HOMETHREATSTEARDROP
MALWARE FAMILY

TEARDROP

Internal ID: win.teardrop
1
aliases
Last seen:Mar 17, 2026

Intelligence Profile

TEARDROP is a memory only dropper that runs as a service, spawns a thread and reads from the file “gracious_truth.jpg”, which likely has a fake JPG header. Next it checks that HKU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CTF exists, decodes an embedded payload using a custom rolling XOR algorithm and manually loads into memory an embedded payload using a custom PE-like file format. TEARDROP does not have code overlap with any previously seen malware. FireEye believe that this was used to execute a customized Cobalt Strike BEACON.

Threat Analysis

TEARDROP 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

Quick Facts

TypeMalware Family
Aliases1

Also Known As

win.teardrop

Research Links

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