LongNosedGoblin tries to smell out governmental affairs in Southeast Asia and Japan

In 2024, ESET researchers seen beforehand undocumented malware within the community of a Southeast Asian governmental entity. This led us to uncover much more new malware on the identical system, none of which had substantial ties to any beforehand tracked menace actors. Based mostly on our findings, we determined to attribute the malicious instruments to a brand new China-aligned APT group that now we have named LongNosedGoblin.

The group employs a different customized toolset consisting primarily of C#/.NET functions, and, notably, makes use of Group Coverage to deploy its malware and transfer laterally throughout the techniques of focused entities. This blogpost particulars our discovery of LongNosedGoblin, goes over its identified campaigns, and dives into the toolset of the group.

Key factors of the report:

• LongNosedGoblin is a newly found China-aligned APT group focusing on governmental entities in Southeast Asia and Japan, with the purpose of cyberespionage.
• The group has been energetic since at the very least September 2023.
• LongNosedGoblin makes use of Group Coverage to deploy malware throughout the compromised community, and cloud companies (e.g., Microsoft OneDrive and Google Drive) as command and management (C&C) servers.
• One of many group’s instruments, NosyHistorian, is used to assemble browser historical past and resolve the place to deploy additional malware, such because the NosyDoor backdoor.
• NosyDoor is most probably being shared by a number of China-aligned menace actors.
• We offer an in depth evaluation of NosyHistorian, NosyDoor, NosyStealer, NosyDownloader, NosyLogger, and different instruments utilized by LongNosedGoblin.

Smells like bother: Introducing LongNosedGoblin

LongNosedGoblin is a China-aligned APT group that targets governmental entities in Southeast Asia and Japan, with the purpose of conducting cyberespionage. As we already talked about: in its campaigns, LongNosedGoblin abuses Group Coverage – a mechanism for managing settings and permissions on Home windows machines, usually used with Energetic Listing – to deploy malware and transfer laterally throughout the compromised community.

One of many foremost instruments in its arsenal is NosyHistorian, a C#/.NET software that the group makes use of to gather browser historical past, which is then used to find out the place to deploy additional malware. This contains one other main LongNosedGoblin instrument, a backdoor that we named NosyDoor, which, in campaigns we noticed, used Microsoft OneDrive as its C&C server. NosyDoor additionally employs living-off-the-land strategies in its execution chain, particularly AppDomainManager injection. Lastly, a number of of the group’s instruments can bypass the Antimalware Scan Interface (AMSI), which permits antimalware merchandise to scan numerous scripts earlier than execution.

Discovery

In February 2024, we discovered unknown malware on a system of a governmental entity in Southeast Asia. The malware was used to drop a customized backdoor, which we later named NosyDoor. On the identical time, we seen that the compromise concerned not only one, however a number of machines from the identical entity, with the malware having been deployed by way of Group Coverage.

Extra evaluation revealed that the identical victims had been additionally troubled with a distinct malicious instrument distributed by way of Group Coverage, this one used for accumulating browser historical past. We named the instrument NosyHistorian. Whereas we discovered many victims affected by NosyHistorian in the midst of our unique investigation between January and March 2024, solely a small subset of them had been compromised by NosyDoor. Some samples of NosyDoor’s dropper even contained execution guardrails to restrict operation to particular victims’ machines.

Later, we recognized much more unknown malware on the victims’ machines: NosyStealer, which exfiltrates browser information; NosyDownloader, which downloads and runs a payload in reminiscence; NosyLogger, a keylogger; different instruments like a reverse SOCKS5 proxy; and an argument runner (a instrument that runs an software handed as an argument) that was used to run a video recorder, possible FFmpeg, to seize audio and video. The downloader was first recorded in our telemetry way back to September 2023.

Attribution

As a result of distinctive toolset, alongside using Group Coverage for lateral motion, we determined to attribute the assaults to a brand new China-aligned APT group, and named it LongNosedGoblin. We seen some overlap within the file paths talked about in a Kaspersky blogpost about ToddyCat exercise, an APT group with comparable focusing on, however the malware in that report lacks code similarity with the malware thought-about right here.

