Dante
Dante is a commercial spyware/surveillance platform developed by the Italian company Memento Labs, formerly Hacking Team. Kaspersky identified it in attacks linked to the ForumTroll cluster and traced related activity back to at least 2022, including operations targeting organizations and individuals in Russia and Belarus. Reported targets included media outlets, universities, research centers, government organizations, financial institutions, and individual scholars. Dante was not directly observed in the March 2025 Operation ForumTroll Chrome zero-day intrusion chain, but Kaspersky found it in related attacks and confirmed a direct link where LeetAgent was used to launch Dante.
The malware is described as a modular spyware implant with multiple surveillance and data-exfiltration functions, including keylogging, screenshot capture, file theft, and remote command execution. It uses an orchestrator/controller component to manage HTTPS command-and-control, module handling, self-protection, and self-removal. Dante loads encrypted plug-in modules from disk or memory; modules are stored locally and encrypted with AES-256/AES-encrypted data tied to device-unique information such as CPU identifier and Windows Product ID, and some reporting also notes host binding via machine-specific values. It can self-delete if it does not receive commands after a set time.
Dante employs extensive anti-analysis and evasion measures. Reported protections include VMProtect-based code obfuscation, encrypted strings, anti-debugging, anti-sandbox and virtual-machine detection, indirect Windows API calls to reduce detection, and disguising its orchestrator as a font file. Analysts also reported similarities with Hacking Team’s legacy RCS/Da Vinci spyware, including code overlap and lineage indicators. In related ForumTroll-linked operations, shared tradecraft included phishing-based delivery, use of Chrome zero-day CVE-2025-2783 in some campaigns, COM hijacking persistence, and overlaps in code, file-system paths, and data hidden in font files. High-confidence attribution in the content links Dante to Memento Labs based on malware naming artifacts, version references, and similarities to later Hacking Team RCS samples.
Hunt this family in your stack
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Vulnerabilities exploited
1 CVE Mallory has correlated with this family across public research and vendor advisories. Each row links to the full Mallory page for that vulnerability.
Kaspersky’s technologies successfully identified a sophisticated zero-day exploit that was used to escape Google Chrome’s sandbox. After conducting a quick analysis, we reported the vulnerability to the Google security team, who fixed it as CVE-2025-2783.
Groups observed using it
3 distinct threat actors attributed by public researchers. Open in Mallory to see the full evidence chain and overlapping campaigns.
While analyzing the malware used in these attacks, we discovered an unknown piece of malware that we identified as commercial spyware called “Dante” and developed by the Italian company Memento Labs (formerly Hacking Team).
While analyzing that malware, researchers found a previously undiscovered commercial spyware product Memento Labs developed known as “Dante,” according to Kaspersky.
Analyzing the old attacks, the researchers found "an unknown piece of malware that we identified as commercial spyware called “Dante” and developed by the Italian company Memento Labs."
Techniques & procedures
20 distinct techniques documented for this family, organized by ATT&CK tactic.
Resource Development
1 technique
Resource Development
Initial Access
4 techniques
Initial Access
No further action was required to initiate the infection; simply visiting the malicious website using Google Chrome or another Chromium-based web browser was enough.
Kaspersky said the malware infections occurred when victims clicked on personalized phishing links via email. It was disguised as an invitation from organizers of the scientific and expert forum for Primakov Readings, an international summit on global politics and economics.
Execution
1 technique
Execution
Privilege Escalation
2 techniques
Privilege Escalation
Stealth
4 techniques
Stealth
First of all, the spyware is packed with VMProtect. It obfuscates control flow, hides imported functions, and adds anti-debugging checks. On top of that, almost every string is encrypted.
It also performs several anti-sandbox checks. It searches for “bad” libraries, measures the execution times of the sleep() function and the cpuid instruction, and checks the file system.
Credential Access
1 technique
Credential Access
Discovery
2 techniques
Discovery
Collection
3 techniques
Collection
Command and Control
5 techniques
Command and Control
Notably, we saw several minor similarities between this attack and others involving Dante, such as similar file system paths, the same persistence mechanism, data hidden in font files, and other minor details.
The malware connects to one of its C2 servers specified in the configuration and uses HTTPS to receive and execute commands
Spent days trying to implement a multi-hop SOCKS5 proxy chain before I even had a working C2 ... What I tried: Dante proxies, 3proxy chains, multi-hop obfuscation, rotating IPs.
IOCs tracked for this family
3 indicators attributed across vendor reports, sandbox runs, and researcher write-ups. Full values are available in Mallory.
File hashes (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256) from samples and reports.
Recent activity
18 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Custom spyware trojan used as the final payload in Operation ForumTroll, providing surveillance and data exfiltration (keylogging, screenshots, file theft) plus remote command execution; uses encrypted C2 traffic disguised as legitimate HTTPS.
Spyware developed by Memento Labs, used in cyber-espionage operations by ForumTroll group.
Spyware developed by Memento Labs, used for surveillance and data exfiltration in targeted attacks.
Commercially-developed spyware implant (attributed here to Memento Labs/former Hacking Team) used in Operation ForumTroll.
The version that knows your environment.
Match every observed IP, domain, and hash against your live telemetry.
Named campaigns wielding this family, with evidence pinned to each claim.
CVEs this family uses for access and lateral movement.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Every documented technique, ranked by evidence weight.
Reddit, Mastodon, and CTI community discussion around this family.