Snake

Overview

Rootkit:Win32/Snake (also known as Turla, Uroburos, or Epic Turla) is an exceptionally sophisticated, highly modular rootkit and cyber-espionage framework attributed to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). Active for over a decade, Snake is designed for long-term, completely stealthy intelligence gathering against prime targets, including foreign governments, defense contractors, and diplomatic entities. It represents the pinnacle of state-sponsored malware engineering (`T1014`).

Understanding Snake (Turla APT Rootkit)
To an end-user, a Snake infection is entirely undetectable. For a sophisticated SOC or national CERT, detecting Snake is a 'Code Red' national security incident. Snake's defining characteristic is its incredibly complex architecture, designed to survive forensic analysis, evade all standard EDR tools, and maintain covert communications via a custom peer-to-peer (P2P) network.

Execution and Extreme Evasion Mechanics
Initial access is typically achieved via highly targeted spearphishing, watering hole attacks, or exploitation of zero-day vulnerabilities. Once executed, Snake drops a kernel-mode driver (`T1014`). This driver heavily hooks deep operating system APIs (NDIS, file system drivers) to completely hide its files, registry keys, and network connections from user-mode monitoring tools. Snake does not rely on traditional C2 beaconing. Instead, it builds a covert P2P network among compromised machines (`T1090.003`). It can intercept HTTP traffic, inject its encrypted payloads into legitimate web requests, or use custom protocols to pass commands and exfiltrated data stealthily across the network until it reaches an internet-facing node.

Indicators of Compromise & Impact
The impact is the devastating, long-term compromise of highly classified intelligence. Host-based IoCs are extremely difficult to detect; standard AV will fail. Detection requires advanced memory forensics (analyzing kernel memory for unlinked processes or inline hooks) and the identification of anomalous drivers (often loaded by exploiting vulnerable, signed legacy drivers - 'Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver'). Network IoCs involve identifying the highly obfuscated, custom P2P traffic patterns or the subtle manipulation of legitimate HTTP traffic headers.

MITRE ATT&CK Techniques

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

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_SNAKE {
    meta:
        description = "Detects Snake (advanced_threat)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Boilerplate Generator"
        date = "2026-07-06"
    strings:
        $s1 = "snake" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}

Sigma Rule

title: Suspicious Snake Activity
id: de1b2a7baf7850243db71c4abd4e5a39
status: experimental
description: Detects generic indicators of the snake malware family.
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection:
        Image|endswith:
            - '\cmd.exe'
            - '\powershell.exe'
        CommandLine|contains:
            - "*snake*"
    condition: selection
level: medium

Containment & Response Steps

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

1. DO NOT immediately reboot or wipe the machine. Isolate it physically from the network and perform a full, live kernel-level memory capture for forensic analysis.
2. Assume the entire enterprise network is compromised; Snake utilizes lateral movement and P2P networking to establish multiple footholds.
3. Engage top-tier incident response firms and relevant national cybersecurity authorities (e.g., CISA, NCSC), as this is a state-sponsored attack.
4. Analyze the captured memory to extract the decryption keys, the C2 configuration, and the specific modules loaded by the rootkit.

What to Avoid

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

1. Do not rely on standard antivirus or EDR to detect or remediate Snake; its kernel-mode hooks will simply lie to the security tools.
2. Avoid discussing the incident on the compromised network; the attackers likely have full visibility and will destroy evidence if they detect discovery.

References & External Analysis

• Search "snake" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Families (Category: advanced_threat)

Explore other malware families in the same category:

• Safeterra
• Chromepass
• Drmsoft
• Unigo
• Clickmein

Machine-readable

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