{ "family": "vidarstealer", "sample_count": 1, "category": "advanced_threat", "description": "

Executive Summary

\nVidar (also known as Vidar Stealer) is a highly sophisticated, commercially available Information Stealer that emerged in late 2018 as a fork of the infamous Arkei stealer. Sold as Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) on dark web forums, Vidar is engineered for maximum data extraction. It rapidly harvests user credentials, cryptocurrency wallets, financial data, and system information before exfiltrating the data and (frequently) self-deleting to evade forensic analysis.\n\n

Infection Vector and Technical Capabilities

\nVidar is distributed via a wide array of vectors depending on the purchasing affiliate. Common methods include malicious spam (malspam) campaigns, fake software cracks (e.g., \"KMS Activators\"), disguised installers on torrent sites, and delivery via popular exploit kits like RIG or Fallout.\n\nOnce executed, Vidar initiates a rapid and comprehensive data aggregation routine:\n\n\n

Threat Assessment

\nA Vidar infection is a critical security breach resulting in immediate, catastrophic data loss. The exfiltrated session cookies and credentials allow attackers to completely hijack the user's digital identity, leading to immediate financial theft and the potential compromise of enterprise network access.\n\n

Incident Response and Remediation

\n", "cta": "Published by the SystemHelpdesk team.", "aliases": [ "Trojan.Vidar", "Spyware.VidarStealer", "PWS.Win32.Vidar" ], "enrichment_level": "expert-seo", "faq": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "What is Vidarstealer and what threat category does it belong to?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Vidarstealer 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 Vidarstealer establish persistence and evade defensive controls?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Vidarstealer 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 Vidarstealer compromise?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Security teams responding to Vidarstealer 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 Trojan.Vidar leverage in enterprise intrusions?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Trojan.Vidar 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 Trojan.Vidar maintain covert communications and evade perimeter network monitoring?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Trojan.Vidar 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": [ "T1056.001", "T1552.001", "T1539", "T1048" ], "cisa_advisory": null, "last_updated": "2026-10-15", "type": "Info-stealer", "target_industries": [ "Global / Opportunistic" ], "motivation": "Opportunistic", "threat_actors": [ "Unknown / Cybercriminal" ], "target_geographies": [ "Global" ], "attack_stage": [ "execution", "persistence" ], "ecosystem": [ "windows_pe" ], "is_emerging": false, "mitre_attack_detail": [ { "id": "T1056.001", "name": "Keylogging", "tactic": "Credential Access" }, { "id": "T1552.001", "name": "Credentials In Files (Harvesting passwords and wallets from local storage)", "tactic": "Credential Access" }, { "id": "T1539", "name": "Steal Web Session Cookie (Abusing active authenticated sessions to perform social media fraud)", "tactic": "Credential Access" }, { "id": "T1048", "name": "Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol", "tactic": "Exfiltration" } ], "containment_steps": [ "Enforce forensic network isolation on all suspected endpoints while maintaining an out-of-band telemetry conduit to capture live Vidarstealer adversary activity.", "Perform full memory dumps across identified staging nodes to extract memory-only implants, kernel rootkit hooks, and decrypted Vidarstealer C2 infrastructure IP/domain lists.", "Review Active Directory domain controller authentication logs for anomalous Kerberos ticket requests (Pass-the-Ticket, Golden Ticket) and unauthorized DCSync operations associated with Vidarstealer.", "Block all confirmed C2 domains, dynamic DNS endpoints, and proxy IP addresses across perimeter firewalls, proxies, and DNS security gateways.", "Conduct an enterprise-wide sweep across surrounding subnets for secondary webshells, WMI event subscriptions, or remote execution tooling left behind by Vidarstealer operators." ], "what_to_avoid": [ "Do not assume the incident is resolved simply because an antivirus tool removed the initial Vidarstealer dropper; always verify that secondary payloads and persistence hooks have been eradicated.", "Avoid logging in with Domain Admin or privileged credentials on a machine suspected of running Vidarstealer until memory triage is complete.", "Do not delay host isolation; automated lateral movement and credential dumping can occur within minutes of initial execution." ], "target_platforms": [ "Windows 11", "Windows 10", "Windows Server 2022", "Windows Server 2019" ] }