Blackmoon

Overview

Trojan:Win32/Blackmoon (widely designated in cybersecurity research as KRBanker) is a destructive, regionally focused banking trojan that emerged in 2014, specifically engineered to plunder financial accounts at major South Korean commercial banks and financial institutions. Blackmoon operates by altering Windows DNS resolution settings and injecting malicious redirection rules directly into the system 'hosts' file (%SystemRoot%\System32\drivers\etc\hosts) and local proxy configurations (PAC files). When users attempt to navigate to legitimate banking portals (including Shinhan Bank, Kookmin Bank, Woori Bank, and Hana Bank), Blackmoon redirects traffic to pixel-perfect fraudulent clone websites. These pharming portals prompt victims to input their complete digital banking certificates (NPKI), resident registration numbers (RRN), account credentials, and physical security card matrices (all 35 security card codes). The trojan incorporates rootkit hooks into system network APIs, encrypted C2 communications using AES, and dynamic dropper distribution via compromised local Korean software update mechanisms and watering-hole sites.

Known aliases

Threat reports may refer to this family under multiple names:

• Blackmoon
• KRBanker
• Trojan.Blackmoon
• Win32/Blackmoon
• Banker.KRBanker

Threat Actor Attribution

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

• East Asian Financial Cybercrime Syndicate High confidence
  Basis:
• KRBanker Threat Actors 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: Krbanker V1 · Blackmoon Pac-Hijack Edition · Blackmoon Digital Certificate Stealer

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.
• T1185: Enforce strong MFA and use browser isolation or hardened browsers for sensitive financial or administrative portals to defeat session hijacking.
• T1566.002: Inspect email links for known malicious domains and use link-rewriting services for time-of-click analysis.

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-2014-0515 — In-depth exploitation analysis and catalog intelligence (NIST NVD ↗).
• CVE-2015-5119 — 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.

• a1b2c3d4e5f60718293a4b5c6d7e8f90123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef0
• 89a27eb2762eb295fe3509bc9f636257a3e7ef7b1bcfd1a7b489d81d6f228b7e

Delivery vectors

• watering_hole_attacks
• exploit_kits

Persistence mechanisms

• Hosts File Redirection
• 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_BLACKMOON_T1_ARTIFACT {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 1 Primitive Artifact: Raw string matches for Blackmoon"
        tier = "T1 - Primitive Artifact"
        confidence = "Low-Medium (Fast Triage)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Threat Research Desk"
        date = "2026-10-14"
    strings:
        $s1 = "blackmoon" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "blackmoon" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "krbanker" ascii wide nocase
        $s4 = "trojan.blackmoon" ascii wide nocase
        $s5 = "win32/blackmoon" ascii wide nocase
        $s6 = "banker.krbanker" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}

title: SystemHelpDesk Detection - Blackmoon (Banking Trojan) Execution & Triage
id: 8b58f0ab-e87e-5b85-8ddc-4a7052dd40c3
status: production
description: Detects execution, defense evasion, and persistence behaviors associated
  with the Blackmoon malware family. Detects recon staging, certutil file payload
  staging, and web-inject process proxying characteristic of banking trojan initial
  loaders.
references:
- https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/families/blackmoon
- https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/defensive/banking-trojan-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.banking-trojan
- author.ricky-jordan
- source.systemhelpdesk-mfc
- attack.t1565_002
- attack.t1185
- attack.t1555_003
- attack.t1071_001
- attack.t1566_002
logsource:
  category: process_creation
  product: windows
detection:
  selection_process:
    Image|endswith:
    - \svchost.exe
    - \explorer.exe
    - \msiexec.exe
    - \certutil.exe
    CommandLine|contains:
    - -urlcache
    - -split -f
    - ipconfig /all
    - route print
    - netstat -ano
  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_BLACKMOON_T3_ATTRIBUTION {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 3 Attribution Fingerprint: Heuristic detection for Blackmoon 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 = "blackmoon" 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. Inspect and restore Windows hosts file (%SystemRoot%\System32\drivers\etc\hosts) to default settings.
2. Verify browser proxy configurations and clear unauthorized Proxy Auto-Config (PAC) URL assignments.
3. Revoke compromised digital banking certificates (NPKI) and reissue authentication credentials.
4. Apply security patches for Adobe and browser components to prevent drive-by watering-hole execution.

What to Avoid

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

1. Never enter all 35 codes from a physical banking security card into any web portal prompt.
2. Avoid accessing banking websites when browser certificate mismatch or DNS redirection warnings occur.
3. Do not allow automatic proxy script configuration on sensitive financial endpoints.

References & External Analysis

• AhnLab ASEC Threat Intelligence: Analysis of KRBanker and Blackmoon
• Trend Micro Security Intelligence: KRBanker Online Banking Malware
• NIST National Vulnerability Database CVE-2015-5119
• Search "blackmoon" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)
• Search "blackmoon" on Any.Run (Sandbox Sandbox)
• Search "blackmoon" on MalwareBazaar (Malware Samples)

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Threats (Category: Banking Trojan)

Explore other documented threats in the same operational category:

• Snifula
• Shiotob
• Zusy
• Bancos
• Mekotio
• Bestafera
• Banbra
• Dridex

Machine-readable

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