The menace actors generally known as Golden Chickens have been attributed to 2 new malware households dubbed TerraStealerV2 and TerraLogger, suggesting continued improvement efforts to fine-tune and diversify their arsenal.
“TerraStealerV2 is designed to gather browser credentials, cryptocurrency pockets information, and browser extension info,” Recorded Future Insikt Group stated. “TerraLogger, in contrast, is a standalone keylogger. It makes use of a typical low-level keyboard hook to file keystrokes and writes the logs to native recordsdata.”
Golden Chickens, also called Venom Spider, is the identify given to a financially motivated menace actor linked to a infamous malware household referred to as More_eggs. It is recognized to be lively since at the very least 2018, providing its warez below a malware-as-a-service (MaaS) mannequin.
As of 2023, Golden Chickens has been attributed to a web based persona generally known as badbullzvenom, an account that is believed to be operated collectively by people from Canada and Romania. Among the different malicious instruments developed by the e-crime group embrace More_eggs lite (oka lite_more_eggs), VenomLNK, TerraLoader, and TerraCrypt.
Late final 12 months, Zscaler ThreatLabz detailed new Golden Chickens-related exercise involving a backdoor referred to as RevC2 and a loader known as Venom Loader, each of that are delivered through a VenomLNK.
The most recent findings from Recorded Future present that the menace actors are persevering with to work on their choices, releasing an up to date model of their stealer malware that is able to harvesting information from browsers, cryptocurrency wallets, and browser extensions.
TerraStealerV2 has been distributed through numerous codecs, equivalent to executable recordsdata (EXEs), dynamic-link libraries (DLLs), Home windows Installer packages (MSI), and shortcut (LNK) recordsdata.
In all these instances, the stealer payload is delivered within the type of an OCX (quick for Microsoft’s OLE Management Extension) payload that is retrieved from an exterior area (“wetransfers[.]io”).
“Whereas it targets the Chrome ‘Login Knowledge’ database to steal credentials, it doesn’t bypass Software Certain Encryption (ABE) protections launched in Chrome updates after July 2024, indicating the malware code is outdated or nonetheless below improvement,” the cybersecurity firm stated.
The info captured by TerraStealerV2 is exfiltrated to each Telegram and the area “wetransfers[.]io.” It additionally leverages trusted Home windows utilities, equivalent to regsvr32.exe and mshta.exe, to evade detection.
TerraLogger, additionally propagated as an OCX file, is engineered to file keystrokes. Nevertheless, it doesn’t embrace performance for information exfiltration or command-and-control (C2) communication, suggesting it’s both in early improvement or meant for use together with one other malware a part of the Golden Chickens MaaS ecosystem.
“The present state of TerraStealerV2 and TerraLogger means that each instruments stay below lively improvement and don’t but exhibit the extent of stealth usually related to mature Golden Chickens tooling,” Recorded Future stated.
“Given Golden Chickens’ historical past of growing malware for credential theft and entry operations, these capabilities will probably proceed to evolve.”
The disclosure comes amid the emergence of latest stealer malware households like Hannibal Stealer, Gremlin Stealer, and Nullpoint Stealer that are designed to exfiltrate a variety of delicate info from its victims.
It additionally follows the invention of an up to date model of the StealC malware with help for streamlined command-and-control (C2) communication protocol and the addition of RC4 encryption.
“The malware’s payload supply choices have been expanded to incorporate Microsoft Software program Installer (MSI) packages and PowerShell scripts,” Zscaler ThreatLabz stated in a report revealed final week.
“A redesigned management panel gives an built-in builder that allows menace actors to customise payload supply guidelines based mostly on geolocation, {hardware} IDs (HWID), and put in software program. Further options embrace multi-monitor screenshot seize, a unified file grabber, and server-side brute-forcing for credentials.”
The brand new 2.2.4. model (aka StealC V2), launched in March 2025, has been noticed being distributed through one other malware loader referred to as Amadey. The management panel additionally helps Telegram bot integration for sending notifications and permits customization of message codecs.
“StealC V2 introduces enhancements, equivalent to enhanced payload supply, a streamlined communications protocol with encryption, and a redesigned management panel that gives extra focused info assortment,” Zscaler stated.