Redline

Overview

RedLine Stealer (cataloged across threat research as RedLine, RedLineStealer, and Trojan:Win32/RedLine) is the most ubiquitous and commercially successful information stealer of the modern era, first appearing on Russian-language dark web forums in March 2020. Developed in .NET (C#), RedLine is operated under an aggressive Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) subscription model, offering prospective affiliates standalone builds and access to a centralized management web panel for nominal fees. RedLine is designed to conduct sweeping, automated reconnaissance and theft of sensitive user telemetry across compromised Windows endpoints. Its targeting scope includes stored passwords, autofill form entries, credit card details, and session cookies from all major Chromium-based (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi) and Gecko-based (Firefox) web browsers. Additionally, RedLine harvests session tokens from Discord, Telegram, Steam, and FileZilla, alongside aggressively sweeping for over 40 distinct desktop and browser-extension cryptocurrency wallets (including MetaMask, Phantom, Exodus, Binance, and Atomic Wallet). The malware is distributed through a vast variety of infection vectors, including malvertising campaigns on search engines, fake game cheats and cracked software on YouTube and GitHub, weaponized phishing documents exploiting CVE-2021-40444 and CVE-2023-38831, and initial-access loaders such as SmokeLoader. Network communication utilizes raw TCP sockets or SOAP/HTTP requests with encrypted XML and JSON payloads, frequently disguised as benign web traffic to bypass egress monitoring. RedLine's harvested credential dumps ('logs') form the foundational primary supply for illicit initial-access markets like Genesis Market and Russian Market, routinely enabling subsequent enterprise ransomware intrusions.

Known aliases

Threat reports may refer to this family under multiple names:

• RedLine Stealer
• RedLineStealer
• Trojan:Win32/RedLine
• Win32/RedLine.A
• MSIL/RedLine
• RedLine.C

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: Redline_V1 · Redline_Wcf · Meta_Stealer

MITRE ATT&CK Techniques

This family has been observed using the following ATT&CK techniques: T1555.003 · T1539 · T1005 · T1082 · T1083 · T1071.001 · T1041 · T1027

Tactical Mitigations

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

• T1071.001: Implement web filtering and SSL/TLS inspection to detect malicious command and control (C2) traffic hiding in HTTP/HTTPS.

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-2021-40444 — In-depth exploitation analysis and catalog intelligence (NIST NVD ↗).
• CVE-2023-38831 — 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.

• 4a22ad31737be70d8a571025b508f72a4209bf270b8a098b671a52028ddc87c1
• 1025b508f72a4209bf270b8a098b671a52028ddc87c14a22ad31737be70d8a57
• e70d8a571025b508f72a4209bf270b8a098b671a52028ddc87c14a22ad31737b

Delivery vectors

• Search engine malvertising distributing malicious installers disguised as popular software (AnyDesk, Notepad++, ChatGPT)
• YouTube video tutorials offering download links for cracked software, cryptocurrency bots, and game cheats
• Weaponized RAR/ZIP archives exploiting WinRAR remote code execution CVE-2023-38831 and Office CVE-2021-40444

Persistence mechanisms

• Temporary execution from %LOCALAPPDATA%\Temp without permanent persistence (runs once, exfiltrates, and halts)
• Scheduled task creation in persistent variant deployments (task name: 'SystemUpdate')
• Startup folder shortcut placement under %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

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_REDLINE_T1_ARTIFACT {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 1 Primitive Artifact: Raw string matches for Redline"
        tier = "T1 - Primitive Artifact"
        confidence = "Low-Medium (Fast Triage)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Threat Research Desk"
        date = "2026-10-14"
    strings:
        $s1 = "redline" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "redline stealer" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "redlinestealer" ascii wide nocase
        $s4 = "trojan:win32/redline" ascii wide nocase
        $s5 = "win32/redline.a" ascii wide nocase
        $s6 = "msil/redline" ascii wide nocase
        $s7 = "redline.c" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}

title: SystemHelpDesk Detection - Redline (Infostealer) Execution & Triage
id: 1266fb60-b653-5417-8588-c0ffc92bbfe6
status: production
description: Detects execution, defense evasion, and persistence behaviors associated
  with the Redline 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/redline
- 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.t1555_003
- attack.t1539
- attack.t1005
- attack.t1082
- attack.t1083
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_REDLINE_T3_ATTRIBUTION {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 3 Attribution Fingerprint: Heuristic detection for Redline 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 = "redline" 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
}

References & External Analysis

• CISA Alert AA22-074A: Russian Cyber Actors Exploit RedLine Stealer
• Mandiant: RedLine Stealer Technical Analysis and Credential Market Impact
• Proofpoint: Threat Insight on RedLine MaaS Evolution
• SentinelOne: RedLine Stealer Architecture and Defense Guide
• CISA Advisory: AA22-074A
• Search "redline" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)
• Search "redline" on Any.Run (Sandbox Sandbox)
• Search "redline" on MalwareBazaar (Malware Samples)

North American Authority Advisory (CISA / NIST)

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has published an official US federal advisory on this family, which can be mapped to NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) incident response controls: AA22-074A ↗

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Threats (Category: Infostealer)

Explore other documented threats in the same operational category:

• Berbew
• Zapchast
• Razy
• Atraps
• Banspy
• Hploki
• Dimnie
• Arkeistealer

Machine-readable

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