Gaofenquming

Overview

Executive Summary

Infection Vector and Technical Behavior

• Browser Hijacking: It forcibly alters the default homepage, new tab page, and default search engine across all major web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Internet Explorer). The new settings redirect all queries to a customized search portal controlled by the adware operators.
• Registry Persistence: The adware establishes persistence by modifying the Windows Registry (e.g., `HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main`) to ensure its preferred homepage is reinstated even if the user attempts to manually change it back.
• Ad Injection: Gaofenquming injects JavaScript into active browsing sessions, displaying persistent pop-up ads, banners, and sponsored search results that are often highly deceptive or malicious in nature.

Privacy and Security Risks

Remediation Guidelines

• Extension Audit: Manually inspect and remove any unknown or unauthorized extensions from all installed web browsers.
• Complete Browser Reset: Perform a factory reset of the affected web browsers to clear the hijacked search engine configurations and homepage settings.
• Malware Scanning: Utilize a reputable EPP/anti-malware solution to perform a deep system scan to remove the underlying executable files, hidden scheduled tasks, and persistent registry keys associated with Gaofenquming.

Known aliases

Threat reports may refer to this family under multiple names:

• Adware.Gaofenquming
• Hijacker.Gaofenquming
• PUP.Gaofenquming

MITRE ATT&CK Techniques

This family has been observed using the following ATT&CK techniques: T1566.002 T1176 T1112

Tactical Mitigations

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

• T1566.002: Inspect email links for known malicious domains and use link-rewriting services for time-of-click analysis.

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_GAOFENQUMING {
    meta:
        description = "Detects Gaofenquming (advanced_threat)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Boilerplate Generator"
        date = "2026-07-06"
    strings:
        $s1 = "gaofenquming" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "adware.gaofenquming" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "hijacker.gaofenquming" ascii wide nocase
        $s4 = "pup.gaofenquming" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}

Sigma Rule

title: Suspicious Gaofenquming Activity
id: 790dd123c91845096a9a851a14195053
status: experimental
description: Detects generic indicators of the gaofenquming malware family.
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection:
        Image|endswith:
            - '\cmd.exe'
            - '\powershell.exe'
        CommandLine|contains:
            - "*gaofenquming*"
            - "*adware.gaofenquming*"
            - "*hijacker.gaofenquming*"
            - "*pup.gaofenquming*"
    condition: selection
level: medium

References & External Analysis

• Search "gaofenquming" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Families (Category: advanced_threat)

Explore other malware families in the same category:

• Zylom
• Lightlogger
• Aauto
• Sillysharecopy
• Rustock

Machine-readable

Get this profile as JSON: https://jordanricky1604-ship-it.github.io/malware-families-catalog/api/gaofenquming.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.