Backdoor.Athena

Posted: March 14, 2018

Threat Metric

The Threat Meter is a malware assessment that SpywareRemove.com's research team is able to give every identifiable malware threat. Our Threat Meter includes several criteria based off of specific malware threats to value their severity, reach and volume. The Threat Meter is able to give you a numerical breakdown of each threat's initial Threat Level, Detection Count, Volume Count, Trend Path and Percentage Impact. The overall ranking of each threat in the Threat Meter is a basic breakdown of how all threats are ranked within our own extensive malware database. The scoring for each specific malware threat can be easily compared to other emerging threats to draw a contrast in its particular severity. The Threat Meter is a useful tool in the endeavor of seeking a solution to remove a threat or pursue additional analytical research for all types of computer users.

The following fields listed on the Threat Meter containing a specific value, are explained in detail below:

Threat Level: The threat level scale goes from 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest level of severity and 1 is the lowest level of severity. Each specific level is relative to the threat's consistent assessed behaviors collected from SpyHunter's risk assessment model.

Detection Count: The collective number of confirmed and suspected cases of a particular malware threat. The detection count is calculated from infected PCs retrieved from diagnostic and scan log reports generated by SpyHunter.

Volume Count: Similar to the detection count, the Volume Count is specifically based on the number of confirmed and suspected threats infecting systems on a daily basis. High volume counts usually represent a popular threat but may or may not have infected a large number of systems. High detection count threats could lay dormant and have a low volume count. Criteria for Volume Count is relative to a daily detection count.

Trend Path: The Trend Path, utilizing an up arrow, down arrow or equal symbol, represents the level of recent movement of a particular threat. Up arrows represent an increase, down arrows represent a decline and the equal symbol represent no change to a threat's recent movement.

% Impact (Last 7 Days): This demonstrates a 7-day period change in the frequency of a malware threat infecting PCs. The percentage impact correlates directly to the current Trend Path to determine a rise or decline in the percentage.

Threat Level:	6/10
Infected PCs:	23

First Seen:	July 3, 2015
Last Seen:	February 4, 2020
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

Backdoor.Athena is a backdoor Trojan that grants a remote attacker various capabilities for controlling your computer, monitoring its usage or collecting information. This program may be a United States government-sponsored threat and utilizes significant stealth features for avoiding any detection while it's in operation. Users with concerns about the Trojan should have anti-malware programs updated and available for deleting Backdoor.Athena before an attacker can install it, and be cautious about infection vectors, including e-mail attachments and links to fraudulent or suspicious websites.

Learning Wisdom in Computer Security the Hard Way

The existence of occasional, state-sponsored threats associated with various governments around the world is no secret, but hard details on any, one campaign often are problematic to access. In 2017, Wikileaks released a brief analysis of Backdoor.Athena, a Trojan that may still be circulating. Malware experts judge its capabilities as being very similar to those of other backdoor Trojans, with the intention of granting complete control over the infected system to a remote admin. However, Backdoor.Athena also may have ties to the US government.

In 2017, there was evidence of only two variants of Backdoor.Athena, whose name refers to the Greek goddess of wisdom: Athena-Alpha and Athena-Brave. The differences between these variants are technical mostly, and, for example, include different loading mechanisms, separate masking techniques for the primary module, and system-persistence methods using either Dnscache or RemoteAccess.

In either case, Backdoor.Athena uses DLL-hijacking techniques for loading the rest of its components:

Host.dll is the loader and contains no other, meaningful functions and minimal self-obfuscation or security features.
Engine.AXE is the primary looping module and provides security-oriented features, such as hashing, AES and RSA encryption and data compression.
Command.AXE handles what malware experts consider as being the 'meat' of most backdoor Trojans: the C&C instruction set for loading new modules, which allow the threat actors to upload data that they collect, download unsafe files to the PC or make settings changes.
Finally, there is the relatively self-explanatory Uninstall.AXE.

Note that the AXE file format that Backdoor.Athena uses, is only a modification of DLL that removes the header and includes other, data-obfuscating characteristics.

Teaching Your PC the Pros of Atheism

The software company seemingly hired for developing Backdoor.Athena, in cooperation with the United States CIA, describes its wares as being the computer equivalent of real-world armaments for warfare accurately. Backdoor.Athena provides a remote attacker with significant leverage over a PC and includes many, well-designed features for hiding its presence and guaranteeing that it remains running until the attacker uninstalls it. Users shouldn't expect any identification of Backdoor.Athena through visible symptoms of any kind.

Backdoor.Athena is a threat to Windows systems and may arrive via e-mail attachments or 'watering hole' style websites crafted for specific kinds of Web traffic. Some threat actors also prefer hacking a network by brute-forcing the password and username combinations, which could let them install the Trojan themselves. Using aggressive, proactive security solutions that are capable of removing Backdoor.Athena upon its detection is the best way to protect a vulnerable Windows PC.

While most cybercrooks operate with the desire to make money, threat actors under implicit, state authorization often have differing priorities. Any particular government may or may not have your best interests at heart, but the motivations of the state never justify tolerating software like Backdoor.Athena that prevents you from knowing that it's even present.

Backdoor.Athena.A

Backdoor.Athena

Threat Metric

Learning Wisdom in Computer Security the Hard Way

Teaching Your PC the Pros of Atheism

Related Posts

Leave a Reply