GoldMax is a second-stage C2 backdoor written in Go with Windows and Linux variants that are nearly identical in functionality. GoldMax was discovered in early 2021 during the investigation into the SolarWinds Compromise, and has likely been used by APT29 since at least mid-2019. GoldMax uses multiple defense evasion techniques, including avoiding virtualization execution and masking malicious traffic.[1][2][3]
18
TechniquesTop 25%
7
Tactics68th pct
1
Threat groupunranked
1
Campaignunranked
Enterprise ATT&CK only. Any Mobile or ICS rows on the same ATT&CK page are not carried.
GoldMax has used filenames that matched the system name, and appeared as a scheduled task impersonating systems management software within the corresponding ProgramData subfolder.1011
Stealth30 detection rules
Standing S0588
Reach is how much of ATT&CK this malware touches. Coverage is how well defended each thing it does is, as a median per technique rather than a total — a total would just restate the reach. Each figure is ranked against all 825 ATT&CK software entries only where that population actually spreads. Where most of the population shares one value, a percentile would rank the tie instead of the entity, so the raw value is shown and no rank is claimed.
Reach
Techniques18Top 25%
75th percentile · 75% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have this many Enterprise techniques or fewer.
Tactics768th pct
68th percentile · 68% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have this many tactics spanned or fewer.
Threat group161% tie · 22 values
61% of the population shares a single value across only 22 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
Campaign185% tie · 8 values
85% of the population shares a single value across only 8 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
Coverage
Rules / technique10.5medBottom 16%
16th percentile · 84% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have more detection rules per technique.
Tests / technique4med28th pct
28th percentile · 72% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have more atomic tests per technique.
Data comps / technique4.5med54% tie · 11 values
54% of the population shares a single value across only 11 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
Mitigations / technique1med57th pct
57th percentile · 57% of 825 ATT&CK software entries have this many mitigations per technique or fewer.
5 of 8 axes carry an honest rank on this page. Coverage medians are taken across this malware’s 18 Enterprise techniques.
Range
Technique Campaign use over its cumulative rule count.
439 distinct rules cover the 18 techniques recorded for this malware. 295 Sigma · 144 Splunk.
16 covered by at least one rule2 with no coverage439 distinct rules in total
Showing 1-50 of 400+ rules
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MITRE ATT&CK
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Detects when AppLocker "Audit only" enforcement mode reports that an Application, DLL, Script, MSI, or Packaged-App would have been blocked if AppLocker "Enforce rules" enforcement mode was enabled.
The following analytic detects the execution of tools commonly exploited by cybercriminals, such as those used for unauthorized access, network scanning, privilege escalation, password dumping or data exfiltration. (...)
Detects the Linux-specific execution chain of the plain-crypto-js malicious npm dependency by Axios NPM package, including payload download via curl and detached execution using nohup and python3. (...)
Detects the macOS-specific execution chain of the plain-crypto-js malicious npm dependency in Axios NPM Package, including AppleScript execution via osascript, payload download, permission modification, execution, and cleanup.
The following analytic detects the use of CertUtil.exe with the 'decode' argument, which may indicate an attempt to decode a previously encoded file, potentially containing malicious payloads. (...)
Adversaries may communicate using application layer protocols associated with web traffic to avoid detection/network filtering by blending in with existing traffic. (...)
This analytic detects the usage of the Utility osascript on a macOS device initiated a network connection lasting longer than 10 minutes (600 seconds). (...)
This analytic detects unexpected outbound network connections initiated by known webserver processes such as `httpd.exe`, `nginx.exe`, or `tomcat.exe` to common file sharing or public content hosting services like GitHub, Discord CDN, Transfer.sh, or Pastebin. (...)
The following analytic detects the use of known suspicious SSL certificates in any observed event where the SSL_CertFingerprint field is present. (...)
The following analytic detects potential reverse shell activity by identifying connections involving ports commonly associated with remote access tools, shell listeners, or tunneling utilities. (...)
The following analytic detects connections with a high Encrypted Visibility Engine (EVE) threat confidence score, indicating potentially malicious behavior within encrypted traffic. (...)
The following analytic detects potentially suspicious large volumes of data sent by the connection initiator on flows from internal to external networks. (...)
This analytic identifies Snort intrusion signatures that have been triggered by ten or more distinct internal IP addresses within a one-hour window. (...)
The following analytic detects the use of `cmd.exe /c` to execute commands, a technique often employed by adversaries and malware to run batch commands or invoke other shells like PowerShell. (...)
The following analytic identifies the use of named-pipe impersonation for privilege escalation, commonly associated with Cobalt Strike and similar frameworks. (...)