Fi networks without VPN encryption.
3. Do not trust executable software solely based on code signatures if certificate validity is dubious.

References & External Analysis

• Kaspersky Lab GReAT: The Darkhotel APT A Story of Unusual Hospitality
• Trend Micro Security Intelligence: Darkhotel Espionage Operations
• NIST National Vulnerability Database CVE-2014-0322
• Search "darkhotel" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)
• Search "darkhotel" on Any.Run (Sandbox Sandbox)
• Search "darkhotel" on MalwareBazaar (Malware Samples)

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Threats (Category: Backdoor)

Explore other documented threats in the same operational category:

• Vjworm
• Smheist
• Tick
• Bifrose
• Accelerator
• Winvnc
• Orcus
• Shutdowner

Machine-readable

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