Berbew

Overview

Trojan:Win32/Berbew (widely known in antivirus telemetry as Padodor) is a historic banking trojan and multi-purpose infostealer discovered in 2004 that pioneered early webinject and local proxy interception techniques. Operating by injecting its malicious modules into Windows Explorer (explorer.exe) and Internet Explorer, Berbew installs a local proxy engine that monitors HTTP and HTTPS traffic on ports 80 and 443. When users access supported banking institutions, e-commerce platforms, or webmail services, Berbew captures plaintext credentials, steals stored digital certificates, logs keyboard inputs, and exfiltrates financial data to remote servers via hidden web POST requests while simultaneously establishing an open SOCKS proxy backdoor on the infected host.

Known aliases

Threat reports may refer to this family under multiple names:

• Berbew
• Padodor
• Trojan:Win32/Berbew
• Win32/Berbew
• Trojan.Berbew
• Backdoor.Padodor
• Trojan.Padodor

Threat Actor Attribution

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

• Eastern European Cybercrime Groups 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: Berbew.A (Padodor) · Berbew.B Proxy Build · Berbew Webinject Variant

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.
• T1105: Implement network intrusion detection systems (NIDS) and host-based firewalls to block unauthorized inbound or outbound file transfers.

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-2004-0115 — In-depth exploitation analysis and catalog intelligence (NIST NVD ↗).
• CVE-2004-0280 — 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.

• 3c2b1a0987654321fedcba0987654321fedcba0987654321fedcba0987654321
• abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789

Delivery vectors

• lsass_network_worm_exploitation
• malicious_email_attachments

Persistence mechanisms

• HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
• Browser Helper Object (BHO) Registration

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_BERBEW_T1_ARTIFACT {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 1 Primitive Artifact: Raw string matches for Berbew"
        tier = "T1 - Primitive Artifact"
        confidence = "Low-Medium (Fast Triage)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Threat Research Desk"
        date = "2026-10-14"
    strings:
        $s1 = "berbew" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "berbew" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "padodor" ascii wide nocase
        $s4 = "trojan:win32/berbew" ascii wide nocase
        $s5 = "win32/berbew" ascii wide nocase
        $s6 = "trojan.berbew" ascii wide nocase
        $s7 = "backdoor.padodor" ascii wide nocase
        $s8 = "trojan.padodor" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}

title: SystemHelpDesk Detection - Berbew (Infostealer) Execution & Triage
id: 04b2a330-e06c-5258-b35b-04ef231a0699
status: production
description: Detects execution, defense evasion, and persistence behaviors associated
  with the Berbew 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/berbew
- 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.t1055
- attack.t1555
- attack.t1056_001
- attack.t1090_001
- attack.t1071_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_BERBEW_T3_ATTRIBUTION {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 3 Attribution Fingerprint: Heuristic detection for Berbew 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 = "berbew" 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 compromised endpoints to stop unauthorized SOCKS proxy routing and credential leaks.
2. Terminate injected explorer.exe modules and restore default Windows proxy settings.
3. Reset credentials for all financial and webmail accounts accessed from the infected workstation.
4. Apply Microsoft security patch MS04-011 to resolve remote LSASS vulnerability CVE-2004-0115.

What to Avoid

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

1. Do not allow endpoints to operate with rogue localhost proxy configurations.
2. Avoid entering financial credentials on systems exhibiting unexpected browser certificate prompts.
3. Never expose unpatched legacy Windows services to untrusted network segments.

References & External Analysis

• Microsoft Security Intelligence: Trojan:Win32/Berbew Technical Reference
• Symantec Security Response: Trojan.Padodor Threat Assessment
• NIST National Vulnerability Database CVE-2004-0115
• Search "berbew" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)
• Search "berbew" on Any.Run (Sandbox Sandbox)
• Search "berbew" on MalwareBazaar (Malware Samples)

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Threats (Category: Infostealer)

Explore other documented threats in the same operational category:

• Pirminay
• Advpassman
• Coinstealer
• Adspy
• Socelars
• Beyondkeylogger
• Urelas
• Msilperseus

Machine-readable

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