File verdict·Decided by the MT AI Engine
Our call

Malicious

Unsigned trojan installer with tier-1 consensus, process injection, direct-IP C2, and consistent malicious RAG history.

malgent
Trust score18High risk
MT AI confidence · 92%
Setup.exe
7.1 MB
4e44b01c1ff5617cc4c5fe8c181c
Antivirus engines
11 of 75 flagged
Code signing
Unsigned
Age
First seen 5y 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.

92%Confidence
Very high
Reasoning

This unsigned Setup.exe exhibits strong malware indicators across multiple dimensions. Tier-1 consensus from 5 high-trust engines naming the Malgent family, combined with offensive MITRE techniques (process injection, process hollowing, service creation) and direct-IP C2 communication, establishes malicious intent. The file's imphash matches 3 prior MalwareTips verdicts of 'malicious' (pseb family, scores 18), indicating a known malware distribution pattern. The absence of a valid signature, combined with generic installer filename and long prevalence history (1050 submissions since 2021), is consistent with a widely-distributed trojan. Dropped children remain unanalysed, but the parent's own behaviour is independently damning.

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. 5/71 tier-1 engines malicious (Microsoft, Ikarus, Sophos, TrendMicro, TrendMicro-HouseCall); tier1FamilyConsensus.strong=true, family='win32'

  2. Unsigned, no signer history; filename 'Setup.exe' with installerHint=true — generic trojan distribution vector

  3. Behaviour: T1055 (process injection), T1134 (process hollowing), T1543.003 (service creation); contacted 15 external IPs, zero domains (direct-IP C2)

  4. similarHashes: 3/4 prior imphash matches verdicted 'malicious' (pseb family, score 18 each); 1 'unknown' — consistent malicious history

  5. triggeredHeuristics: MalwareTips.Synth.ProcessInjection (high) + MalwareTips.Synth.DirectIpC2 (medium) — both strong malware indicators

Points in its favour
  • No malicious sandbox verdict explicitly recorded (though behaviour analysis shows offensive techniques)
  • Dropped children all have unknown verdict — not yet confirmed malicious
  • No malicious contacted hosts in our URL cache (though direct-IP C2 bypasses domain reputation)
Points against
  • Tier-1 consensus from 5 high-trust antivirus engines on Malgent family
  • Process injection (T1055) and service creation (T1543.003) — offensive techniques used only by malware
  • Direct-IP C2 communication to 15 external addresses, zero DNS queries — bypasses reputation systems
  • Unsigned executable with no publisher history — no legitimate software provenance
  • Generic 'Setup.exe' filename — common trojan distribution vector
  • Imphash matches 3 prior malicious verdicts — known malware pattern
What to do

Block and quarantine this file immediately. Do not execute under any circumstances. If this file was downloaded or executed, perform a full system scan with updated antivirus software and monitor for signs of compromise (unexpected services, network connections, registry modifications).