It must also be famous that in June 2025, the Russian cybersecurity firm Photo voltaic revealed a blogpost on an APT group it refers to as Erudite Mogwai, which used a payload that carefully resembles LongNosedGoblin’s NosyDoor. Based on the authors, Erudite Mogwai focused the IT infrastructure of a Russian authorities group and Russian IT firms, utilizing the LuckyStrike Agent backdoor in its operations.

Nonetheless, we can not verify that Erudite Mogwai and LongNosedGoblin are one and the identical, as there’s a particular distinction in TTPs between the 2 teams. Notably, the Erudite Mogwai analysis doesn’t point out the abuse of Energetic Listing Group Coverage for malware deployment – a way that’s fairly particular to LongNosedGoblin’s operations.

We later recognized one other occasion of a NosyDoor variant focusing on a company in an EU nation, as soon as once more using completely different TTPs, and utilizing the Yandex Disk cloud service as a C&C server. The usage of this NosyDoor variant means that the malware could also be shared amongst a number of China-aligned menace teams. That is additional corroborated by Photo voltaic’s statement of the phrase Paid within the PDB path of NosyDoor, suggesting that the malware could also be commercially supplied as a service – doubtlessly indicating it’s being bought or licensed to different menace actors.

Later campaigns

All through 2024, LongNosedGoblin was actively deploying NosyDownloader in Southeast Asia. In December of the identical yr, we detected an up to date model of NosyHistorian in Japan, however then noticed no subsequent exercise.

In September 2025, we started seeing renewed exercise of the group in Southeast Asia. As in earlier campaigns, the menace actor leveraged Group Coverage to ship NosyHistorian to focused machines.

Throughout this wave of assaults, we seen conduct in step with Cobalt Strike utilization: a loader named oci.dll was downloaded on a single machine, with a payload named ocapi.edb loaded from disk. LongNosedGoblin then subsequently deployed the potential Cobalt Strike loader to chose machines by way of Group Coverage.

Moreover, we noticed that one other comparable element, mscorsvc.dll, was downloaded, with its payload saved in conf.ini. This loader was then deployed to victims’ machines utilizing Group Coverage, using the identical supply mechanism as oci.dll.

Nosing round: LongNosedGoblin’s toolset

NosyHistorian

NosyHistorian is a C#/.NET software with a self-explanatory inner title GetBrowserHistory, because it, certainly, collects browser historical past. Within the noticed campaigns, the attackers used this instrument to realize perception in regards to the machines within the compromised infrastructure. Based mostly on this info, they picked a small subset of particular victims to compromise additional with their NosyDoor backdoor.

We noticed the instrument being deployed by way of Group Coverage beneath the filename Historical past.ini, disguising the file as an INI file. In actuality, it is a moveable executable (PE) file, with the purpose most probably being to mix in with different INI recordsdata generally saved within the Group Coverage cache listing.

NosyHistorian iterates over all customers on the machine and retrieves the browser historical past from Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox. Every historical past database file is copied to a short lived listing after which uploaded to a selected hardcoded SMB share inside the native community of the compromised group. NosyHistorian’s filename for every net browser’s historical past file is listed in Desk 1, the place <profile_name> corresponds to net browser profiles.

Desk 1. Crafted historical past filenames by NosyHistorian

Each this instrument and NosyDoor have comparable PDB paths and had been compiled from the E:Csharp listing, with the NosyHistorian PDB path being: E:CsharpSharpMiscGetBrowserHistoryobjDebugGetBrowserHistory.pdb.

NosyDoor

As acknowledged beforehand, the NosyDoor backdoor makes use of cloud companies, similar to Microsoft OneDrive, for its C&C server. The malware has a reasonably easy, three-stage chain of execution, depicted in Determine 1. The primary stage is a dropper that deploys the second stage, which includes a living-off-the-land assault utilizing the AppDomainManager injection approach, which is in flip used to execute the ultimate payload, the backdoor itself.

