Snojan

Category: trojan_generic · Aliases: None known · Sample count (EMBER 2018): 324 · Enrichment: expert-seo · Updated: 2026-06-09

Overview

Backdoor:Win32/Snojan is a stealthy, highly evasive Remote Access Trojan (RAT) engineered to provide attackers with persistent, interactive control over compromised endpoints.

What is Snojan?
For the victim, Snojan operates entirely in the background, providing zero visual indicators. For threat intelligence analysts, Snojan represents a capable, mid-tier backdoor frequently utilized in corporate espionage and data theft campaigns. It is designed to bypass initial security controls, harvest system information, and establish a covert Command-and-Control (C2) channel.

Infection Vectors & Threat Hunting
Snojan is typically delivered via spearphishing campaigns containing malicious attachments or dropped as a secondary payload by exploit kits. Upon execution, it utilizes heavy packing and obfuscation to evade static antivirus signatures. It drops a randomized executable into the %AppData% or %SystemRoot% directories. Persistence is achieved by creating a hidden scheduled task or modifying the Registry Run keys. Snojan frequently injects its core modules into legitimate system processes (like svchost.exe) to mask its outbound network traffic.

Forensic Analysis & Impact
Threat hunters should investigate EDR alerts for 'Suspicious Process Injection' or 'Anomalous Child Process Spawning'. Network logs will often reveal Snojan reaching out to compromised domains using encrypted HTTP/HTTPS traffic. The presence of unexpected, hidden scheduled tasks designed to execute randomly named binaries in the user's profile is a strong IoC. Memory analysis is crucial to extract the injected modules and identify the specific C2 infrastructure.

MITRE ATT&CK Techniques

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

TechniqueNameTactic
T1055Process InjectionDefense Evasion
T1105Ingress Tool TransferCommand and Control
T1547.001Boot or Logon Autostart Execution: Registry Run Keys / Startup FolderPersistence
T1053.005Scheduled Task/Job: Scheduled TaskPersistence
T1027Obfuscated Files or InformationDefense Evasion

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

Sigma Rule

title: Suspicious Snojan Activity
id: f2311bb480e1deb4712d065cafb577ca
status: experimental
description: Detects generic indicators of the snojan malware family.
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection:
        Image|endswith:
            - '\cmd.exe'
            - '\powershell.exe'
        CommandLine|contains:
            - "*snojan*"
    condition: selection
level: medium

Containment & Response Steps

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

  1. Instantly isolate the endpoint from the network to sever the attacker's interactive, remote-control session.
  2. Capture a full forensic memory image of the machine to extract the decrypted Snojan payload and its C2 configuration.
  3. Audit the Windows Task Scheduler and Registry Run keys to identify and remove the Snojan persistence mechanisms.
  4. Assume total endpoint compromise; perform a clean OS rebuild and force password resets for all accounts that accessed the machine.

What to Avoid

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

  1. Do not leave the machine connected to the network during triage; the attacker has live access and will likely destroy evidence or move laterally.
  2. Avoid relying solely on manual file deletion, as the injected processes will likely just recreate the dropped binaries.

References & External Analysis

Related Families (Category: trojan_generic)

Explore other malware families in the same category:

Need help with an active incident? Published by the SystemHelpdesk team.

Machine-readable

Get this profile as JSON: https://jordanricky1604-ship-it.github.io/malware-families-catalog/api/snojan.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, Replit, StackBlitz, CodeSandbox, and CodePen.