Obsidium

Overview

Obsidium (cataloged across security vendors and binary analysis platforms under signatures including Packer:Win32/Obsidium, Trojan:Win32/Obsidium, and Trojan-Ransom.Win32.Obsidium) represents malicious binaries packaged and obfuscated using the commercial Obsidium software protector. While Obsidium was originally engineered as legitimate intellectual property and licensing protection software, threat actors, trojan distributors, and ransomware syndicates systematically weaponize its advanced anti-reverse-engineering capabilities to shield malicious payloads from static and heuristic antivirus scanners. Executables packed with Obsidium feature sophisticated virtual machine (VM) code virtualization that translates native x86/x64 instructions into proprietary, randomized bytecode interpreted at runtime. The protector incorporates aggressive anti-debugging checks (monitoring the Process Environment Block BeingDebugged flag and NtQueryInformationProcess), hardware breakpoint detection, RDTSC timing discrepancy analysis, memory integrity checksumming, and polymorphic entry-point stubs to confound automated sandbox analysis.

Known aliases

Threat reports may refer to this family under multiple names:

• Packer:Win32/Obsidium
• Trojan:Win32/Obsidium
• Trojan-Ransom.Win32.Obsidium
• Packer.Obsidium
• Win32/Obsidium

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: Obsidium Software Protection

Known Derivatives & Downstream Variants: Obsidium-Packed-Rat · Obsidium-Ransomware

MITRE ATT&CK Techniques

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

MITRE D3FEND™ Defensive Countermeasures

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

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.

• e5f67890123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef012345678
• f67890123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789

Delivery vectors

• keygen_activator_setup.exe
• cracked_utility_installer.exe

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_OBSIDIUM_T1_ARTIFACT {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 1 Primitive Artifact: Raw string matches for Obsidium"
        tier = "T1 - Primitive Artifact"
        confidence = "Low-Medium (Fast Triage)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Threat Research Desk"
        date = "2026-10-14"
    strings:
        $s1 = "obsidium" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "packer:win32/obsidium" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "trojan:win32/obsidium" ascii wide nocase
        $s4 = "trojan-ransom.win32.obsidium" ascii wide nocase
        $s5 = "packer.obsidium" ascii wide nocase
        $s6 = "win32/obsidium" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}

title: SystemHelpDesk Detection - Obsidium (Packer) Execution & Triage
id: bdcf73a7-5a93-58f6-8282-b8d0ab62bc6f
status: production
description: Detects execution, defense evasion, and persistence behaviors associated
  with the Obsidium malware family. Detects suspicious execution from temporary user
  directories with hidden window flags and background transfer utilities.
references:
- https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/families/obsidium
- https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/defensive/ransomware-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.packer
- author.ricky-jordan
- source.systemhelpdesk-mfc
- attack.t1027_002
- attack.t1497_001
- attack.t1622
- attack.t1055
- attack.t1140
logsource:
  category: process_creation
  product: windows
detection:
  selection_process:
    Image|endswith:
    - \cmd.exe
    - \powershell.exe
    - \cscript.exe
    - \wscript.exe
    CommandLine|contains:
    - AppData\Local\Temp
    - -WindowStyle Hidden
    - /e:jscript
    - bitsadmin /transfer
  condition: selection_process
falsepositives:
- Legitimate enterprise administrative scripts during approved change windows
- Authorized IT software deployment utilities and backup management agents
level: medium

rule MALWARE_WIN_OBSIDIUM_T3_ATTRIBUTION {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 3 Attribution Fingerprint: Heuristic detection for Obsidium 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 = "obsidium" 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 endpoint immediately if the Obsidium executable was allowed to run; the highly obfuscated nature implies a severe, targeted payload.
2. If the process is active, capture a live memory image (RAM dump) before rebooting to attempt extraction of the decrypted payload.
3. Submit the packed binary to a specialized malware analyst for reverse engineering, noting that unpacking Obsidium is a highly specialized skill.
4. Perform a full forensic sweep to determine how the highly obfuscated executable arrived on the endpoint.

What to Avoid

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

1. Do not waste time trying to statically analyze the Obsidium executable on disk; the strong encryption will yield zero actionable intelligence.
2. Avoid assuming the threat was fully blocked simply because AV flagged the file; the payload may have already executed in memory.

References & External Analysis

• Microsoft Defender Security Intelligence - Packer:Win32/Obsidium
• Kaspersky Threat Intelligence Portal - Trojan.Win32.Obsidium
• Search "obsidium" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)
• Search "obsidium" on Any.Run (Sandbox Sandbox)
• Search "obsidium" on MalwareBazaar (Malware Samples)

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Threats (Category: Packer)

Explore other documented threats in the same operational category:

• Autoit
• Enigmaprotector
• Genkryptik
• Pakes
• Confuser
• Packedent
• Vbkryjetor
• Flystudio

Machine-readable

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