{
  "family": "ganelp",
  "sample_count": 348,
  "category": "trojan_generic",
  "description": "Trojan:Win32/Ganelp is a stealthy trojan downloader engineered to establish a persistent backdoor on compromised endpoints and securely deliver secondary, often highly destructive, payloads.<br><br><b>Understanding Ganelp</b><br>To an end-user, a Ganelp infection provides no visual indicators. For threat intelligence analysts, Ganelp is a critical staging tool. It functions as an 'Initial Access Broker' mechanism. Its primary objective is to bypass endpoint defenses, profile the infected machine to ensure it is viable (e.g., not a researcher's sandbox), and reach out to a Command-and-Control (C2) server to download the final payload, which is frequently ransomware or an advanced banking trojan.<br><br><b>Execution and Evasion Strategies</b><br>Ganelp is commonly distributed via massive malspam campaigns containing weaponized attachments or through exploit kits. Upon execution, it utilizes heavy packing and obfuscation to evade static antivirus signatures. It drops a randomized executable into the <code>%Temp%</code> or <code>%LocalAppData%</code> directories. Persistence is achieved by creating a hidden scheduled task or modifying the Registry Run keys. Ganelp often injects its downloading routine into legitimate processes (like <code>explorer.exe</code> or <code>svchost.exe</code>) to hide its outbound network traffic.<br><br><b>Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)</b><br>Threat hunters should investigate EDR alerts related to 'Suspicious Process Injection' or 'Anomalous Child Process Spawning'. Network logs will often reveal Ganelp reaching out to compromised domains using encrypted HTTP/HTTPS traffic. The presence of unexpected, hidden scheduled tasks designed to execute randomly named, highly entropic binaries in the user's profile is a strong IoC. Memory analysis is necessary to extract the injected downloader modules.",
  "cta": "Published by the SystemHelpdesk team.",
  "aliases": [],
  "enrichment_level": "expert-seo",
  "faq": [],
  "faq_count": 0,
  "mitre_attack": [
    "T1105",
    "T1566.001",
    "T1027",
    "T1053.005",
    "T1055"
  ],
  "cisa_advisory": null,
  "last_updated": "2026-06-09",
  "mitre_attack_detail": [
    {
      "id": "T1105",
      "name": "Ingress Tool Transfer",
      "tactic": "Command and Control"
    },
    {
      "id": "T1055",
      "name": "Process Injection",
      "tactic": "Defense Evasion"
    },
    {
      "id": "T1053.005",
      "name": "Scheduled Task/Job: Scheduled Task",
      "tactic": "Persistence"
    },
    {
      "id": "T1566.001",
      "name": "Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment",
      "tactic": "Initial Access"
    },
    {
      "id": "T1027",
      "name": "Obfuscated Files or Information",
      "tactic": "Defense Evasion"
    }
  ],
  "containment_steps": [
    "Isolate the endpoint immediately to prevent Ganelp from downloading and executing its secondary payloads (e.g., ransomware).",
    "Audit the Windows Task Scheduler and Registry Run keys to identify and remove the Ganelp persistence mechanisms.",
    "Review firewall and proxy logs to identify the C2 domains Ganelp attempted to contact, and block them enterprise-wide.",
    "Capture a live memory image (RAM dump) to extract the injected Ganelp modules and identify the secondary payloads."
  ],
  "what_to_avoid": [
    "Do not close an incident simply because the initial Ganelp dropper was quarantined; always verify if secondary payloads were downloaded.",
    "Avoid relying solely on manual file deletion, as the injected processes will likely just recreate the dropped binaries."
  ],
  "target_industries": [
    "Global / Opportunistic"
  ],
  "motivation": "Opportunistic",
  "threat_actors": [
    "Unknown / Cybercriminal"
  ],
  "target_geographies": [
    "Global"
  ]
}