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MITRE ATT&CK® Malware

S0486: Bonadan

Bonadan is a malicious version of OpenSSH which acts as a custom backdoor. Bonadan has been active since at least 2018 and combines a new cryptocurrency-mining module with the same credential-stealing module used by the Onderon family of backdoors.[1]

EnterpriseS0486MalwareObject v1.0Modified
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis

Security context for executives and security teams

Automation confidenceMedium

S0486: Bonadan describes [Bonadan](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0486) is a malicious version of OpenSSH which acts as a custom backdoor. [Bonadan](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0486) has been active since at least 2018 and combines a new cryptocurrency-mining module with the same credential-stealing module used by the Onderon family of backdoors.(Citation: ESET ForSSHe December 2018)

Executive priority

S0486: Bonadan is an official MITRE ATT&CK software. Glexia treats it as defensive behavior context for prioritizing monitoring, control validation, and response planning without using the object by itself as an attribution claim.

Technical view

Security teams should validate S0486: Bonadan by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (the mapped ATT&CK tactic context), supported platforms (Linux), and available local telemetry before making detection or mitigation decisions.

Likely telemetry

  • Official ATT&CK relationships and object metadata
  • Network, endpoint, and security-tool telemetry

Detection direction

  • Validate whether S0486: Bonadan appears in your detection coverage and tabletop scenarios.
  • Use the object to align executive risk language with SOC, incident response, and detection engineering work.
  • Do not treat ATT&CK relationship context as attribution without corroborating evidence.

Mitigation priorities

  • Map the object to existing controls and identify missing telemetry or response ownership.
  • Prioritize mitigations that reduce exposure on the listed platforms and tactics.
  • Review adjacent ATT&CK relationships before changing policy, detections, or reporting language.
Additional notes and limits

Baseline Glexia take generated from the official MITRE ATT&CK STIX object, source hash, tactics, platforms, and detection fields. It is safe to replace with a richer model-generated take for the same source hash later.

This baseline take is source-grounded and schema-validated, but it does not include environment-specific telemetry, incident evidence, or threat-intelligence corroboration.

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.

Official MITRE ATT&CK definition

Bonadan

Bonadan is a malicious version of OpenSSH which acts as a custom backdoor. Bonadan has been active since at least 2018 and combines a new cryptocurrency-mining module with the same credential-stealing module used by the Onderon family of backdoors.[1]

View the same entry on attack.mitre.org (MITRE-hosted reference; in-page links above use the Glexia ATT&CK library.)

Glexia analysis

How security teams should use this page

Treat this object as behavior context, not an attribution claim. Validate the related groups, software, data sources, and mitigations against official ATT&CK relationships and your own telemetry before making control-coverage decisions.

ATT&CK relationship table

Techniques used

This mirrors the MITRE pattern of making group, software, campaign, and technique relationships scannable. Relationship notes come from mirrored ATT&CK relationship text when available.

9 rows
DomainIDNameRelationship / procedure
EnterpriseT1573.001Symmetric CryptographySub-technique

Bonadan can XOR-encrypt C2 communications.[1]

EnterpriseT1082System Information Discovery

Bonadan has discovered the OS version, CPU model, and RAM size of the system it has been installed on.[1]

EnterpriseT1016System Network Configuration Discovery

Bonadan can find the external IP address of the infected host.[1]

EnterpriseT1496.001Compute HijackingSub-technique

Bonadan can download an additional module which has a cryptocurrency mining extension.[1]

EnterpriseT1554Compromise Host Software Binary

Bonadan has maliciously altered the OpenSSH binary on targeted systems to create a backdoor.[1]

EnterpriseT1105Ingress Tool Transfer

Bonadan can download additional modules from the C2 server.[1]

EnterpriseT1033System Owner/User Discovery

Bonadan has discovered the username of the user running the backdoor.[1]

EnterpriseT1059Command and Scripting Interpreter

Bonadan can create bind and reverse shells on the infected system.[1]

EnterpriseT1057Process Discovery

Bonadan can use the ps command to discover other cryptocurrency miners active on the system.[1]

Relationship explorer

All related ATT&CK context

Change history

Object version and sync metadata

The fields below describe the current mirrored snapshot. When Glexia retains multiple ATT&CK source imports, you can open the table to compare the same object across releases (hashes and MITRE timestamps). For MITRE’s own release notes and roadmap, see ATT&CK resources — Updates.

ATT&CK release
19.2
Object version
1.0
Created
Modified
Raw hash
639b2216565952d2...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)
ReleaseBundle importedObject versionModifiedStatusRaw hash
19.21.0Current bundle639b22165659…
19.11.0Older bundle639b22165659…
Raw source

Mirrored ATT&CK source object

The raw object is retained through the mirrored ATT&CK source bundle and object hash. The raw endpoint returns the exact object from the mirrored bundle when available.

Source references

External references and citations

MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.

  1. [1]
    ESET ForSSHe December 2018

    Dumont, R., M.Léveillé, M., Porcher, H. (2018, December 1). THE DARK SIDE OF THE FORSSHE A landscape of OpenSSH backdoors. Retrieved July 16, 2020.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    mitre-attackS0486
    Open source URL
Source and licensing

Source: MITRE ATT&CK®. © 2026 The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation. MITRE ATT&CK and ATT&CK are registered trademarks of The MITRE Corporation. Glexia is not affiliated with or endorsed by MITRE.