File verdict·Decided by the MT AI Engine
Our call

Suspicious

Unsigned installer showing process injection, credential dumping and direct-IP C2 despite only one low-trust detection.

Trust score45Caution
ClassicPaint-1.1-setup.exe
4.6 MB
2e4c7957b5230117310b6efc1644
Antivirus engines
1 of 73 flagged
Code signing
Unsigned
Age
First seen 4y ago
MT AI Engine · our arbiter

The verdict, reasoned out.

Not a rules engine. The MT AI Engine reads every signal we collected, weighs them against history, and commits to an answer.

65%Confidence
High
Reasoning

The engine profile is a textbook low-trust-only false-positive pattern, yet the sandbox captured genuine offensive techniques and direct-IP C2 that are rarely seen in legitimate commodity software. Similar imphash files have received both safe and suspicious verdicts, and the file remains unsigned with no trusted publisher history. The combination of high-severity heuristics and behavioural red flags outweighs the clean tier-1 majority, placing the sample in the suspicious band.

Key signals · 5

Each signal cites a concrete token from the evidence the arbiter saw — engine name, MITRE technique, signer string, or an exact count.

  1. engines: 1/69 malicious (APEX low_trust only), 17 tier-1 clean, onlyLowTrustFlagging=true

  2. behaviour.offensiveTechniques: T1055, T1003, T1485, T1543.003 and direct-IP C2 (20 IPs, 0 domains)

  3. prevalence.classification=common_old (2210 submitters), filenameAnalysis.hasInstallerHint=true, unsigned

  4. similarHashes[1].verdict=safe (matchKind=imphash, reasonCode=ai:prevalent_commodity_software)

  5. triggeredHeuristics: MalwareTips.Synth.ProcessInjection (high), DirectIpC2 (medium)

Points in its favour
  • 17 tier-1 engines clean
  • Common_old prevalence (2210 submitters)
  • No malicious dropped children
  • No known-malicious contacted hosts
Points against
  • Unsigned executable
  • Process injection (T1055) observed
  • Credential dumping (T1003) mapped
  • Direct-IP C2 to 20 addresses, zero domains
  • Data destruction technique (T1485)
What to do

Treat as suspicious; avoid execution until additional verification or a signed version is obtained.

Sources disagree

1 contradiction resolved by the scoring engine

Only low-trust / heuristic engines flagged this file
1 engine from the heuristic / generic-AI set flagged it. No tier-1 engine agreed.
Detection weight reduced in scoring.
Runtime behaviour

What this file did when executed

This file was detonated in 1 sandbox and its runtime behaviour was observed.

MITRE ATT&CK
37

Adversary techniques mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

T1003T1005T1012T1027T1027.002T1033T1036T1046T1055T1057T1059T1070T1071T1082T1083T1095T1129T1134T1140T1485T1497T1497.001T1529T1539+13 more
Spawned processes
15
$(unnamed)
"C:\Users\<USER>\Desktop\file.exe"
$(unnamed)
"C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\is-TNV4E.tmp\file.tmp" /SL5="$50026,3888726,886784,C:\Users\<USER>\Desktop\file.exe"
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\Explorer.EXE
$(unnamed)
"C:\Program Files\Classic Paint\mspaint1.exe"
$(unnamed)
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" --single-argument https://winaero.com/windows-10-classic-paint-for-windows-11/?utm_source=software&utm_medium=in-app&utm_campaign=classicpaint&utm_content=learnmorelink
$(unnamed)
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" --single-argument https://winaero.com/winaero-tweaker/?utm_source=software&utm_medium=in-app&utm_campaign=classicpaint&utm_content=learnmoretweakerlink
$(unnamed)
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" --single-argument https://winaero.com/?utm_source=software&utm_medium=in-app&utm_campaign=classicpaint&utm_content=visitwinaerolink
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\system32\services.exe
+7 more processes captured.
Network activity
21
IP addresses20
  • 13.107.246.38
  • 68.183.112.81
  • 13.107.6.158
  • 192.0.77.48
  • 142.250.152.94
  • 173.194.194.132
  • 74.125.69.149
  • 142.250.152.132
  • 192.178.129.154
  • 104.18.26.193
+10 more
URLs1
  • http://crt.sectigo.com/SectigoPublicServerAuthenticationCAOVE36.crt
Filesystem & mutexes
40
Files written15
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\is-TNV4E.tmp\file.tmp
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\is-IVDL0.tmp\_isetup\_setup64.tmp
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\is-IVDL0.tmp\_isetup\_iscrypt.dll
  • C:\Program Files\Classic Paint\mspaint1.exe
  • C:\Program Files\Classic Paint\unins000.dat
+10 more
Files deleted15
  • C:\Program Files\Classic Paint\is-L5SHT.tmp
  • C:\Program Files\Classic Paint\is-BICEN.tmp
  • C:\Program Files\Classic Paint\mspaint1.exe
  • C:\Program Files\Classic Paint\is-A1URV.tmp
  • C:\Program Files\Classic Paint\en-US\is-VAHGH.tmp
+10 more
Mutexes created10
  • cversions.3.m
  • Local\SessionImmersiveColorMutex
  • Global\WIATRACE_MUTEX
  • Global\OneSettingQueryMutex+compat+encapsulation
  • Local\RstrMgr3887CAB8-533F-4C85-B0DC-3E5639F8D511
+5 more
Dropped payload

Files this sample writes at runtime

This file drops 10 children at runtime. None are currently flagged malicious in our cache.

