A newly identified loader campaign is raising serious concerns across the cybersecurity community.

Threat researchers have uncovered an active operation using a sophisticated multi-stage loader called OnionDrop, which is being used to deliver harmful payloads, including the well-known LegionLoader, to a broad range of victims at scale.

OnionDrop has been quietly operating since at least February 2026, with over 645 unique malicious DLL samples detected in just about 80 days.

The campaign was still active at the time of publication, making it a persistent and growing threat that defenders need to take seriously right now.

What makes this loader stand out is not just the payloads it delivers, but the extraordinary level of technical sophistication packed into the loader itself.

Analysts from Cyderes, through their Howler Cell Threat Research Team, published a detailed breakdown of OnionDrop, identifying it as the third documented component in a broader campaign they have tracked since the CGrabber Infostealer and Direct-sys Loader operations.

Cyderes said in a report shared with Cyber Security News (CSN) that the evasion architecture built into OnionDrop rivals, and in some areas exceeds, what is typically seen in purpose-built nation-state tooling.

What makes this campaign particularly dangerous is the loader’s payload-agnostic design. OnionDrop has been confirmed delivering LegionLoader (also tracked as CurlyGate), CGrabber Infostealer, and Vidar Stealer across different campaign waves.

This points to a highly organized, high-tempo threat actor running multiple infostealer operations simultaneously with no real signs of slowing down.

Security teams are encouraged to monitor for the known indicators of compromise tied to this campaign, block connections to the identified C2 domain, and ensure endpoint detection rules are updated to flag DLL sideloading behaviors involving Adobe-signed executables arriving inside ZIP archives.

OnionDrop Loader Campaign and gainmsg C2 Infrastructure

The attack chain begins with a ZIP archive containing a legitimate Adobe-signed executable, originally named AcroBroker.exe, alongside two malicious DLL files named sqlite.dll and codecstore384d.dll.

The archive also contains a 100MB decoy file named data.bin, filled with random bytes to artificially bloat the archive size and complicate analysis.

Overview of files within the malicious archive (Source - Cyderes) — Overview of files within the malicious archive (Source – Cyderes)

Once the Adobe executable runs, it sideloads sqlite.dll, which then loads the primary malicious DLL.

From there, OnionDrop walks through four distinct unpacking stages: custom byte-pair decoding, Xpress Huffman decompression, AES-256-CBC decryption with rotating key material, and final shellcode execution through Thread Pool callback abuse via TpPostWork.

Each stage is engineered to defeat both automated sandboxes and manual analyst review.

Dynamically loading a malicious DLL via sqlite.dll (Source - Cyderes) — Dynamically loading a malicious DLL via sqlite.dll (Source – Cyderes)

The final payload, LegionLoader, decrypts its embedded configuration using RC4 and reaches out to its command-and-control server at gainmsg[.]com/nfront[.]php. This C2 infrastructure serves as the backbone through which stolen data and further instructions flow.

Attack chain (Source - Cyderes) — Attack chain (Source – Cyderes)

Researchers confirmed the same loader chain also delivered CGrabber Infostealer and Vidar Stealer in related campaign waves.

Nation-State-Grade Evasion in a Commoditized Loader

What separates OnionDrop from typical commodity loaders is the depth of its anti-analysis capabilities. The malware uses stack-string construction to hide sensitive function names, dynamically resolving them at runtime instead of storing them in readable form.

It also uses API hammering, a technique that floods sandbox traces with irrelevant API calls, making it much harder for automated systems to pinpoint actual malicious behavior.

LegionLoader C2 connection (Source - Cyderes) — LegionLoader C2 connection (Source – Cyderes)

Before executing its core logic, OnionDrop checks the system’s display device name against a hardcoded list of valid GPU strings such as INTEL, AMD, RADEON, and NVIDIA.

If the system appears to be a virtual environment or sandbox with a non-standard display adapter, execution halts immediately. This level of environment awareness is typically associated with targeted attack frameworks, not broadly distributed malware.

The final shellcode stage uses a Donut-generated payload and executes through the Windows Thread Pool via TpAllocWork callback abuse, a technique that bypasses the standard thread-creation telemetry that most security tools rely on.

Rotating AES key material across execution stages adds further resistance against static analysis. Together, these techniques form a deeply engineered evasion stack that reflects clear and long-term operational investment from the threat actor behind this campaign.

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs):-

Type	Indicator	Description
URL (C2)	hxxps[://]gainmsg[.]com/nfront[.]php	LegionLoader command-and-control endpoint
SHA256	8559e535128805f1e31fa7a15b33d25ae498915c7b88ea5142cf38858d551a53	Initial malicious ZIP (1)
SHA256	f09be48aab38dc85b7ad46efb98897617af66014ded44a7cf1bddaab59d9dad2	Initial malicious ZIP (2)
SHA256	18bb95789e8727be0d98d9a5fce027f0f514e74192c7736b3afa297d2ee4a8fb	Malicious DLL module (1)
SHA256	070a97bf5bcba13c41266a79357e2a5b8d6f4e353db7427bd8ccabceee5c96e3	Malicious DLL module (2)
SHA256	892f1bd9663c7e14855a0238e0fbb5b2396000b3396ceda79947374a3da78912	OnionDrop Loader (1)
SHA256	c9b96846c9a49ddbed9e143b098972e1d7880654f763bb504d2f7b5d2ab1dafb	OnionDrop Loader (2)
SHA256	fb31df58549031f0ea24b250b214cbab9eafa39adaa715c675f328f7370904c7	Final payload: CGrabber Infostealer
SHA256	f6e5f7445b9ea717513a04d04acfa343025ca35302d025de33935e176a83f6ae	Final payload: LegionLoader (CurlyGate)
SHA256	0a8914b4f794ebc8ea1ce08dd4b5da918cd9697443007622100b0ba0731d428c	Final payload: Vidar Stealer
File Name	sqlite.dll	Malicious sideloaded DLL, initiates loader chain
File Name	codecstore384d.dll	Primary malicious DLL, executes OnionDrop logic
File Name	data.bin	Decoy binary used to inflate ZIP archive size
File Name	setup.exe / AcroBroker.exe	Legitimate Adobe-signed executable abused for DLL sideloading

Note: IP addresses and domains are intentionally defanged (e.g., [.]) to prevent accidental resolution or hyperlinking. Re-fang only within controlled threat intelligence platforms such as MISP, VirusTotal, or your SIEM.

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