File verdict·Decided by the MT AI Engine
Our call

Suspicious

Unsigned RustDesk remote desktop executable triggers process injection and direct IP contact heuristics despite low antivirus detections and clean runtime verdicts.

Trust score55Caution
MT AI confidence · 75%
rustdesk.exe
23.0 MB
59e9e842608536f103763689f95c
Antivirus engines
4 of 76 flagged
Code signing
Unsigned
Age
First seen 5mo 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.

75%Confidence
High
Reasoning

Low engine hits (1 tier1 generic) paired with high-severity synthesis heuristics on injection and C2-like IP contacts raise concerns for an unsigned remote access tool. RustDesk is a known legitimate product, and behaviors align with self-extraction/installation (Flutter DLLs, AppData drop). Clean sandbox, no malicious children/hosts, and perf mutexes counter pure malware intent. Medium prevalence supports commodity software over targeted threat. Overall mixed signals warrant suspicion without full malicious confirmation.

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. DrWeb (tier1) detects Trojan.Siggen32.18113

  2. MalwareTips.Synth.ProcessInjection fired high severity with evidence svchost.exe

  3. contactedIps includes 209.250.254.15, 49.12.46.241 (direct IP contacts, no domains)

  4. communityComments THOR: SUSP_Unsigned_RuskDesk_Remote_Desktop_Nov25

  5. fileName 'rustdesk.exe' + tags detect-debug-environment, executes-dropped-file

Points in its favour
  • Low AV ratio (4/72, mostly generic heuristics)
  • 16 tier1 engines clean (e.g., Kaspersky, ESET)
  • Filename matches legitimate RustDesk remote tool
  • No malicious sandbox/child/host verdicts
  • Perf mutexes suggest benign querying
Points against
  • Unsigned executable
  • Process injection heuristic (T1055, svchost.exe)
  • LSASS access (even if perf-related)
  • Direct IP contacts bypassing DNS (Synth.DirectIpC2)
  • Anti-analysis (detect-debug-environment)
  • Self-drops and executes files
What to do

Treat as potentially unwanted; download official signed RustDesk from rustdesk.com if needed. Delete and scan system if obtained from untrusted source.

Runtime behaviour

What this file did when executed

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

MITRE ATT&CK
17

Adversary techniques mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

T1027T1027.002T1036T1055T1056T1059T1071T1082T1083T1106T1129T1202T1486T1497.001T1562.001T1564T1564.003
Spawned processes
15
$(unnamed)
"C:\Users\<USER>\Desktop\rustdesk-1.4.5-x86_64.exe"
$(unnamed)
"taskkill" /F /IM RuntimeBroker_rustdesk.exe
$(unnamed)
"C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\rustdesk\.\rustdesk.exe"
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\system32\services.exe
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\System32\svchost.exe -k NetworkService -p
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k UnistackSvcGroup
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\System32\svchost.exe -k LocalSystemNetworkRestricted -p -s StorSvc
+7 more processes captured.
Network activity
4
IP addresses4
  • 209.250.254.15
  • 49.12.46.241
  • 224.0.0.251
  • 8.8.8.8
Filesystem & mutexes
34
Files written15
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\rustdesk\desktop_drop_plugin.dll
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\rustdesk\desktop_multi_window_plugin.dll
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\rustdesk\dylib_virtual_display.dll
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\rustdesk\file_selector_windows_plugin.dll
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\rustdesk\flutter_custom_cursor_plugin.dll
+10 more
Files deleted9
  • %TEMP%\nwga122.tmp
  • %APPDATA%\rustdesk\config\rustdesk2.2904_threadid(20)_1768066639677635900
  • %APPDATA%\rustdesk\config\rustdesk_local.2904_threadid(34)_1768066644197019800
  • %APPDATA%\rustdesk\config\rustdesk.2904_threadid(11)_1768066642439700900
  • %APPDATA%\rustdesk\config\rustdesk_hwcodec.2904_threadid(15)_1768066641843475000
+4 more
Mutexes created10
  • \Sessions\1\BaseNamedObjects\Lsa_Perf_Library_Lock_PID_b58
  • \Sessions\1\BaseNamedObjects\PerfNet_Perf_Library_Lock_PID_b58
  • \Sessions\1\BaseNamedObjects\.NETFramework_Perf_Library_Lock_PID_b58
  • \Sessions\1\BaseNamedObjects\PerfDisk_Perf_Library_Lock_PID_b58
  • \Sessions\1\BaseNamedObjects\UGTHRSVC_Perf_Library_Lock_PID_b58
+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
  • 52393a53c147ab7e1900faa698Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 74b3152a28d4f1a4fff489ff70Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 140aec3067d58ff56356a8f041Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 58289da261d1913b136de90448Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 3feb445086c26cc0db51e61522Never scanned
    never seen before
  • b8520bb03972570211994f87c0Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 4d6ecc2b4557138257605b3488Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 114b57c05ad15aa9f3e124b754Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 76eecafc726720f274c6c3bcc8Never scanned
    never seen before
  • 435a7f4cf6e2fb449ac3287d54Never 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\System32\svchost.exe -k NetworkService -p
  • CredentialDumpermedium