NosyDoor collects metadata in regards to the sufferer’s machine, together with the machine title, username, the OS model, and the title of the present course of, and sends all of it to the C&C. It then retrieves and parses process recordsdata with instructions from the C&C. The instructions permit it to exfiltrate recordsdata, delete recordsdata, and execute shell instructions, amongst different issues.

NosyDoor Stage 1 – dropper

The malware’s first stage is a dropper, particularly a C#/.NET software with the inner title OneClickOperation. Similar as NosyHistorian, it’s deployed by way of Group Coverage. We’ve got seen the dropper masquerade as a Registry Coverage file through the use of the filename Registry.pol, though we additionally noticed Registry.plo, which is rare (it might be a typo, or perhaps the menace actors didn’t need the filename to battle with one other malicious file).

The dropper base64 decodes embedded recordsdata and decrypts them by way of Information Encryption Customary (DES) with each key and initialization vector set to UevAppMo (the primary eight bytes of the string UevAppMonitor), then drops them to C:WindowsMicrosoft.NETFramework with the next filenames:

• SharedReg.dll
• log.cached
• netfxsbs9.hkf
• UevAppMonitor.exe.config

These filenames have been chosen intentionally to mix in with present recordsdata, because the listing usually comprises recordsdata named SharedReg12.dll and netfxsbs12.hkf.

In its last steps, the dropper creates and begins a Home windows scheduled process with the title OneDrive Reporting Job-S-1-5-21-<GUID> beneath the Microsoft process folder, the place <GUID> is a random GUID string. The scheduled process is accountable for executing the official UevAppMonitor.exe within the C:WindowsMicrosoft.NETFramework listing throughout system startup. The dropper copies the official file from C:WindowsSystem32 to the brand new location.

The newer samples additionally embrace an execution guardrail that makes the dropper operate solely on victims’ computer systems with a selected machine title (see Determine 2).

NosyDoor Stage 2 – AppDomainManager injection

UevAppMonitor.exe is a official C#/.NET software, which the malware copied from the C:WindowsSystem32 to the C:WindowsMicrosoft.NETFramework listing and used as a living-off-the-land binary, or LOLBin. Dwelling-off-the-land assaults abuse official instruments already current on the system. On this case, the appliance is used to set off AppDomainManager injection by way of a configuration file. This system could make functions constructed within the .NET framework load malicious code as an alternative of the meant official code by making use of the AppDomainManager class.

When the appliance is executed, it masses the configuration file proven in Determine 3, which makes the appliance name the InitializeNewDomain technique of the customized SharedReg class in SharedReg.dll. The configuration additionally units the <etwEnable> aspect’s enabled attribute to false in order that occasion tracing for Home windows is disabled.

SharedReg.dll comprises code to bypass AMSI, from an open-source AV/EDR evasion framework referred to as inceptor. Apart from that, it base64 decodes the file netfxsbs9.hkf, decrypts the outcome by way of AES with key UevAppMonitor, padded with null bytes till its size is 16, initialization vector 0, and ultimately base64 decodes the outcome once more. The result’s NosyDoor, which is then executed. Any errors are written to the file error.txt within the C:WindowsMicrosoft.NETFramework listing.

NosyDoor Stage 3 – payload

NosyDoor’s third stage, the primary payload, is a C#/.NET backdoor with the inner title OneDrive and with PDB path E:CsharpThomasServerThomasOneDriveobjReleaseOneDrive.pdb. As this title suggests, the backdoor makes use of cloud companies, on this case Microsoft OneDrive, as a C&C server.

The complete record of metadata the backdoor collects consists of the next:

• exterior IPv4 handle,
• native IPv4 handle,
• agent ID,
• username,
• machine title,
• present listing,
• present course of (title, ID, structure),
• stage 3 native begin time,
• present native time,
• OS model,
• CodeType (see Desk 3), and
• AgentType (see Desk 3).