10 unseen
  • 5e1dc47c4f343b9b5d9acc8151Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 602b43ef7df5db9797a558ac80Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 8cb833520093a7dbbe7e82377fNever scanned
    never seen before
  • 9624fc5fec690c911467e4ceb6Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 388a796580234efc95f3136f95Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 589df6c42bf4019051cffc6944Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 7b4d6761839cea9f5fc5cf1849Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 2f6294f9aa09f59a574ba0f8fcNever scanned
    never seen before
  • 2993cf6d89ef1ab63946b1beefNever scanned
    never seen before
  • 5f847d2e00d0eb9b8690a893e5Never scanned
    never seen before
No researcher-database hits
External threat-intel sources were not collected for this scan.
Signature matches

YARA + heuristic rules that fired

A researcher-curated or high-severity heuristic rule matched this sample. These rules target specific malware families and are near-definitive.

3 synthesis
MITRE ATT&CK profile
Defense evasion× 1Cred access× 1C2× 1
MalwareTips synthesis rules
Our heuristics on VT data + sandbox behaviour
  • ProcessInjectionhigh

    MITRE T1055 (Process Injection) observed — CreateRemoteThread / APC / reflective-DLL injection. The payload is being smuggled into a legitimate process to bypass AV hooks.

    Evidence
    C:\Windows\Explorer.EXE
  • CredentialDumpermedium

    MITRE T1003 (OS Credential Dumping) mapped by at least one sandbox run.

  • DirectIpC2medium

    Sample contacted 20 external IP address(es) and zero domains. Benign software virtually always uses DNS; no-DNS direct-IP C2 is a strong malware indicator because it bypasses reputation systems and dodges domain-based blocklists.

    Evidence
    13.107.246.38 · 68.183.112.81 · 13.107.6.158
Antivirus engine breakdown

1 detection across 73 engines

1 malicious0 suspicious72 clean
Tier-117 engines
0flag
Top commercial AVs (low FP rate)
Tier-240 engines
0flag
Mainstream engines with mixed FP rates
Low-trust16 engines
1flag
Heuristic / generic-AI engines (high FP rate)
APEX
malicious
Malicious
Hash 2e4c7957b523… cross-referenced against 73 AV engines via our AV network.
PE forensics

Section entropy & packers

Section-level entropy and packer detection from the PE header. Nothing suspicious here — entropy is within the normal range for unpacked code.

ent 8.00Unpacked
Section entropy10 sections
.text
6.36
.itext
5.97
.data
5.05
.bss
0.00
.idata
5.03
.didata
2.75
.edata
1.88
.tls
0.00
.rdata
1.38
.rsrc
6.72
0.0Packed threshold 7.28.0
Prevalence

How often this file shows up in the wild

Widely seen in the wild for a long time. High prior this is legitimate; isolated detections on common-old files are usually false positives.

Common & old
Unique uploaders
2,210
Hundreds of people have uploaded this — common.
Total submissions
2,642
Includes repeat uploads by the same source.
First seen by VT
4y ago
Dec 8, 2022
Prevalence quadrant
Rare · New
Targeted malware lives here
Common · New
Just-released software
Rare · Old
Niche or internal tooling
here
Common · Old
Trusted legitimate binaries
File identity

Forensic fingerprint

File biography
First seen (VT)
12/8/2022, 7:51:50 AM
First seen (MalwareBazaar)
Last analysis (VT)
7/9/2026, 2:30:21 AM
Scanned here
7/9/2026, 5:17:12 AM
File name
ClassicPaint-1.1-setup.exe
Size
4.58 MB
MIME type
(unknown)
Detected type
Win32 EXE
SHA-256
2e4c7957b5230117313dc1aad4c5a71777025ec5476b022a591f930b6efc1644
MD5
a71fe518803220831fd9291032b70fed
SHA-1
c6340ecd5d566c7372b4f4e4dd709e0b3ae5c011
PE imphash
e569e6f445d32ba23766ad67d1e3787f
First seen (VT)
12/8/2022, 7:51:50 AM
Last analysis (VT)
7/9/2026, 2:30:21 AM
First scan (MalwareTips)
7/9/2026, 5:17:12 AM
Last scan (MalwareTips)
7/9/2026, 5:17:12 AM
Behavior tags
runtime-modulesoverlaydetect-debug-environmentpeexedirect-cpu-clock-access
Community classification

Reviews & malware reports(0)

Tell the community what you saw. Tag the sample — Trojan, Adware, False Positive — and share what the file did on your system. Your report helps confirm or dispute the AV verdict.

Loading…
Loading reports…
Files are processed in a streaming pass-through — MalwareTips never stores the binary on its servers. Only the scan result (hash, detections, verdict) is retained so the next person who scans the same file gets an instant answer. If you ran this file on your computer and are worried, scan your system with an up-to-date antivirus and change critical passwords from a different device.