    Sandbox observed process activity targeting LSASS (Windows credential store). Legitimate software has no business reading LSASS memory — this is Mimikatz-shape behaviour.

    Evidence
    C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe
  • DirectIpC2medium

    Sample contacted 3 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
    209.250.254.15 · 49.12.46.241 · 8.8.8.8
Antivirus engine breakdown

4 detections across 76 engines

4 malicious0 suspicious72 clean
Tier-117 engines
1flag
Top commercial AVs (low FP rate)
Tier-238 engines
2flag
Mainstream engines with mixed FP rates
Low-trust21 engines
1flag
Heuristic / generic-AI engines (high FP rate)
Bkav
malicious
W64.AIDetectMalware
DrWeb
malicious
Trojan.Siggen32.18113
Skyhigh
malicious
Artemis
TrellixENS
malicious
Artemis!83F669D202C3
Hash 59e9e8426085… cross-referenced against 76 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.

Unpacked
Section entropy7 sections
.text
6.43
.rdata
8.00
.data
2.04
.pdata
5.85
.fptable
0.00
.rsrc
2.64
.reloc
5.31
0.0Packed threshold 7.28.0
Prevalence

How often this file shows up in the wild

Moderate prevalence — neither rare nor common. No strong prior applies.

Medium
Unique uploaders
33
Moderate upload volume.
Total submissions
45
Includes repeat uploads by the same source.
First seen by VT
5mo ago
Jan 8, 2026
Prevalence quadrant
Rare · New
Targeted malware lives here
Common · New
Just-released software
Rare · Old
Niche or internal tooling
Common · Old
Trusted legitimate binaries
File identity

Forensic fingerprint

File biography
First seen (VT)
1/8/2026, 10:59:20 PM
First seen (MalwareBazaar)
Last analysis (VT)
4/3/2026, 9:48:55 AM
Scanned here
4/24/2026, 1:27:34 AM
File name
rustdesk.exe
Size
23.02 MB
MIME type
(unknown)
Detected type
Win32 EXE
SHA-256
59e9e842608536f1037bd03d90b0bbb666a26a792882cc0402275d763689f95c
MD5
83f669d202c3aa097aadeccd36791b13
SHA-1
8c0aae1dbddf12aef03ded5bd36b11638138e744
PE imphash
1728f5830d9188240379efd54db72133
First seen (VT)
1/8/2026, 10:59:20 PM
Last analysis (VT)
4/3/2026, 9:48:55 AM
First scan (MalwareTips)
4/21/2026, 2:14:50 PM
Last scan (MalwareTips)
4/24/2026, 1:27:34 AM
Behavior tags
peexe64bitsdetect-debug-environmentexecutes-dropped-filechecks-user-input
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.

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Scanned by
harlan4096Staff
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.