All collected metadata is encrypted by way of RSA after which uploaded to OneDrive because the file Read_<agent_id>.max. As soon as NosyDoor sends the metadata, it seems for instructions from the C&C in process recordsdata with .max extensions within the following listing:

<FolderName>-<ListenerID>/<agent_id>/<Payload.TaskFolderName>

Every process file comprises an encrypted command, which is encapsulated with values taken from the backdoor’s configuration:

<Payload.Prepend><Payload.PayloadPrepend><encrypted_command><Payload.PayloadAppend><Payload.Append>

The command is then decoded with base64 and decrypted by way of AES with key <Payload.Key> and initialization vector 0. All instructions are described in Desk 2. Though the command CMD_TYPE_TASKSCHEDULER is talked about within the code, it’s not applied in any of the noticed samples.

Desk 2. Instructions supported by NosyDoor

After executing the command, NosyDoor performs the reverse steps – encrypts command output utilizing AES, encodes with base64, and encapsulates with the strings <Payload.Prepend><Payload.PayloadPrepend> and <Payload.PayloadAppend><Payload.Append>. Every result’s saved on the C&C server in a file with a filename specifying native time (Unix timestamp multiplied by 100,000) and ending with the .max extension:

<FolderName>-<ListenerID>/<agent_id>/<Payload.ReceiveFolderName>/<unix_timestamp>.max

If an exception happens throughout NosyDoor’s operation, the backdoor writes the exception message along with the native time to C:UsersPublicLibrariesthomas.log.

The backdoor comprises a customized dependency named Library that’s embedded as a useful resource through the use of Costura. It primarily comprises code associated to command processing, Microsoft OneDrive communication, and numerous helper strategies, whereas the primary binary handles the beaconing loop and reads a config file, using the library.

The configuration is saved within the file log.cached in encrypted kind. NosyDoor decrypts it by way of XOR with key SecretKey, base64 decodes it, then decrypts it by way of AES with key Thomas, crammed with null bytes till its size is 16, and IV 0. This configuration may be seen in Determine 4.

{
    "ListenerID": 3,
    "FolderName": "Duis euismod, mi, ligula, mattis feugiat, pulvinar.",
    "AppID": "[redacted]",
    "RefreshToken": "[redacted]",
    "BaseUrl": "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/drive",
    "TokenUrl": "https://login.microsoftonline.com/widespread/oauth2/v2.0/token",
    "CodeType": ".NET40",
    "AgentType": "OneDrive",
    "Scope": "offline_access recordsdata.readwrite",
    "Sleep": 66,
    "BeginDate": "08:51:00",
    "EndDate": "18:51:00",
    "Payload": {
        "Key": "583oq23aonxloet7",
        "MetaDataName": null,
        "TaskFolderName": "Risus blandit mattis",
        "ReceiveFolderName": "Felis posuere at",
        "Prepend": "<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http : //www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
    <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content material-Kind" content material="textual content/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
    <title>IIS Home windows Server</title>
    <type sort="textual content/css">
        <!--
        physique {
            colour:#000000;
            background-color:#0072C6;
            margin:0;
        }

        #container {
            margin-left:auto;
            margin-right:auto;
            text-align:heart;
        }

        a img {
            border:",
        "Append": ";
        }

        -->
    </type>
    </head>
    <physique>
        <div id="container">
        <a href="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=66138u0026amp;clcid=0x409"><img src="iisstart.png" alt="IIS" width="960" top="600" /></a>
        </div>
    </physique>
</html>",
        "PayloadPrepend": "Fames",
        "PayloadAppend": "Ipsum"
    }
}

Determine 4. Decrypted configuration (log.cached, beautified)

The configuration values <BeginDate> and <EndDate> specify the native time vary when NosyDoor operates. On this case, NosyDoor is energetic solely between 8:51 am and 6:51 pm. As soon as authenticated, although, NosyDoor will course of instructions which can be nonetheless pending in a queue and ship response recordsdata no matter what time it’s.

NosyStealer

NosyStealer is used to steal browser information from Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. As illustrated in Determine 5, it has a four-stage chain of execution, with the stealer element being the final-stage payload.

