MALWARE FAMILY

HijackLoader

Internal ID: win.hijackloader

aliases

Last seen:Mar 17, 2026

Intelligence Profile

According to Rapid7, this is a loader first spotted in July 2023. It implements several evasion techniques including Process Doppelgänging, DLL Search Order Hijacking, and Heaven's Gate. It has been observed to store its malicious payload in the IDAT chunk of PNG file format.

Threat Analysis

HijackLoader is a malware family tracked by threat intelligence researchers and catalogued in the Malpedia dataset. It represents a distinct malicious software lineage with identifiable code characteristics, behaviors, and victimology.

External References

→https://alpine-sec.medium.com/hijackloader-targets-hotels-a-technical-analysis-c2795fc4f3a3

→https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/peaklight-decoding-stealthy-memory-only-malware/

→https://harfanglab.io/insidethelab/hijackloader-abusing-genuine-certificates/

→https://resource.redcanary.com/rs/003-YRU-314/images/2025ThreatDetectionReport_RedCanary.pdf

→https://securelist.com/tusk-infostealers-campaign/113367/

→https://web.archive.org/web/20231219110155/https://yoroi.company/en/research/innovation-in-cyber-intrusions-the-evolution-of-ta544/

→https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/hijackloader-expands-techniques/

→https://www.elastic.co/security-labs/a-wretch-client

→https://www.elastic.co/security-labs/ghostpulse-haunts-victims-using-defense-evasion-bag-o-tricks

→https://www.elastic.co/security-labs/tricks-and-treats

Quick Facts

TypeMalware Family

Aliases1

Also Known As

win.hijackloader

Research Links

MITRE ATT&CK VirusTotal Google (news) Twitter/X search

Data sourced from Malpedia, Ransomware.live, RansomLook, and CTIWATCH OSINT collection. Actor attribution is based on available intelligence and may be incomplete.

← All Threat Actors·Geopolitics Map·Search HijackLoader