2026 · intermediate
Indelible Malware: Etherhiding and the future of Cyberthreats
A recent innovation in malware hosting known as Etherhiding threatens to disrupt the conventional means of combating cyberthreats. Etherhiding is the process of hosting malware within a blockchain, thereby imbuing it with the blockchain’s characteristics; namely anonymity, indelibility, decentralization, and high availability. Traditionally, when law enforcement becomes aware of a cyber threat, they can subpoena hosting service providers to revoke service or physically locate the offending host servers and decommission them; however, Etherhiding circumvents these measures. Etherhiding was previously considered theoretical, but in 2025, North Korean state-backed cyber criminals began implementing Etherhiding, using the blockchain as a command-and-control (C2) server, in their existing Contagious Interview phishing campaign.
This talk presents an introduction to the Etherhiding technique - its uses, its ramifications on cyber security, and mitigation challenges.