File verdict·Decided by the MT AI Engine
Our call

Safe

Unsigned SDL3.dll library with zero malicious engine detections, normal PE structure, and benign ambient behaviour; DirectIpC2 heuristic triggered by Cloudflare DNS contact.

Trust score82Moderate trust
MT AI confidence · 78%
SDL3.dll
2.6 MB
c8d2e2455061ba913ee4edba732a
Antivirus engines
0 of 75 flagged
Code signing
Unsigned
Age
First seen 2mo 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.

78%Confidence
High
Reasoning

The evidence strongly indicates this is a legitimate open-source library rather than malware. No tier-1 engine consensus for malice exists; tier-1 engines either report clean or timeout. The filename and imphash align with SDL3, a widely-used multimedia library. Behaviour analysis shows zero offensive MITRE techniques and only ambient techniques common in legitimate DLLs. The DirectIpC2 heuristic, while flagged, is explained by contact to Cloudflare's public DNS infrastructure—a benign service, not a hidden C2 server. Medium prevalence across 332 submitters over 62 days is consistent with a legitimate library distributed in development environments. No malicious sandbox verdicts, no malicious dropped children, and no malicious contacted hosts further support a safe classification.

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: 0/49 malicious; tier1Malicious=0; tier1ReportedClean=8 (Avira, F-Secure, Fortinet, Ikarus, ESET-NOD32, Kaspersky, BitDefender, Emsisoft)

  2. signing.verified=false; filename 'SDL3.dll' matches Simple DirectMedia Layer, a legitimate open-source multimedia library

  3. behaviour: 0 offensive MITRE techniques; 4 ambient (T1056, T1218.011, T1497, T1518.001) — standard for DLLs and installers

  4. triggeredHeuristics: DirectIpC2 fired but contacted IP 162.159.36.2 is Cloudflare public DNS, not malicious C2

  5. prevalence: medium (332 submitters, 363 submissions); no malicious sandbox verdicts, no malicious dropped children, no malicious contacted hosts

Points in its favour
  • Zero malicious engine detections across 49 reporting engines
  • 8 tier-1 engines reported clean or timed out (no tier-1 malicious consensus)
  • Normal PE entropy and structure; no packers or high-entropy code sections
  • Zero offensive MITRE techniques; only ambient techniques common in legitimate DLLs
  • Medium prevalence (332 submitters, 363 submissions) consistent with legitimate library distribution
Points against
  • Unsigned DLL — no publisher identity to verify authenticity
  • DirectIpC2 heuristic triggered — contacted external IP without DNS resolution (though IP is Cloudflare public DNS, not malicious)
  • Sandbox evasion technique detected (T1497) — common in legitimate software but also used by malware
What to do

This file is safe. SDL3.dll is a legitimate open-source multimedia library. Verify the download source against the official SDL3 project repository if you have concerns about authenticity, but no security action is required for this file.

Runtime behaviour

What this file did when executed

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

MITRE ATT&CK
4

Adversary techniques mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

T1056T1218.011T1497T1518.001
Spawned processes
12
$(unnamed)
"C:\Windows\sysnative\rundll32.exe" "C:\Users\<USER>\Desktop\library.dll",#1
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\System32\loaddll64.exe loaddll64.exe "C:\Users\user\Desktop\attachment.dll"
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\System32\conhost.exe C:\Windows\system32\conhost.exe 0xffffffff -ForceV1
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe cmd.exe /C rundll32.exe "C:\Users\user\Desktop\attachment.dll",#1
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe rundll32.exe "C:\Users\user\Desktop\attachment.dll",#1
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe rundll32.exe C:\Users\user\Desktop\attachment.dll,JNI_OnLoad
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe rundll32.exe C:\Users\user\Desktop\attachment.dll,SDL_AcquireCameraFrame
$(unnamed)
C:\Windows\System32\WerFault.exe C:\Windows\system32\WerFault.exe -u -p 3056 -s 488
+4 more processes captured.
Network activity
1
IP addresses1
  • 162.159.36.2
Filesystem & mutexes
1
Files written1
  • \Device\ConDrv\\Connect
No researcher-database hits
External threat-intel sources were not collected for this scan.
Signature matches

YARA + heuristic rules that fired

One or more medium-severity heuristic rules matched. Not definitive, but the patterns match known malware behaviour.

1 synthesis
MITRE ATT&CK profile
C2× 1
MalwareTips synthesis rules
Our heuristics on VT data + sandbox behaviour
  • DirectIpC2medium

    Sample contacted 1 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
    162.159.36.2
Antivirus engine breakdown

0 detections across 75 engines

0 malicious0 suspicious75 clean
Tier-117 engines
0flag
Top commercial AVs (low FP rate)
Tier-238 engines
0flag
Mainstream engines with mixed FP rates
Low-trust20 engines
0flag
Heuristic / generic-AI engines (high FP rate)
All 75 engines report this file as clean.
Hash c8d2e2455061… 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.

Unpacked
Section entropy6 sections
.text
6.55
.rdata
6.17
.data
3.34
.pdata
6.14
.rsrc
3.62
.reloc
5.40
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
332
Hundreds of people have uploaded this — common.
Total submissions
363
Includes repeat uploads by the same source.
First seen by VT
2mo ago
Apr 9, 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)
4/9/2026, 1:49:27 PM
First seen (MalwareBazaar)
Last analysis (VT)
5/12/2026, 9:18:24 PM
Scanned here
6/10/2026, 9:42:35 AM
File name
SDL3.dll
Size
2.57 MB
MIME type
(unknown)
Detected type
Win32 DLL
SHA-256
c8d2e2455061ba913e6ff26ed6d766d4458dd58f127078b384d3eae4edba732a
MD5
96153d45c3f65c6ed07e2893b0d76070
SHA-1
cddde3b81c64c69f0c59fd4698cee7206cc6fbc6
PE imphash
da3a4825cf733767f472d7672219ff7d
First seen (VT)
4/9/2026, 1:49:27 PM
Last analysis (VT)
5/12/2026, 9:18:24 PM
First scan (MalwareTips)
6/10/2026, 9:42:35 AM
Last scan (MalwareTips)
6/10/2026, 9:42:35 AM
Behavior tags
pedllchecks-user-inputdetect-debug-environment64bits
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.