Cosmicduke

Overview

Backdoor:Win32/CosmicDuke (also tracked as Bot-Moog, TinyBaron, or Nemor) is an advanced cyber espionage platform developed and deployed by APT29 (Cozy Bear / Russian SVR). First exposed by F-Secure researchers in 2014, CosmicDuke represents a hybrid evolution that fuses the core loader and execution architecture of MiniDuke with comprehensive information-stealing modules borrowed from the Cosmic crimeware family. Engineered for stealthy intelligence collection against government ministries, diplomatic missions, military installations, and energy enterprises across Europe and Central Asia, CosmicDuke aggressively harvests user credentials (from web browsers, instant messaging clients, and remote desktop sessions), captures desktop screenshots, logs keystrokes, and exfiltrates classified Microsoft Office and PDF documents using encrypted WebDAV, FTP, and HTTPS channels.

Known aliases

Threat reports may refer to this family under multiple names:

• CosmicDuke
• Bot-Moog
• TinyBaron
• Nemor
• Backdoor:Win32/CosmicDuke
• Trojan.CosmicDuke

Threat Actor Attribution

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

• APT29 (Cozy Bear / Russian SVR) 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: Miniduke

Known Derivatives & Downstream Variants: Cosmicduke / Bot-Moog · Nemor · Tinybaron

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.
• T1113: Monitor for frequent or unauthorized screen captures or clipboard reads. Restrict background applications from accessing desktop APIs.
• 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-2010-3333 — In-depth exploitation analysis and catalog intelligence (NIST NVD ↗).
• CVE-2012-0158 — 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.

• 7a9b8c7d6e5f4039281726354890abcdef1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef
• 2837491029384756102938475610293847561029384756102938475610293847

Delivery vectors

• targeted_spearphishing_attachments
• weaponized_pdf_and_office_documents

Persistence mechanisms

• WMI Event Subscriptions
• 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_COSMICDUKE_T1_ARTIFACT {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 1 Primitive Artifact: Raw string matches for Cosmicduke"
        tier = "T1 - Primitive Artifact"
        confidence = "Low-Medium (Fast Triage)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Threat Research Desk"
        date = "2026-10-14"
    strings:
        $s1 = "cosmicduke" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "cosmicduke" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "bot-moog" ascii wide nocase
        $s4 = "tinybaron" ascii wide nocase
        $s5 = "nemor" ascii wide nocase
        $s6 = "backdoor:win32/cosmicduke" ascii wide nocase
        $s7 = "trojan.cosmicduke" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}

title: SystemHelpDesk Detection - Cosmicduke (Infostealer) Execution & Triage
id: 261e35bc-ce75-5d34-a2a5-0fd9ac8e5431
status: production
description: Detects execution, defense evasion, and persistence behaviors associated
  with the Cosmicduke 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/cosmicduke
- 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.t1566_001
- attack.t1055
- attack.t1056_001
- attack.t1113
- attack.t1555
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_COSMICDUKE_T3_ATTRIBUTION {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 3 Attribution Fingerprint: Heuristic detection for Cosmicduke 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 = "cosmicduke" 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 compromised workstations immediately and assume long-term state-sponsored network compromise.
2. Audit Active Directory for unauthorized Kerberos ticket requests or suspicious WMI event filters.
3. Extract volatile memory to recover unencrypted CosmicDuke C2 server configurations and decryption keys.
4. Deploy security updates patching Microsoft Office RTF vulnerabilities CVE-2010-3333 and CVE-2012-0158.

What to Avoid

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

1. Do not alert operators by performing uncoordinated file deletions; APT29 will shift to secondary backdoors.
2. Avoid relying solely on file-based hashing, as CosmicDuke components are protected with unique crypters.
3. Never open unsolicited foreign policy or diplomatic correspondence without sandboxed verification.

References & External Analysis

• F-Secure Labs Whitepaper: CosmicDuke - Cosmu with a Dash of MiniDuke
• CISA Alert AA20-205A: Russian State-Sponsored Advanced Persistent Threat Activity
• NIST National Vulnerability Database CVE-2010-3333
• CISA Advisory: AA20-205A
• Search "cosmicduke" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)
• Search "cosmicduke" on Any.Run (Sandbox Sandbox)
• Search "cosmicduke" 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: AA20-205A ↗

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Threats (Category: Infostealer)

Explore other documented threats in the same operational category:

• Pirminay
• Beyondkeylogger
• Universal1337
• Papras
• Azorult
• Lmir
• Banspy
• Agenttesla

Machine-readable

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