MALWARE FAMILY

Pikabot

Internal ID: win.pikabot

aliases

Last seen:Mar 17, 2026

Intelligence Profile

Introducing Pikabot, an emerging malware family that comprises a downloader/installer, a loader, and a core backdoor component. Despite being in the early stages of development, it already demonstrates advanced techniques in evasion, injection, and anti-analysis. Notably, the loader component incorporates an array of sophisticated anti-debugging and anti-VM measures inspired by the open-source Al-Khaser project, while leveraging steganography to conceal its payload. Additionally, Pikabot utilizes a proprietary C2 framework and supports a diverse range of commands, encompassing host enumeration and advanced secondary payload injection options.

Threat Analysis

Pikabot 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://blog.cyber5w.com/2024/02/25/pikabotloader/

→https://blog.cyber5w.com/malware%20analysis/PikabotLoader/

→https://blog.krakz.fr/notes/syswhispers2/

→https://blog.pulsedive.com/pikabot/

→https://blog.securityonion.net/2023/09/quick-malware-analysis-pikabot.html

→https://blog.sekoia.io/exposing-fakebat-loader-distribution-methods-and-adversary-infrastructure/

→https://blog.sekoia.io/pikabot-a-guide-to-its-deep-secrets-and-operations/

→https://cofense.com/blog/are-darkgate-and-pikabot-the-new-qakbot/

→https://d01a.github.io/pikabot/

→https://github.com/VenzoV/MalwareAnalysisReports/blob/main/Pikabot/Pikabot%20Loader.md

Quick Facts

TypeMalware Family

Aliases1

Also Known As

win.pikabot

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.

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