Tick
Overview
Executive Summary
Tick (also known as Bronze Butler, REDBALDknight, or Stalker Panda) is a highly sophisticated Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group believed to be operating out of East Asia. Active since at least 2006, Tick primarily targets government agencies, defense contractors, heavy industry, and high-tech manufacturing sectors, heavily focusing its operations on targets in Japan and South Korea. Their primary objective is long-term cyber espionage and the exfiltration of highly sensitive intellectual property.Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs)
Tick is characterized by its patience, advanced evasion techniques, and the use of a diverse arsenal of custom-developed malware alongside repurposed open-source tools. Key aspects of Tick's operational playbook include:- Initial Access: The group frequently relies on zero-day vulnerabilities in regional enterprise software (such as popular Japanese asset management solutions) or highly targeted spear-phishing emails utilizing exploit-laden Office documents.
- Custom Malware Arsenal: Tick deploys a variety of proprietary malware families, including Daserf (a sophisticated backdoor used for lateral movement and command execution), Minzen (a downloader), Datper (a RAT), and Xxmm. These tools are heavily obfuscated and frequently updated to evade signature-based detection.
- Living off the Land (LotL): To maintain absolute stealth during lateral movement and data exfiltration, Tick operators heavily utilize legitimate administrative tools (like PowerShell, Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), and PsExec) and legitimate cloud storage services to exfiltrate stolen data, blending their activities with normal administrative traffic.
Threat Assessment
An intrusion by the Tick APT group is a critical, "nation-state level" security incident. Their prolonged dwell times and focus on high-value intellectual property mean that a successful breach often results in devastating strategic and economic damage to the targeted organization.Defense and Resilience Strategies
- Behavioral EDR and Threat Hunting: Defending against Tick requires mature EDR capabilities and active threat hunting. Security teams must monitor for anomalous usage of administrative tools (LotL techniques), unusual WMI queries, and unexpected lateral movement across the network.
- Vulnerability Management: Given their history of exploiting regional enterprise software, organizations must maintain strict, accelerated patch management protocols, particularly for edge devices and specialized corporate applications.
- Network Segmentation and DLP: Implement rigorous network segmentation to contain potential breaches. Deploy robust Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions to monitor for the bulk extraction of sensitive documents or CAD files to unauthorized external or cloud storage endpoints.
Known aliases
Threat reports may refer to this family under multiple names:
MITRE ATT&CK Techniques
This family has been observed using the following ATT&CK techniques: T1192 T1059.001 T1047 T1567.002
Tactical Mitigations
Based on the techniques used by this family, consider the following defensive strategies:
- T1059.001: Restrict execution of PowerShell. Enforce PowerShell Constrained Language Mode and Script Block Logging.
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_TICK {
meta:
description = "Detects Tick (backdoor)"
author = "SystemHelpdesk Boilerplate Generator"
date = "2026-07-06"
strings:
$s1 = "tick" ascii wide nocase
$s2 = "apt.tick" ascii wide nocase
$s3 = "bronze butler" ascii wide nocase
$s4 = "redbaldknight" ascii wide nocase
$s5 = "stalker panda" ascii wide nocase
condition:
uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}Sigma Rule
title: Suspicious Tick Activity
id: e5e5c0754f1e26bf915455e21cf2eba5
status: experimental
description: Detects generic indicators of the tick malware family.
logsource:
category: process_creation
product: windows
detection:
selection:
Image|endswith:
- '\cmd.exe'
- '\powershell.exe'
CommandLine|contains:
- "*tick*"
- "*apt.tick*"
- "*bronze butler*"
- "*redbaldknight*"
- "*stalker panda*"
condition: selection
level: mediumReferences & External Analysis
- Search "tick" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I remove the Tick Backdoor from Windows?
Manual removal of Tick is highly discouraged as it may leave persistence mechanisms intact. We recommend disconnecting the device from the internet and utilizing a professional incident response service or enterprise-grade EDR software to conduct a full forensic sweep.
Is Tick a virus or a Backdoor?
Tick is classified as a Backdoor. Unlike traditional viruses that infect files, modern malware like Tick typically operates as a standalone payload designed to compromise systems, steal data, or deploy secondary stage implants.
What are the main symptoms of a Tick infection?
Symptoms of Tick can include unexpected system slowness, unauthorized outbound network traffic to unknown IP addresses, disabled security software, and suspicious background processes running from AppData or Temp directories.
Related Families (Category: backdoor)
Explore other malware families in the same category:
Protect Your Network Against Backdoors
Want to prevent Tick and similar threats from compromising your organization? Read our comprehensive defensive guide: Backdoor & RAT Protection.
Machine-readable
Get this profile as JSON: https://jordan123234-malware-families-explorer.static.hf.space/api/tick.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.