Safe
This file is a legitimate Cloudflare networking utility, often flagged by heuristic engines due to its tunneling capabilities and process injection techniques used for network traffic management.
cdb5d4432f6ae15956…37cf072df9The reasoning behind this verdict
The MT AI Engine weighs every signal from this scan — antivirus detections, sandbox behaviour, code signing, prevalence and historical matches — to reach a single, evidence-based verdict.
The file is a signed, legitimate networking tool from Cloudflare. The single engine detection is a generic heuristic warning common for utilities that perform network tunneling. Our analysis confirms the file's identity through community research and its legitimate signing certificate. The observed behaviors, while suspicious in other contexts, are expected for this specific software. Therefore, we consider the file safe for use as a networking utility.
Each signal cites a concrete token from the evidence the arbiter saw — engine name, MITRE technique, signer string, or an exact count.
1/74 engines flagged the sample (SentinelOne), with 0/17 tier-1 engines reporting malicious activity.
Signed by 'Cloudflare' (signing.verified=true), consistent with the file's identity as a networking utility.
Community comment identifies the file as 'cloudflared' tunneling tool, corroborated by the GitHub reference in the community annotation.
Heuristic flags 'MalwareTips.Synth.ProcessInjection' and 'MalwareTips.Synth.DirectIpC2' are consistent with the expected behavior of a network tunneling utility.
- Signed by Cloudflare
- No tier-1 engine detections
- Identified as legitimate networking utility
- T1055 (Process Injection)
- Direct-IP C2 communication
This is a legitimate networking utility. No action is required unless its presence is unauthorized by your organization's security policy.
What to do now
This file looks safe based on everything we checked.
This file is safe to use.
Good habit: only download files from the official website or an app store.
Keep your antivirus and Windows updates switched on so you stay protected.
What this file did when executed
This file was detonated in 1 sandbox and its runtime behaviour was observed.
Adversary techniques mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK framework.
- 162.159.36.2
- C:\Users\<USER>\Desktop\config.yml
Files this sample writes at runtime
This file drops 1 child at runtime. None are currently flagged malicious in our cache.
- ca3d163bab0553818272…442356Never scannednever seen before
YARA & heuristic rule matches
A researcher-curated or high-severity heuristic rule matched this sample. These rules target specific malware families and are near-definitive.
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>\Desktop\file.exe"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.
Evidence162.159.36.2
1 detection across 74 engines
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.
How widely this file has been seen
Moderate prevalence — neither rare nor common. No strong prior applies.
Forensic fingerprint
- File name
- cloudflared.exe
- Size
- 51.65 MB
- MIME type
- (unknown)
- Detected type
- Win32 EXE
- SHA-256
- cdb5d4432f6ae1595654a692a51308b69d2bf7af961f5578d9391837cf072df9
- MD5
- 554c4a859c3d09e0cc4a258ce6ea5a17
- SHA-1
- af3a1e45764dc4e9dff4f0693defeb12dab2eab2
- PE imphash
- 92b23819da8bd3aa2ea46b52adf10a43
- First seen (VT)
- 7/15/2026, 9:56:07 AM
- Last analysis (VT)
- 7/16/2026, 11:18:53 AM
- First scan (MalwareTips)
- 7/17/2026, 2:42:03 AM
- Last scan (MalwareTips)
- 7/17/2026, 2:42:03 AM
- Code signer
- Cloudflareverified
Safety FAQ
Common questions about cloudflared.exe, answered from the scan data above.
- cloudflared.exe appears safe. 73 of 74 antivirus engines report it clean, with only 1 low-confidence detection that read as false positives. It carries a verified digital signature from Cloudflare. As a habit, only run files you downloaded from the official source, since attackers sometimes distribute trojanised copies of legitimate software under the same name.
- cloudflared.exe is a Windows executable program, about 51.7 MB. Our analysis found no threat indicators for it. It carries a verified digital signature from Cloudflare. A file's name can be reused by different files, so we identify it by its cryptographic hash (below).
- 1 of 74 antivirus engines flagged cloudflared.exe, 1 of them as outright malicious. A small number of detections can include false positives, so we weigh which engines flagged it and what else the file does, not just the raw count.
- Yes — cloudflared.exe carries a valid digital signature from Cloudflare, which confirms the file hasn't been tampered with since that publisher signed it. A valid signature is a positive signal, but note that malware is occasionally signed with stolen or abused certificates, so it isn't proof of safety on its own.
- The SHA-256 hash of cloudflared.exe is cdb5d4432f6ae1595654a692a51308b69d2bf7af961f5578d9391837cf072df9, and its MD5 is 554c4a859c3d09e0cc4a258ce6ea5a17. This hash is the file's unique fingerprint — two files with the same SHA-256 are identical. Use it to confirm you're looking at exactly this file (not just one with the same name) when comparing against antivirus databases or a download's published checksum.
- Based on this scan, yes — cloudflared.exe shows no threat indicators and is properly signed. The important caveat is source: make sure you downloaded it from the official website or a trusted store, because attackers sometimes distribute malware-laced copies under a legitimate file's name. If your own antivirus flags it while we report it clean, that is most often a false positive, but verify the source before overriding your antivirus.
- This report reflects the scan run on July 17, 2026. Because a file's hash never changes, the identity of cloudflared.exe is fixed — but antivirus coverage improves over time, so a file that looks clean today can pick up detections later (and vice-versa). If you need the latest picture, MalwareTips staff can re-run the analysis from scratch.
Reviews & malware reports(0)
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