NosyStealer Stage 1 – DLL loader

The primary stage (pmp.exe) within the NosyStealer chain is a C/C++ software. The noticed pattern merely masses a library named SERV.dll from disk and calls the exported operate Whats up.

NosyStealer Stage 2 – injector

We noticed two NosyStealer Stage 2 samples – one (SERV.dll) in our telemetry, and the opposite (msi.dll) uploaded to VirusTotal from Malaysia. Neither has the exported operate Whats up however each have the primary code in DllMain, i.e., the malicious code is run proper after the DLL is loaded. They’ve the next exports:

• ??0Cv2dllnoinject@@QEAA@XZ
• ??4Cv2dllnoinject@@QEAAAEAV0@$$QEAV0@@Z
• ??4Cv2dllnoinject@@QEAAAEAV0@AEBV0@@Z
• ?fnv2dllnoinject@@YAHXZ
• ?nv2dllnoinject@@3HA

The subsequent-stage information is loaded from the hardcoded path C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWDFMDE.dat. It’s decrypted by way of a single-byte XOR cipher with key 0x7A. The result’s Donut shellcode that’s injected into the operating pmp.exe course of (NosyStealer Stage 1) utilizing the CreateRemoteThread API within the SERV.dll case, and right into a newly created notepad.exe course of utilizing the SetThreadContext API within the msi.dll case.

NosyStealer Stage 3 – loader

As talked about within the NosyStealer Stage 2 – injector part, this stage is shellcode containing an embedded PE file that’s decrypted, loaded, and executed in reminiscence utilizing Donut’s reflective loader. The extracted binary is a C/C++ software.

Like NosyDoor Stage 2 – AppDomainManager injection, this stage makes use of a identified approach to bypass AMSI. It patches the AmsiScanBuffer operate within the loaded amsi.dll with code that returns E_INVALIDARG (see Determine 6).

Then it creates a Home windows scheduled process with the title Day by day Examine Job that runs C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWDFpmp.exe (NosyStealer Stage 1) on daily basis with permissions of the native system account.

After patching the AMSI operate and persisting, it continues equally to the earlier stage – it decrypts the following stage from the hardcoded path C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWDFmfd.dat by way of a single-byte XOR cipher with key 0x7A, the place the ensuing blob is one other Donut shellcode, which is then executed.

NosyStealer Stage 4 – payload

Once more, like NosyStealer Stage 3 – loader, this stage is shellcode that decrypts, masses, and executes an embedded PE file in reminiscence utilizing Donut’s reflective loader. This time, the extracted binary is a Go software that steals browser information from the Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome net browsers. To take action, it downloads a file named config from Google Docs. When the file comprises a sufferer’s ID, NosyStealer reads Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome profile information, archives it with tar, and encrypts it with a customized cipher.

NosyStealer then exfiltrates the encrypted tar archive to Google Drive. Determine 7 is an instance of the JSON-formatted configuration, embedded within the binary, required to entry Google Drive and Google Docs.

{
  "sort": "service_account",
  "project_id": "dev0-411506",
  "private_key_id": "[redacted]",
  "private_key": "[redacted]",
  "client_email": "dev0-660@dev0-411506.iam.gserviceaccount.com",
  "client_id": "[redacted]",
  "auth_uri": "https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth",
  "token_uri": "https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token",
  "auth_provider_x509_cert_url": "https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v1/certs",
  "client_x509_cert_url": 
"https://www.googleapis.com/robotic/v1/metadata/x509/dev0-660percent40dev0-411506.iam.gserviceaccount.com",
  "universe_domain": "googleapis.com"
}

Determine 7. NosyStealer configuration

NosyStealer additionally data errors and standing messages to a Google Docs file named log, which can embrace info from multiple sufferer. The standing message contains the fixed 9, presumably a sign of the NosyStealer model. The complete standing message format, the place <machine_local_ips> represents an inventory of native IPv4 addresses of community adapters, is as follows:

<local_date> – <victim_id> – 9 – heartbeat <machine_local_ips>

NosyDownloader

Analyzing ESET telemetry information, we additionally discovered within the networks compromised by LongNosedGoblin numerous initially benign functions that had been patched with malicious code. This code comprises a downloader that we named NosyDownloader, which executes a series of obfuscated instructions handed to a spawned PowerShell course of as one lengthy command line argument, that means that the script isn’t saved on disk. Each subsequent stage is encoded with base64, the place the final one is moreover deflated with gzip.

