Ninja
Ninja is a malware developed in C++ that has been used by ToddyCat to penetrate networks and control remote systems since at least 2020. Ninja is possibly part of a post exploitation toolkit exclusively used by ToddyCat and allows multiple operators to work simultaneously on the same machine. Ninja has been used against government and military entities in Europe and Asia and observed in specific infection chains being deployed by Samurai.[1]
Techniques Used
| Domain | ID | Name | Use | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | T1071 | .001 | Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols | |
| Enterprise | T1543 | .003 | Create or Modify System Process: Windows Service |
Ninja can create the services |
| Enterprise | T1132 | .002 | Data Encoding: Non-Standard Encoding |
Ninja can encode C2 communications with a base64 algorithm using a custom alphabet.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1001 | Data Obfuscation |
Ninja has the ability to modify headers and URL paths to hide malicious traffic in HTTP requests.[1] |
|
| .003 | Protocol or Service Impersonation |
Ninja has the ability to mimic legitimate services with customized HTTP URL paths and headers to hide malicious traffic.[1] |
||
| Enterprise | T1140 | Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information |
The Ninja loader component can decrypt and decompress the payload.[1][2] |
|
| Enterprise | T1573 | .001 | Encrypted Channel: Symmetric Cryptography | |
| Enterprise | T1480 | .001 | Execution Guardrails: Environmental Keying |
Ninja can store its final payload in the Registry under |
| Enterprise | T1083 | File and Directory Discovery | ||
| Enterprise | T1574 | .002 | Hijack Execution Flow: DLL Side-Loading |
Ninja loaders can be side-loaded with legitimate and signed executables including the VLC.exe media player.[2] |
| Enterprise | T1070 | .006 | Indicator Removal: Timestomp |
Ninja can change or create the last access or write times.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1559 | Inter-Process Communication |
Ninja can use pipes to redirect the standard input and the standard output.[1] |
|
| Enterprise | T1036 | .005 | Masquerading: Match Legitimate Name or Location |
Ninja has used legitimate looking filenames for its loader including update.dll and x64.dll.[2] |
| Enterprise | T1106 | Native API |
The Ninja loader can call Windows APIs for discovery, process injection, and payload decryption.[1][2] |
|
| Enterprise | T1095 | Non-Application Layer Protocol |
Ninja can forward TCP packets between the C2 and a remote host.[1][2] |
|
| Enterprise | T1027 | .013 | Obfuscated Files or Information: Encrypted/Encoded File |
The Ninja payload is XOR encrypted and compressed.[2] Ninja has also XORed its configuration data with a constant value of |
| Enterprise | T1566 | .003 | Phishing: Spearphishing via Service |
Ninja has been distributed to victims via the messaging app Telegram.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1057 | Process Discovery | ||
| Enterprise | T1055 | Process Injection |
Ninja has the ability to inject an agent module into a new process and arbitrary shellcode into running processes.[1][2] |
|
| Enterprise | T1090 | .001 | Proxy: Internal Proxy |
Ninja can proxy C2 communications including to and from internal agents without internet connectivity.[1][2] |
| .003 | Proxy: Multi-hop Proxy |
Ninja has the ability to use a proxy chain with up to 255 hops when using TCP.[1] |
||
| Enterprise | T1029 | Scheduled Transfer |
Ninja can configure its agent to work only in specific time frames.[1] |
|
| Enterprise | T1218 | .011 | System Binary Proxy Execution: Rundll32 |
Ninja loader components can be executed through rundll32.exe.[2] |
| Enterprise | T1082 | System Information Discovery |
Ninja can obtain the computer name and information on the OS and physical drives from targeted hosts.[1][2] |
|
| Enterprise | T1016 | System Network Configuration Discovery |
Ninja can enumerate the IP address on compromised systems.[1] |
|
| Enterprise | T1204 | .002 | User Execution: Malicious File |
Ninja has gained execution through victims opening malicious executable files embedded in zip archives.[1] |