Qbot malware is identified as an Oakbot by cybersecurity vendors. This malware is also known as Oakbot botnet and was discovered in 2009. The operators distributed Qbot to steal credentials of the user, making backdoors on devices that are infected and forming a world-spanning botnet.

In April 2010 Qbot uploaded 2GB stolen confidential information every week in its FTP servers. After Dec 2015 and start of 2016 Qbot malware has got the main update that has contributed with the latest spike of activity.

In the last decade, Qbot financial malware has affected thousands of business system, and it has now resurfaced with an improved version. Varonis, a data security provider, uncovered an attack that was reported by a customer. A new strain mainly an infection of Qbot known as Qakbot was trying to spread to a system on the network was detected by Varonis.

In the past decade, Qbot has been successful malware. The Qbot source code is available to cybercriminals that are easily modified and extended. Qbot was started as a Trojan to steal online banking credentials, but much improvement has been made in it, and new versions are out now.

Qbot command and control server mixes codes and configurations sometimes to avoid signature-based antivirus detection. Qbot can quickly move across the corporate network as it has worm-like capabilities which brute-force the window domain credential.

Two-state polymorphism process is used by Qbot to generate a unique sample of malware-infected computers. Qbot malware is a credential harvester which has backdoor capabilities and is delivered by the help of Rig exploit kit. When a Qbot malware is downloaded on an infected computer, it immediately tries to raise the entire workstations.

Qbot uses network shared folders to steal credential, and if the folders are protected with a password, then they stole it from the window credential manager and internet explorer. To increase brute-force attacks, Qbot gets together with familiar users and password list combos.

Qbot infects as much as victims and gets an update from the C&C server at a regular interval of six hours. The updates also contain a new variant of malware, which is developed from the two-stage polymorphism process. The two-stage polymorphism process changes the structure of Qbot and helps it to avoid the anti-virus software detection.

The Qbot malware uses different legal certifications to sign maliciously executable to escape the detection on the network. The malware keeps on changing and developing and adding new tools which make it harder to detect and analyze.