Goldun
Overview
Executive Summary
Goldun is a specialized banking trojan and information stealer designed to compromise user accounts across various financial institutions, e-currency platforms, and cryptocurrency exchanges. Operating primarily as a highly stealthy credential harvester, Goldun prioritizes the theft of login data, two-factor authentication (2FA) tokens, and session cookies to facilitate immediate and unauthorized financial transactions.Infection Vector and Technical Capabilities
Goldun is typically distributed through targeted spear-phishing campaigns masquerading as financial alerts, or deployed silently by exploit kits hosted on compromised websites. It is also frequently dropped as a secondary payload by other prevalent trojans. Once active, Goldun employs precise, financially-motivated data harvesting techniques:- Man-in-the-Browser (MitB): Advanced variants of Goldun inject malicious code directly into web browsers (API hooking) to intercept data before it is encrypted via HTTPS. This allows the attacker to capture banking passwords and PINs in plaintext.
- Web Injects: It can dynamically alter the HTML of legitimate banking websites displayed to the victim, prompting them to enter additional sensitive information (like ATM PINs, Social Security numbers, or answers to security questions) which is then exfiltrated.
- Credential Store Extraction: The trojan systematically extracts saved passwords, cookies, and session tokens directly from the local credential stores of popular web browsers.
Threat Assessment
A Goldun infection is a critical security incident prioritizing immediate financial fraud. The theft of session cookies and 2FA tokens can allow attackers to bypass standard security measures and drain corporate or personal bank accounts directly.Incident Response and Remediation
- Immediate Network Isolation: The highest priority is to isolate the endpoint to halt the active exfiltration of captured credentials and network traffic logs.
- Immediate Financial Notification: Contact associated financial institutions immediately to freeze accounts and monitor for unauthorized transactions.
- Global Credential Reset: A mandatory, global reset of all associated credentials (including MFA tokens) is absolutely required.
- Complete Re-imaging: Due to the deep system hooking required for Man-in-the-Browser attacks, the endpoint must undergo a complete bare-metal wipe and re-image from a trusted baseline.
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: T1056.004 T1552.001 T1114
Tactical Mitigations
Based on the techniques used by this family, consider the following defensive strategies:
- T1056.004: Monitor for unauthorized keylogging, screen capturing, or web browser API hooking. Deploy EDR to detect API hooking.
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_GOLDUN {
meta:
description = "Detects Goldun (trojan)"
author = "SystemHelpdesk Boilerplate Generator"
date = "2026-07-06"
strings:
$s1 = "goldun" ascii wide nocase
$s2 = "trojan.goldun" ascii wide nocase
$s3 = "banker.goldun" ascii wide nocase
$s4 = "win32/spy.goldun" ascii wide nocase
condition:
uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}Sigma Rule
title: Suspicious Goldun Activity
id: 6ffe7fa2868cd289355d73518aeebe29
status: experimental
description: Detects generic indicators of the goldun malware family.
logsource:
category: process_creation
product: windows
detection:
selection:
Image|endswith:
- '\cmd.exe'
- '\powershell.exe'
CommandLine|contains:
- "*goldun*"
- "*trojan.goldun*"
- "*banker.goldun*"
- "*win32/spy.goldun*"
condition: selection
level: mediumReferences & External Analysis
- Search "goldun" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I remove the Goldun Trojan from Windows?
Manual removal of Goldun 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 Goldun a virus or a Trojan?
Goldun is classified as a Trojan. Unlike traditional viruses that infect files, modern malware like Goldun typically operates as a standalone payload designed to compromise systems, steal data, or deploy secondary stage implants.
What are the main symptoms of a Goldun infection?
Symptoms of Goldun 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 Goldun 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/goldun.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.