Noancooe

Overview

Noancooe (cataloged across security vendors and threat intelligence databases under detections including Backdoor:MSIL/Noancooe, Trojan:Win32/Noancooe, and Backdoor.MSIL.Noancooe) is a stealthy .NET MSIL modular remote access trojan and backdoor active since 2018. Designed to grant threat actors persistent interactive control over compromised endpoints, Noancooe is frequently distributed disguised as cracked software utilities, software key generators, or malicious attachments within targeted spearphishing campaigns. Once executed, Noancooe establishes startup persistence through Windows Registry Run keys and scheduled tasks, performs host environment fingerprinting, and connects to remote command-and-control servers over encrypted TCP/HTTP channels. The backdoor provides attackers with capabilities to execute remote shell commands, harvest system credentials, log keystrokes, exfiltrate confidential files, and download secondary payloads such as ransomware or coinminers.

Known aliases

Threat reports may refer to this family under multiple names:

• Backdoor:MSIL/Noancooe
• Trojan:Win32/Noancooe
• Backdoor.MSIL.Noancooe
• Win32/Noancooe
• Trojan.Noancooe

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: Backdoor:Msil/Noancooe!Rfn · Trojan:Win32/Noancooe.A

MITRE ATT&CK Techniques

This family has been observed using the following ATT&CK techniques: T1059.003 · T1547.001 · T1056.001 · T1555.003 · T1071.001 · T1082

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.
• T1059.003: Restrict execution of Windows Command Shell (cmd.exe) and block unauthorized batch scripts.
• 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):

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_NOANCOOE_T1_ARTIFACT {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 1 Primitive Artifact: Raw string matches for Noancooe"
        tier = "T1 - Primitive Artifact"
        confidence = "Low-Medium (Fast Triage)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Threat Research Desk"
        date = "2026-10-14"
    strings:
        $s1 = "noancooe" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "backdoor:msil/noancooe" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "trojan:win32/noancooe" ascii wide nocase
        $s4 = "backdoor.msil.noancooe" ascii wide nocase
        $s5 = "win32/noancooe" ascii wide nocase
        $s6 = "trojan.noancooe" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}

title: SystemHelpDesk Detection - Noancooe (Backdoor) Execution & Triage
id: 72fd1fe2-deb8-506e-aced-d061c6492187
status: production
description: Detects execution, defense evasion, and persistence behaviors associated
  with the Noancooe malware family. Detects proxy execution, reflective DLL loading,
  and remote command injection associated with modular enterprise backdoors.
references:
- https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/families/noancooe
- https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/defensive/backdoor-rat-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.backdoor
- author.ricky-jordan
- source.systemhelpdesk-mfc
- attack.t1059_003
- attack.t1547_001
- attack.t1056_001
- attack.t1555_003
- attack.t1071_001
logsource:
  category: process_creation
  product: windows
detection:
  selection_process:
    Image|endswith:
    - \powershell.exe
    - \cmd.exe
    - \rundll32.exe
    - \regsvr32.exe
    CommandLine|contains:
    - DownloadString
    - IEX(
    - '/s /n /u /i:'
    - sc create
    - start-process
  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_NOANCOOE_T3_ATTRIBUTION {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 3 Attribution Fingerprint: Heuristic detection for Noancooe 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 = "noancooe" 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

• Microsoft Defender Threat Encyclopedia - Backdoor:MSIL/Noancooe
• Search "noancooe" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)
• Search "noancooe" on Any.Run (Sandbox Sandbox)
• Search "noancooe" on MalwareBazaar (Malware Samples)

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Threats (Category: Backdoor)

Explore other documented threats in the same operational category:

• Tick
• Bersek
• Swrort
• Adodb
• Oceanlotus
• Himera
• Mytob
• Orcusrot

Machine-readable

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