Azorult

Overview

AZORult is an infamous, highly efficient commodity information stealer and malware downloader first commercialized in 2016 by Russian underground developer 'Pavka'. Engineered to run as a compact, self-contained executable, AZORult specialized in aggressively sweeping victim endpoints to extract stored passwords, browser cookies, browsing history, credit card data, and desktop cryptocurrency wallets. AZORult targets credentials from dozens of applications including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Outlook, Thunderbird, WinSCP, and FileZilla, alongside extensive wallet extraction targeting Bitcoin-Core, Ethereum, Monero, and Electrum. In addition to data exfiltration, AZORult was widely used by cybercrime operators as a primary initial access loader to drop secondary payloads—most notably Hermes and GandCrab ransomware. In late 2018, the original author announced retirement after releasing version 3.3, which led to the proliferation of modified and cracked community variants (e.g. AZORult v3.4 and v3.7) that continue to circulate across cybercrime ecosystems.

Known aliases

Threat reports may refer to this family under multiple names:

• AZORult
• Azorult
• InfoStealer.Azorult
• Trojan.Azorult
• Win32/Azorult

Threat Actor Attribution

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

• Pavka (Underground Developer) / Global Cybercrime Syndicates High confidence
  Basis: Authored and sold on Russian underground crime forums by developer 'Pavka'. Extensively documented by US-CERT, CISA, and Proofpoint as one of the primary infostealers and ransomware droppers in the cybercrime landscape. [source]

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: Azorult V3.0 · Azorult V3.1 · Azorult V3.2 · Azorult V3.3 (Final Official By Pavka) · Azorult V3.4 (Leaked Community Fork)

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:

• T1071.001: Implement web filtering and SSL/TLS inspection to detect malicious command and control (C2) traffic hiding in HTTP/HTTPS.
• T1113: Monitor for frequent or unauthorized screen captures or clipboard reads. Restrict background applications from accessing desktop APIs.

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-2017-11882 — In-depth exploitation analysis and catalog intelligence (NIST NVD ↗).
• CVE-2018-0802 — 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.

• 4f2e96d2ff86e7a2df25b84c8a29a6cf7d853177699317585f6e80b27ef3e6ff
• 9e49c7161bcf76ee8a20da62fecbf9bb748a31a98059bf4ce126ecba95f002f1

Delivery vectors

• Mass phishing campaigns with malicious RTF documents exploiting Equation Editor (CVE-2017-11882)
• Drive-by downloads from compromised websites hosting exploit kits (RIG, Fallout)

Persistence mechanisms

• Typically non-persistent execution: executes, extracts credentials into memory, uploads archive to C2, and self-terminates
• Secondary installation of persistent loaders or ransomware

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_AZORULT_T1_ARTIFACT {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 1 Primitive Artifact: Raw string matches for Azorult"
        tier = "T1 - Primitive Artifact"
        confidence = "Low-Medium (Fast Triage)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Threat Research Desk"
        date = "2026-10-14"
    strings:
        $s1 = "azorult" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "azorult" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "azorult" ascii wide nocase
        $s4 = "infostealer.azorult" ascii wide nocase
        $s5 = "trojan.azorult" ascii wide nocase
        $s6 = "win32/azorult" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}

title: SystemHelpDesk Detection - Azorult (Infostealer) Execution & Triage
id: e7943f49-6f0a-5675-b4b0-34397691104a
status: production
description: Detects execution, defense evasion, and persistence behaviors associated
  with the Azorult 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/azorult
- 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.t1555_003
- attack.t1539
- attack.t1005
- attack.t1071_001
- attack.t1113
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_AZORULT_T3_ATTRIBUTION {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 3 Attribution Fingerprint: Heuristic detection for Azorult 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 = "azorult" 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. Isolate the affected workstation from the corporate network immediately to prevent active exfiltration of harvested credentials, cookies, and tokens by Azorult.
2. Force a global session invalidation and mandatory password reset for all cloud applications, corporate email, VPN accounts, and single sign-on (SSO) portals accessed from the machine.
3. Inspect and clean local browser credential databases (e.g. SQLite storage in Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox) and cryptocurrency wallet directories targeted by Azorult.
4. Capture endpoint memory to identify process injection and terminate rogue background processes executing credential scraping routines.
5. Revoke and re-issue all multi-factor authentication (MFA) session cookies and client TLS certificates present on the compromised workstation.

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 continue typing passwords or accessing sensitive corporate services on an endpoint actively flagged for Azorult.
2. Avoid assuming credential compromise is limited to local files; all browser-stored cookies and passwords must be treated as exposed.

References & External Analysis

• MITRE ATT&CK - AZORult (S0344)
• CISA Alert - Stealer Malware Deployment Trends
• Proofpoint Research - AZORult Architecture and Evolution
• Search "azorult" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)
• Search "azorult" on Any.Run (Sandbox Sandbox)
• Search "azorult" on MalwareBazaar (Malware Samples)

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Threats (Category: Infostealer)

Explore other documented threats in the same operational category:

• Redline
• Ldpinch
• Banspy
• Pirminay
• Ponystealer
• Yunsip
• Allinonekeylogger
• Berbew

Machine-readable

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