Hawkeyekeylogger

Overview

HawkEye Keylogger (also tracked as HawkEye, HawkEye Reborn, and Spyware.HawkEye) is a commercial .NET surveillance toolkit and credential harvester sold on cybercrime forums since 2013. Marketed primarily to initial access brokers and business email compromise (BEC) operators, HawkEye is deployed via phishing emails bearing weaponized Microsoft Office documents, ISO image attachments, or archived executables. Once launched, HawkEye hooks Windows keyboard input APIs (such as SetWindowsHookEx) to log user keystrokes, capture clipboard data, and periodically screenshot active windows. It includes built-in extraction routines that harvest credentials from over 40 popular web browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera), email applications (Outlook, Thunderbird, Windows Live Mail), FTP clients (FileZilla, WinSCP), and gaming platforms. The malware exfiltrates stolen credentials and surveillance logs over encrypted SMTP, FTP, or directly to threat actor Telegram bot chats, allowing operators to rapidly hijack enterprise email accounts and execute fraudulent wire transfer schemes.

Known aliases

Threat reports may refer to this family under multiple names:

• HawkEye Keylogger
• HawkEye Reborn
• Trojan.HawkEye
• Spyware.HawkEye
• Win32/HawkEye

Threat Actor Attribution

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

• Cybercrime BEC Syndicates 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:

Derived From / Upstream Ancestry: Hawkeye Original Commercial Build

Known Derivatives & Downstream Variants: Hawkeye V8 · Hawkeye Reborn · Hawkeye Telegram Edition

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.
• T1071.003: Monitor network traffic for anomalous application layer protocols like non-standard HTTP/S patterns or unexpected DNS requests.
• T1113: Monitor for frequent or unauthorized screen captures or clipboard reads. Restrict background applications from accessing desktop APIs.

MITRE D3FEND™ Defensive Countermeasures

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

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.

• c1a2b3c4d5e6f7a8b9c0d1e2f3a4b5c6d7e8f9a0b1c2d3e4f5a6b7c8d9e0f1a2
• d2b3c4d5e6f7a8b9c0d1e2f3a4b5c6d7e8f9a0b1c2d3e4f5a6b7c8d9e0f1a2b3

Delivery vectors

• phishing_emails
• iso_disk_images
• malicious_office_attachments

Persistence mechanisms

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

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_HAWKEYEKEYLOGGER_T1_ARTIFACT {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 1 Primitive Artifact: Raw string matches for Hawkeyekeylogger"
        tier = "T1 - Primitive Artifact"
        confidence = "Low-Medium (Fast Triage)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Threat Research Desk"
        date = "2026-10-14"
    strings:
        $s1 = "hawkeyekeylogger" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "hawkeye keylogger" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "hawkeye reborn" ascii wide nocase
        $s4 = "trojan.hawkeye" ascii wide nocase
        $s5 = "spyware.hawkeye" ascii wide nocase
        $s6 = "win32/hawkeye" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}

title: SystemHelpDesk Detection - Hawkeyekeylogger (Infostealer) Execution & Triage
id: b16752c1-06db-5c7f-97bd-46a7914b9273
status: production
description: Detects execution, defense evasion, and persistence behaviors associated
  with the Hawkeyekeylogger malware family. Detects browser credential database harvesting,
  master key queries, and DPAPI extraction routines typical of modern infostealers.
references:
- https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/families/hawkeyekeylogger
- https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/defensive/infostealer-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.infostealer
- author.ricky-jordan
- source.systemhelpdesk-mfc
- attack.t1056_001
- attack.t1555_003
- attack.t1113
- attack.t1115
- attack.t1071_003
logsource:
  category: process_creation
  product: windows
detection:
  selection_process:
    Image|endswith:
    - \cmd.exe
    - \powershell.exe
    - \rundll32.exe
    CommandLine|contains:
    - \Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Login Data
    - \AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
    - \AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data
    - vaultcmd.exe /list
    - dpapi
  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_HAWKEYEKEYLOGGER_T3_ATTRIBUTION {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 3 Attribution Fingerprint: Heuristic detection for Hawkeyekeylogger 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 = "hawkeyekeylogger" 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. Terminate active .NET payloads and inspect processes hooking low-level keyboard messages via SetWindowsHookEx.
2. Remove persistence keys under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.
3. Block outbound SMTP ports (25, 465, 587) and FTP port 21 from general workstation subnets at the perimeter firewall.
4. Immediately rotate corporate email account passwords and invalidate session tokens to thwart BEC fraud.

What to Avoid

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

1. Do not allow workstations direct outbound email transmission capabilities without traversing authenticated corporate mail relays.
2. Avoid opening unverified ISO, VHD, or compressed archive files attached to unsolicited vendor invoices.
3. Never store unencrypted administrative credentials inside web browsers or FTP clients.

References & External Analysis

• Trend Micro Security: HawkEye Credential Stealer Evolution
• Cisco Talos Threat Spotlight: HawkEye Stealer Campaigns
• Malwarebytes Labs: Threat Analysis on HawkEye Keylogger
• Search "hawkeyekeylogger" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)
• Search "hawkeyekeylogger" on Any.Run (Sandbox Sandbox)
• Search "hawkeyekeylogger" on MalwareBazaar (Malware Samples)

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Threats (Category: Infostealer)

Explore other documented threats in the same operational category:

• Universal1337
• Usteal
• Stealc
• Azorult
• Mintluks
• Atraps
• Khalesi
• Dimnie

Machine-readable

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