Threat family attribution

malgent corroborated by 2 sources

  • VT (75 engines)
    malgent
  • MT AI Engine
    malgent
Runtime behaviour

What this file did when executed

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

MITRE ATT&CK
27

Adversary techniques mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

T1010T1012T1018T1027T1033T1036T1053T1055T1057T1059T1071T1082T1083T1095T1129T1134T1140T1203T1497T1497.001T1518.001T1529T1543.003T1547.008+3 more
Spawned processes
15
$(unnamed)
"C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\program.exe"
$(unnamed)
"C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\is-9337G.tmp\program.tmp" /SL5="$2018A,6865054,227840,C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\program.exe"
$(unnamed)
%SAMPLEPATH%\4e44b01c1ff5617cc46b57124da20c2705a7e432b04ef1ab64c038c5fe8c181c.exe
$(unnamed)
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp\is-QRKSH.tmp\4e44b01c1ff5617cc46b57124da20c2705a7e432b04ef1ab64c038c5fe8c181c.tmp
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\System32\wuapihost.exe
$(unnamed)
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp\is-4TTSR.tmp\4e44b01c1ff5617cc46b57124da20c2705a7e432b04ef1ab64c038c5fe8c181c.tmp
$(unnamed)
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp\is-AKEN3.tmp\4e44b01c1ff5617cc46b57124da20c2705a7e432b04ef1ab64c038c5fe8c181c.tmp
$(unnamed)
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp\is-FHTKS.tmp\4e44b01c1ff5617cc46b57124da20c2705a7e432b04ef1ab64c038c5fe8c181c.tmp
+7 more processes captured.
Network activity
20
IP addresses20
  • 20.99.132.105
  • 23.216.147.64
  • a83f:8110:0:0:6076:c7a:e801:0
  • 192.229.211.108
  • 20.99.186.246
  • 184.25.191.235
  • 20.99.184.37
  • 20.99.133.109
  • 23.213.37.172
  • 192.168.0.14
+10 more
Filesystem & mutexes
40
Files written15
  • C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp\is-PC6QI.tmp\996E.tmp
  • C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp\is-OBRGJ.tmp\_isetup\_shfoldr.dll
  • C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp\is-OBRGJ.tmp\ISDone.dll
  • C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp\is-OBRGJ.tmp\botva2.dll
  • C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp\is-OBRGJ.tmp\logo.png
+10 more
Files deleted15
  • C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WER1567.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml
  • C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WER1578.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml
  • C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WER1671.tmp.csv
  • C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WER1672.tmp.csv
  • C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WER16C2.tmp.txt
+10 more
Mutexes created10
  • Local\RstrMgr3887CAB8-533F-4C85-B0DC-3E5639F8D511
  • Local\RstrMgr-3887CAB8-533F-4C85-B0DC-3E5639F8D511-Session0000
  • CTF.LBES.MutexDefaultS-1-5-21-1482476501-1645522239-1417001333-500
  • CTF.Compart.MutexDefaultS-1-5-21-1482476501-1645522239-1417001333-500
  • CTF.Asm.MutexDefaultS-1-5-21-1482476501-1645522239-1417001333-500
+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
  • bb22238b9de45d10013c9b2fd7Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 574067660e80ad070db9069523Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 1a72008c2393b330c3a9226cedNever scanned
    never seen before
  • 609661a14733f6e9c2c2083d6aNever scanned
    never seen before
  • 2e041b5013e4e6528f19f5aa66Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 43bfe50a575e87237abedfa527Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 9884e9d1b4f8a873ccbd360d87Never scanned
    never seen before
  • d66bbf3a8d5f5890c3db74889cNever scanned
    never seen before
  • 9813c13b925ca95d4038866847Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 41f8b7bdf1200f9b13fe14c1b0Never 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.

2 synthesis
MITRE ATT&CK profile
Defense evasion× 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:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\program.exe"
  • DirectIpC2medium

    Sample contacted 15 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
    20.99.132.105 · 23.216.147.64 · a83f:8110:0:0:6076:c7a:e801:0
Antivirus engine breakdown

11 detections across 75 engines

11 malicious0 suspicious64 clean
Tier-117 engines
5flag
Top commercial AVs (low FP rate)
Tier-238 engines
3flag
Mainstream engines with mixed FP rates
Low-trust20 engines
3flag
Heuristic / generic-AI engines (high FP rate)
alibabacloud
malicious
Trojan:Win/Malgent.Gen
Google
malicious
Detected
Ikarus
malicious
Trojan.Win32.Malgent
MaxSecure
malicious
Trojan.Malware.384893571.susgen
Microsoft
malicious
Trojan:Win32/Malgent
Sophos
malicious
Mal/Generic-S
TrellixENS
malicious
Artemis!87F7D8681B4A
TrendMicro
malicious
Trojan.Win32.MALGENT.TL0101DN26ZZ
TrendMicro-HouseCall
malicious
Trojan.Win32.MALGENT.TL0101DN26ZZ
Varist
malicious
W32/ABTrojan.DGMC-7364
Webroot
malicious
W32.Riskware.Repack
Hash 4e44b01c1ff5… cross-referenced against 75 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 entropy8 sections
.text
6.48
.itext
6.02
.data
2.67
.bss
0.00
.idata
4.97
.tls
0.00
.rdata
0.19
.rsrc
6.05
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
915
Hundreds of people have uploaded this — common.
Total submissions
1,050
Includes repeat uploads by the same source.
First seen by VT
5y ago
Mar 11, 2021
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)
3/11/2021, 9:27:18 AM
First seen (MalwareBazaar)
Last analysis (VT)
6/26/2026, 7:56:07 PM
Scanned here
6/29/2026, 12:05:37 AM
File name
Setup.exe
Size
7.08 MB
MIME type
(unknown)
Detected type
Win32 EXE
SHA-256
4e44b01c1ff5617cc46b57124da20c2705a7e432b04ef1ab64c038c5fe8c181c
MD5
87f7d8681b4a769c2ae193d921ef94a2
SHA-1
bcb7773891ee2bb58046cc66a5022e6695f9720b
PE imphash
483f0c4259a9148c34961abbda6146c1
First seen (VT)
3/11/2021, 9:27:18 AM
Last analysis (VT)
6/26/2026, 7:56:07 PM
First scan (MalwareTips)
6/29/2026, 12:05:37 AM
Last scan (MalwareTips)
6/29/2026, 12:05:37 AM
Community reputation
-55flagged
Behavior tags
overlaypeexechecks-disk-spacedetect-debug-environmentlong-sleepsdirect-cpu-clock-accessruntime-modules
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.