Socelars

Overview

Trojan:Win32/Socelars is a targeted browser session hijacking and credential theft trojan that surfaced in 2019, specifically engineered to compromise corporate social media and e-commerce advertising accounts. Distributed through deceptive lures—such as fraudulent video player codecs, YouTube video downloader utilities, and weaponized PDF converters—Socelars infiltrates Windows systems and extracts active session cookies, authentication tokens, and autofill payment card data from Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox profile databases. The malware focuses explicitly on harvesting access tokens for Facebook Ads Manager and Amazon corporate seller accounts, transmitting stolen session data to command infrastructure to allow threat actors to hijack commercial ad budgets and launch illicit marketing campaigns.

Known aliases

Threat reports may refer to this family under multiple names:

• Socelars
• Trojan:Win32/Socelars
• Trojan.Socelars
• Win32/Socelars
• Socelars Stealer
• Socelars Facebook Hijacker

Threat Actor Attribution

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

• Fraud Syndicates & Ad-Hijacking Operators 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: Socelars V1.0 · Socelars Facebook Ads Stealer · Socelars Browser Session Hijacker

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.

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-2018-0802 — In-depth exploitation analysis and catalog intelligence (NIST NVD ↗).
• CVE-2020-0674 — 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.

• 4a5b6c708192a3b4c5d6e7f8091a2b3c4d5e6f708192a3b4c5d6e7f811223344
• b1c2d3e4f5a6b7c8d9e0f1a2b3c4d5e6f7a8b9c0d1e2f3a4b5c6d7e8f9a23344

Delivery vectors

• fake_video_codecs
• social_media_phishing_links

Persistence mechanisms

• HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
• AppData directory hidden binary drops

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_SOCELARS_T1_ARTIFACT {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 1 Primitive Artifact: Raw string matches for Socelars"
        tier = "T1 - Primitive Artifact"
        confidence = "Low-Medium (Fast Triage)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Threat Research Desk"
        date = "2026-10-14"
    strings:
        $s1 = "socelars" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "socelars" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "trojan:win32/socelars" ascii wide nocase
        $s4 = "trojan.socelars" ascii wide nocase
        $s5 = "win32/socelars" ascii wide nocase
        $s6 = "socelars stealer" ascii wide nocase
        $s7 = "socelars facebook hijacker" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}

title: SystemHelpDesk Detection - Socelars (Infostealer) Execution & Triage
id: b4e7fe8f-9b3f-5ee3-bf13-282fb2c19af1
status: production
description: Detects execution, defense evasion, and persistence behaviors associated
  with the Socelars 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/socelars
- 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.t1539
- attack.t1555_003
- attack.t1056_001
- attack.t1071_001
- attack.t1547_001
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_SOCELARS_T3_ATTRIBUTION {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 3 Attribution Fingerprint: Heuristic detection for Socelars 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 = "socelars" 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. Immediately isolate the endpoint from the network to halt cookie exfiltration and unauthorized ad spending.
2. Log in from a clean, uncompromised system to invalidate active sessions and revoke authorized third-party apps on Facebook and Amazon.
3. Force an immediate password reset on corporate social media, ad manager, and linked credit card portals.
4. Audit web browser security settings and clear stored session cookies and autofill profiles across all endpoints.

What to Avoid

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

1. Do not allow users to install unverified video player codecs or downloader plugins from untrusted web portals.
2. Avoid storing sensitive corporate payment card data in consumer browser autofill profiles.
3. Never ignore unauthorized advertising budget spikes or unprompted credit card authorization alerts.

References & External Analysis

• Trend Micro Security Intelligence: Socelars Ad-Hijacking Infostealer Analysis
• Microsoft Security Intelligence: Trojan:Win32/Socelars Technical Advisory
• NIST National Vulnerability Database CVE-2020-0674
• Search "socelars" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)
• Search "socelars" on Any.Run (Sandbox Sandbox)
• Search "socelars" on MalwareBazaar (Malware Samples)

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Threats (Category: Infostealer)

Explore other documented threats in the same operational category:

• Browserpassview
• Qqpass
• Ldpinch
• Hploki
• Eyestye
• Redline
• Blackstealer
• Ardamax

Machine-readable

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