Dinwod

Overview

Trojan:Win32/Dinwod is a generic, polymorphic trojan downloader designed to breach endpoint defenses, establish a silent foothold, and download a myriad of secondary malicious payloads.

Understanding Dinwod
To an end-user, a Dinwod infection is typically invisible until the secondary payloads (like adware or ransomware) execute. For threat intelligence analysts, Dinwod represents a highly flexible delivery mechanism. It is heavily packed and obfuscated to evade static signature detection. Its primary function is to act as a staging ground, reaching out to a hardcoded list of Command-and-Control (C2) servers to retrieve updated instructions and payloads.

Execution and Evasion Strategies
Dinwod is distributed via spam campaigns, drive-by downloads, and peer-to-peer file sharing (often disguised as software cracks). Upon execution, it drops a randomized executable into the <code>%Temp% or %AppData% directories and establishes persistence via the Windows Registry Run keys. It frequently injects its unpacking routine into legitimate system processes (like svchost.exe) to hide its network activity. The trojan uses HTTP POST requests to its C2 infrastructure, sending basic system profiling data (OS version, AV installed) before receiving the secondary payload.

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)
Threat hunters should investigate EDR alerts for 'Suspicious Process Injection' or the sudden creation of highly entropic (packed) files in user directories. Network logs will often reveal Dinwod reaching out to compromised domains or dynamic DNS addresses. The presence of unexpected, hidden scheduled tasks designed to execute randomly named binaries is a strong IoC.

MITRE ATT&CK Techniques

Observed techniques used by this family, mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK framework:

Tactical Mitigations

Based on the techniques used by this family, consider the following defensive strategies:

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

Generated Detections (Boilerplate)

These YARA and Sigma rules are auto-generated based on the family name and aliases. They must be heavily tuned before deployment in a production environment.

YARA Rule

rule MALWARE_WIN_DINWOD {
    meta:
        description = "Detects Dinwod (file_infector)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Boilerplate Generator"
        date = "2026-07-06"
    strings:
        $s1 = "dinwod" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}

Sigma Rule

title: Suspicious Dinwod Activity
id: 2717e8c04558d78bd4ff0a6064deed89
status: experimental
description: Detects generic indicators of the dinwod malware family.
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection:
        Image|endswith:
            - '\cmd.exe'
            - '\powershell.exe'
        CommandLine|contains:
            - "*dinwod*"
    condition: selection
level: medium

Containment & Response Steps

Ordered checklist for responders. Adapt to your environment and engage professional support for active incidents.

1. Isolate the endpoint from the network immediately to prevent Dinwod from downloading destructive secondary payloads.
2. Audit the Windows Registry Run keys and Startup folder to identify and remove the Dinwod persistence mechanisms.
3. Review firewall and DNS logs to identify the C2 domains Dinwod attempted to contact, and block them enterprise-wide.
4. Perform a full system scan with a reputable EDR solution to eradicate the dropped executables in the <code>%Temp%</code> directory.

What to Avoid

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

1. Do not close out a Dinwod alert simply because the AV states the file was 'Quarantined'; always verify if secondary payloads were dropped first.
2. Avoid relying solely on manual file deletion, as injected processes may simply recreate the dropped binaries.

References & External Analysis

• Search "dinwod" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Families (Category: file_infector)

Explore other malware families in the same category:

• Virut
• Sivis
• Sality
• Parite
• Viking

Machine-readable

Get this profile as JSON: https://jordan123234-malware-families-explorer.static.hf.space/api/dinwod.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.