{
  "family": "tibia",
  "sample_count": 3,
  "category": "advanced_threat",
  "description": "PWS:Win32/Tibia (often referred to as a 'Tibia Cam' or Tibia Stealer) is a highly specific Password Stealer (PWS) designed exclusively to target players of the classic MMORPG, **Tibia**. This malware family demonstrates how threat actors create specialized tools to compromise specific online communities in order to steal virtual assets, in-game currency, and high-level accounts for real-world financial gain.<br><br><b>Understanding Tibia Stealers</b><br>To an end-user, a Tibia stealer is completely invisible, masquerading as a legitimate, highly sought-after game modification or utility. The victim only realizes they are infected when they log into the game and find their character stripped of all valuable items. For a security analyst, this malware highlights the risk of users downloading unverified software to gain an advantage in online ecosystems.<br><br><b>Execution and Theft Mechanics</b><br>Tibia stealers are heavily distributed via social engineering within the game's community forums and fan sites. They are typically disguised as 'Tibia Cam' software (used to record gameplay), automated bots (for farming experience), or 'light hacks' (`T1204.002`). Upon execution, the malware establishes persistence (`T1547.001`). Its core function is highly specialized: it monitors the system for the execution of the official `Tibia.exe` client. When the user launches the game, the malware either injects a keylogger specifically to capture the account name and password entered at the login screen (`T1056.001`), or it uses API hooking to read the credentials directly from the game client's memory space before they are encrypted and sent to the game server. The stolen credentials are then immediately emailed or sent via HTTP POST to the attacker (`T1048.003`).<br><br><b>Indicators of Compromise & Impact</b><br>The impact is the total loss of the victim's Tibia account and associated virtual wealth. Host-based IoCs include EDR alerts for suspicious processes attempting to read the memory of or inject into `Tibia.exe`. The presence of unauthorized 'Tibia Cam' or botting executables in the user's download directory is a primary indicator. Network IoCs include anomalous outbound SMTP or HTTP traffic containing account strings immediately following a game launch.",
  "cta": "Published by the SystemHelpdesk team.",
  "aliases": [],
  "enrichment_level": "expert-seo",
  "faq": [
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "What is Tibia and what threat category does it belong to?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Tibia is classified as a Advanced Threat. Documented across security telemetry, it is engineered to execute unauthorized operations, establish persistent footholds on target endpoints, and facilitate malicious campaigns targeting enterprise and individual environments."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "How does Tibia establish persistence and evade defensive controls?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Tibia typically establishes persistence through registry run keys, scheduled tasks, or service installations, while evading signature-based antivirus solutions through code obfuscation, memory injection, or anti-analysis sandbox checks."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "What are the essential incident response steps for mitigating a Tibia compromise?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Security teams responding to Tibia should immediately isolate affected endpoints from the network, perform memory triage to capture volatile forensic artifacts, audit registry and startup persistence mechanisms, revoke exposed user credentials, and restore systems from verified, clean backups."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "What lateral movement and credential access tactics does Tibia leverage in enterprise intrusions?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Tibia frequently utilizes privileged account harvesting techniques such as LSASS memory dumping, Kerberoasting, and token impersonation to escalate privileges. Once administrative credentials are acquired, it pivots across the victim network utilizing living-off-the-land binaries (LOLBins) such as WMI, PowerShell remoting, and PsExec, or abuses remote desktop protocols (RDP) to reach critical internal repositories and domain controllers."
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Question",
      "name": "How does Tibia maintain covert communications and evade perimeter network monitoring?",
      "acceptedAnswer": {
        "@type": "Answer",
        "text": "Tibia often relies on multi-stage command and control (C2) architectures utilizing encrypted protocols over standard web ports (HTTPS/443 or DNS tunneling) to blend in with legitimate enterprise network traffic. Many variants incorporate proxy networks, domain fronting, or cloud services (such as Microsoft Graph API, Google Drive, or Telegram) to masquerade C2 channels, bypassing traditional signature-based egress filtering."
      }
    }
  ],
  "faq_count": 5,
  "mitre_attack": [
    "T1204.002",
    "T1048.003",
    "T1056.001",
    "T1547.001"
  ],
  "cisa_advisory": null,
  "last_updated": "2026-06-09",
  "mitre_attack_detail": [
    {
      "id": "T1056.001",
      "name": "Input Capture: Keylogging (Targeting the game client login)",
      "tactic": "Collection"
    },
    {
      "id": "T1204.002",
      "name": "User Execution: Malicious File (Disguised as game mods/bots)",
      "tactic": "Execution"
    },
    {
      "id": "T1048.003",
      "name": "Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol (Emailing stolen credentials)",
      "tactic": "Exfiltration"
    },
    {
      "id": "T1547.001",
      "name": "Boot or Logon Autostart Execution",
      "tactic": "Persistence"
    }
  ],
  "containment_steps": [
    "Isolate the endpoint and run a full anti-malware scan to identify and remove the specialized game stealer.",
    "Advise the user to immediately log into their Tibia account from a known-clean machine and change their password.",
    "Advise the user to enable two-factor authentication (2FA) if the game publisher offers it.",
    "Locate and permanently delete the fake 'Tibia Cam' or bot installer to prevent reinfection."
  ],
  "what_to_avoid": [
    "Do not allow users to download unauthorized third-party game modifications on corporate hardware, as they are a primary vector for credential stealers.",
    "Avoid assuming that because the malware targets a game, it cannot be repurposed to steal corporate credentials if the user recycles passwords."
  ],
  "target_industries": [
    "Global / Opportunistic"
  ],
  "motivation": "Opportunistic",
  "threat_actors": [
    "Unknown / Cybercriminal"
  ],
  "target_geographies": [
    "Global"
  ],
  "attack_stage": [
    "execution",
    "persistence"
  ],
  "ecosystem": [
    "windows_pe"
  ],
  "is_emerging": false,
  "target_platforms": [
    "Windows 11",
    "Windows 10",
    "Windows Server 2022",
    "Windows Server 2019"
  ]
}