S0579: Waterbear

Waterbear is modular malware attributed to BlackTech that has been used primarily for lateral movement, decrypting, and triggering payloads and is capable of hiding network behaviors.[1]

EnterpriseS0579MalwareObject v1.2ModifiedApr 10, 2024, 22:14 UTC (UTC+00:00)

S0579: Waterbear describes [Waterbear](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0579) is modular malware attributed to [BlackTech](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0098) that has been used primarily for lateral movement, decrypting, and triggering payloads and is capable of hiding network behaviors.(Citation: Trend Micro Waterbear December 2019)

Executive priority

S0579: Waterbear 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 S0579: Waterbear by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (the mapped ATT&CK tactic context), supported platforms (Windows), 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 S0579: Waterbear 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

Waterbear

Waterbear is modular malware attributed to BlackTech that has been used primarily for lateral movement, decrypting, and triggering payloads and is capable of hiding network behaviors.[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.

Filter related techniques14 rows

Domain	ID	Name	Relationship / procedure
Enterprise	T1574.001	DLLSub-technique	Waterbear has used DLL side loading to import and load a malicious DLL loader.[1]
Enterprise	T1055.003	Thread Execution HijackingSub-technique	Waterbear can use thread injection to inject shellcode into the process of security software.[1]
Enterprise	T1055	Process Injection	Waterbear can inject decrypted shellcode into the LanmanServer service.[1]
Enterprise	T1105	Ingress Tool Transfer	Waterbear can receive and load executables from remote C2 servers.[1]
Enterprise	T1112	Modify Registry	Waterbear has deleted certain values from the Registry to load a malicious DLL.[1]
Enterprise	T1140	Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information	Waterbear has the ability to decrypt its RC4 encrypted payload for execution.[1]
Enterprise	T1027.013	Encrypted/Encoded FileSub-technique	Waterbear has used RC4 encrypted shellcode and encrypted functions.[1]
Enterprise	T1049	System Network Connections Discovery	Waterbear can use API hooks on `GetExtendedTcpTable` to retrieve a table containing a list of TCP endpoints available to the application.[1]
Enterprise	T1012	Query Registry	Waterbear can query the Registry key `"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSDTC\MTxOCI"` to see if the value `OracleOcilib` exists.[1]
Enterprise	T1518.001	Security Software DiscoverySub-technique	Waterbear can find the presence of a specific security software.[1]
Enterprise	T1057	Process Discovery	Waterbear can identify the process for a specific security product.[1]
Enterprise	T1106	Native API	Waterbear can leverage API functions for execution.[1]
Enterprise	T1027.005	Indicator Removal from ToolsSub-technique	Waterbear can scramble functions not to be executed again with random values.[1]
Enterprise	T1685	Disable or Modify Tools	Waterbear can hook the `ZwOpenProcess` and `GetExtendedTcpTable` APIs called by the process of a security product to hide PIDs and TCP records from detection.[1]

Associated objects

Groups, software, and campaigns

G0098: BlackTech

BlackTech is a suspected Chinese cyber espionage group that has primarily targeted organizations in East Asia--particularly Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong--and the US since at least 2013. BlackTech has used a combination of custom malware, dual-use tools, and living off the land tactics to compromise media, construction, engineering, electronics, and financial company networks.[1][2][3]

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: 1.2
Created: Feb 22, 2021, 16:35 UTC (UTC+00:00)
Modified: Apr 10, 2024, 22:14 UTC (UTC+00:00)
Raw hash: 81f92918808c6652...

Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)

Release	Bundle imported	Object version	Modified	Status	Raw hash
19.2	Aug 6, 2026, 02:58 UTC (UTC+00:00)	1.2	Apr 10, 2024, 22:14 UTC (UTC+00:00)	Current bundle	`81f92918808c…`
19.1	Jul 14, 2026, 09:14 UTC (UTC+00:00)	1.2	Apr 10, 2024, 22:14 UTC (UTC+00:00)	Older bundle	`81f92918808c…`

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.

Open mirrored raw JSON Open MITRE-hosted copy

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]
Trend Micro Waterbear December 2019
Su, V. et al. (2019, December 11). Waterbear Returns, Uses API Hooking to Evade Security. Retrieved February 22, 2021.
Open source URL
[2]
Waterbear
(Citation: Trend Micro Waterbear December 2019)
[3]
mitre-attackS0579
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.

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