Every stage is briefly described in Desk 3. Like NosyDoor Stage 2 and NosyStealer Stage 3, the second stage right here additionally bypasses AMSI. On this case, NosyDownloader makes use of Matt Graeber’s reflection technique and disabling script logging strategies made accessible on GitHub to bypass AMSI.

Desk 3. NosyDownloader script phases

We suspect that NosyDownloader was used to deploy ReverseSocks5, NosyLogger, and an argument runner, as we noticed them within the span of 1 week after NosyDownloader was executed.

NosyLogger

We additionally recognized a C#/.NET keylogger that we named NosyLogger. It appears to be a modified model of the open-source keylogger DuckSharp, with the primary variations being that it doesn’t ship emails or translate logged keys into the Cyrillic alphabet.

The malware initially checks whether or not a debugger is current by way of the IsDebuggerPresent and CheckRemoteDebuggerPresent APIs; if not, it begins its keylogging performance.

Window title, pressed keys, and pasted clipboard content material are collected in reminiscence. NosyLogger encrypts these information batches utilizing AES with the important thing D53FCC01038E20193FBD51B7400075CF7C9C4402B73DA7B0DB836B000EBD8B1C and a randomly generated initialization vector of mounted size, the place the vector is appended to the encrypted batch of information. The encrypted information batch is then appended to the file on the hardcoded location C:WindowsTempTS_D418.tmp in hexadecimal string format. In that file, every encrypted information batch is separated by a newline adopted by the string ENDBLOCK. This means of encrypting and storing collected information to the file takes place each 10 seconds. This file isn’t exfiltrated by NosyLogger.

Different deployed instruments

ReverseSocks5

Amongst different malware deployed by LongNosedGoblin, we discovered an open-source reverse SOCKS5 proxy, written in Go, referred to as ReverseSocks5. We found it once we seen the next command line arguments getting used:

-connect 118.107.234[.]29:8080 -psk “58fi04qQ” /F

The choice -psk is used to set a preshared key for encryption and authentication. The argument /F isn’t dealt with by ReverseSocks5 and might be unintentional; this argument is usually used with schtasks create.

We then seen one other set of command line arguments (which shouldn’t have the /F argument anymore):

-connect 118.107.234[.]29:8080 -psk “15Kaf22N3b”

This second set corresponds to execution of ReverseSocks5, the place we noticed PowerShell because the dad or mum course of. NosyDownloader was additionally executed throughout this time, indicating that the pattern was in all probability deployed with it.

Argument runner

It is a C#/.NET software with inner title Binary; the only real objective of this instrument is to run an software handed as an argument. We noticed the filename TCOEdge.exe as a part of the command line together with arguments which can be particular to the FFmpeg multimedia framework; it was used to file the display and seize audio, saving it to C:WindowsTempoutput.avi.

Conclusion

LongNosedGoblin is a China-aligned APT group that targets governmental entities in Southeast Asia and Japan. Our evaluation of its campaigns revealed quite a few items of customized malware, which the group makes use of to conduct cyberespionage in opposition to its victims. Notably, LongNosedGoblin employs Group Coverage to carry out lateral motion inside the compromised community.

For any inquiries about our analysis revealed on WeLiveSecurity, please contact us at threatintel@eset.com. 

ESET Analysis presents personal APT intelligence studies and information feeds. For any inquiries about this service, go to the ESET Menace Intelligence web page.

IoCs

A complete record of indicators of compromise (IoCs) and samples may be present in our GitHub repository.

Recordsdata

Community

MITRE ATT&CK strategies

This desk was constructed utilizing model 18 of the MITRE ATT&CK framework.