Doser
Overview
Executive Summary
Doser is a classification assigned to a specific category of malicious utilities (HackTools) and Trojans designed to execute Denial of Service (DoS) or Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Unlike stealthy malware designed for espionage or data theft, Doser's sole objective is brute-force disruption: overwhelming a target web server, network, or IP address with a massive flood of anomalous traffic, rendering the service unavailable to legitimate users.Infection Vector and Technical Capabilities
Doser tools are often standalone executables downloaded manually by "script kiddies" from hacking forums. However, in an enterprise context, a "Doser" detection often indicates that a corporate endpoint has been silently compromised and conscripted into a larger botnet, tasked with participating in coordinated DDoS attacks against external targets. Upon execution, Doser prioritizes rapid, high-volume network activity:- Traffic Generation: The malware is engineered to generate a massive volume of network packets. This can take various forms depending on the target, including UDP floods, TCP SYN floods (exhausting the server's connection state tables), or HTTP GET/POST floods (exhausting web server application resources).
- Command and Control (Botnet Clients): If the Doser is part of a botnet, it runs silently in the background, maintaining a persistent connection to a C2 server (often via IRC or HTTP). When the botmaster issues a command, the infected machine immediately begins attacking the specified target IP address.
- Resource Exhaustion: The sheer volume of packets generated by a Doser attack often exhausts the outbound bandwidth of the infected host's network, causing secondary disruptions for legitimate users on the same LAN.
Threat Assessment
The presence of Doser malware is a significant security incident. If an internal machine is participating in a DDoS attack, the organization's public IP address will likely be blacklisted by external ISPs and security vendors. Furthermore, the infection indicates a fundamental failure of endpoint security, as a threat actor was able to successfully execute arbitrary code.Incident Response and Remediation
- Immediate Network Isolation: The infected machine must be immediately isolated to halt the outbound flood of malicious traffic and prevent further participation in the DDoS attack.
- Network Traffic Analysis: Responders should analyze firewall and NetFlow logs to identify the specific C2 server the malware was communicating with, and block that infrastructure at the perimeter.
- Endpoint Eradication: Utilize enterprise EDR to terminate the Doser process and remove any associated persistence mechanisms (Run keys, Scheduled Tasks). Because botnet clients are often bundled with info-stealers, a thorough forensic sweep for secondary payloads is mandatory.
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: T1498.001 T1498.002 T1059
Tactical Mitigations
Based on the techniques used by this family, consider the following defensive strategies:
- T1059: Restrict execution of scripting languages such as PowerShell, VBScript, or Python to authorized administrators. Enforce 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_DOSER {
meta:
description = "Detects Doser (trojan)"
author = "SystemHelpdesk Boilerplate Generator"
date = "2026-07-06"
strings:
$s1 = "doser" ascii wide nocase
$s2 = "hacktool.doser" ascii wide nocase
$s3 = "trojan.ddos.doser" ascii wide nocase
$s4 = "win32/doser" ascii wide nocase
condition:
uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}Sigma Rule
title: Suspicious Doser Activity
id: f451c8c403df898551bea67acb01d234
status: experimental
description: Detects generic indicators of the doser malware family.
logsource:
category: process_creation
product: windows
detection:
selection:
Image|endswith:
- '\cmd.exe'
- '\powershell.exe'
CommandLine|contains:
- "*doser*"
- "*hacktool.doser*"
- "*trojan.ddos.doser*"
- "*win32/doser*"
condition: selection
level: mediumReferences & External Analysis
- Search "doser" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I remove the Doser Trojan from Windows?
Manual removal of Doser 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 Doser a virus or a Trojan?
Doser is classified as a Trojan. Unlike traditional viruses that infect files, modern malware like Doser typically operates as a standalone payload designed to compromise systems, steal data, or deploy secondary stage implants.
What are the main symptoms of a Doser infection?
Symptoms of Doser 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: trojan)
Explore other malware families in the same category:
Protect Your Network Against Trojans
Want to prevent Doser and similar threats from compromising your organization? Read our comprehensive defensive guide: Banking Trojan Protection.
Machine-readable
Get this profile as JSON: https://jordanricky1604-ship-it.github.io/malware-families-catalog/api/doser.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.