Nick Biasini and Edmund Brumaghin authored this blog post with contributions from Andrew Williams.
Malware loaders are playing an increasingly important role in malware distribution. They give adversaries the ability to gain an initial foothold on a system and are typically used to deliver various malware payloads following successful compromise. These attacks are popping up more frequently, as we covered in July with Smoke Loader and Brushaloader earlier this year. Loaders allow attackers to decide which malware to drop based on how they feel they can best monetize the access they gained. While malware loaders are commonly seen with email-based threats, they have also been prevalent within the exploit kit landscape for years. Recently, Cisco Talos observed an increase in loader activity being used to deliver various malware to systems located in various European countries.
Specifically, we