Release Notes for v2.4.0

Date: 30 July, 2025

MetaDefender Sandbox 2.4.0 Release Notes

Seamless enterprise integration, streamlined user access, and a powerful new interface - MetaDefender Sandbox is now faster to deploy, easier to use, and richer in insight than ever before.

What's New

• Report Overview Redesign
  • Experience a fully reimagined UI built for clarity and speed - featuring intuitive navigation, dynamic filtering, and rich threat insights all in one streamlined view.

A Newly Designed, High Level Overview of the Report

• Redesigned Trends Page
  • Seamlessly navigate the enhanced Trends page featuring a refreshed layout, and intuitive visuals — unlocking deeper visibility with updated charts on scan verdicts, average scan time, IOC generation, and leading threat indicators.

More Insights via the New Trends Page

• SAML 2.0 Identity provider (IDP) Integration

  • Effortlessly connect Sandbox to enterprise SSO Solutions like OKTA, Ping, and Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) with full SAML 2.0 Federation - streamlining user management and strengthening security posture.

• Red Hat Offline Installation Mode

  • Deploy Sandbox securely in isolated environments with support for fully offline installation on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.

• Advanced Windows PE Emulator (Beta)

  • The Beta of the PE emulator already adds high value by unpacking dynamic payloads, hidden IOCs, and enabling new threat indicators.

Scan Without PE Emulation - Malicious Activity Suspected

PE Emulation Boosts Detection Accuracy

Improvements

• Threat-Indicator Overview Counts

  • Dashboards now surface distinct threat indicators—cutting through signal clutter to deliver clearer, more actionable risk assessments.

• Input Accessibility & Form Refactor

  • Revamped form components ensuring consistent labelling, ARIA compliance, and accessible validation—enhancing usability and aligning with accessibility best practices.

Bug Fixes

• Improved Account Settings

  • Resolved faulty password strength checks and a username validation edge case in My Settings, in turn, hardening authentication.

• Authentication Settings Stability

  • Previously, external authentication providers could block the Save action in validation settings—this has been restored, providing full control over validation configurations.

• Invite Link Session Handling

  • Corrected a browser session conflict that caused partial logins where invite links were opened in an active browser session.

• UI Glitch Cleanup

  • Addressed user interface anomalies identified through error clustering, leading to a more consistent user experience.

MetaDefender Sandbox 2.4.0 Threat Detection Release Notes

What's New

• Updated YARA & Malware Config Extraction Logic

  • Updated YARA & Malware Config Extraction Logic for Lumma Stealer (ChaCha), MetaStealer, and Snake Keylogger.

• .NET Loader Unpacking Enhancements

  • .NET Loader Unpacking for Roboski and ReZer0 loaders.

.NET Loader Deobfuscated - Roboski and ReZer0 Modules Extracted

• Control Flow Deobfuscation in .NET Files

  • Added control flow deobfuscation in .NET files to enhance payload unpacking performance.

• Early Detection for ClickFix Variants

  • Introduced early detection capabilities for ClickFix and its variants, a trending social engineering technique.

"ClickFix" is a social engineering attack that tricks users into executing malware by manipulating clipboard and presenting fake prompts

• Automated Decoding of Base64 Commands
  • Implemented automated decoding of base64-encoded commands for Python and Bash scripts, uncovering deeper layers of obfuscation and enhancing threat detection accuracy.

Cracking Base64: Automated decoding for Python/Bash boosts detection

• Support for ACCDE File Analysis
  • Now supporting analysis of ACCDE files—expanding coverage to include Microsoft Access Applications and strengthening visibility into embedded threats.

Improvements

• Improved .NET Binary Detection

  • Improved detection of suspicious .NET binaries by analyzing low-level anomalies - such as oversized static arrays, high-entropy resources, and abnormal call patterns - enabling earlier identification of obfuscated threats.

• Advanced HTML Analysis

  • Enhanced HTML analysis with a more resilient parser and expanded threat detection indicators, improving accuracy against evasive or malformed web-based threats.

• Expanded Threat Coverage

  • Boosted IOC and MITRE ATT&CK coverage with deeper parsing of LNK files, smarter enrichment of indicators, and more flexible tagging using YARA-derived metadata-sharpening threat correlation and context across reports.

Extended MITRE Mapping reveals obfuscation, evasion, and execution tactics in .NET and PowerShell

• Smarter File Detection

  • Updated the DIE (Detect It Easy) Database to improve the identification of file types and packed binaries, boosting classification accuracy across diverse samples.

• Heuristic Lookup Optimization

  • Disabled OSINT lookups for heuristically extracted domains - reducing false positives and improving the precision of threat verdicts.

Bug Fixes

• Improved Malware Unpacking

  • Resolved an unpacking issue with downloaded files, improving analysis of second-stage malware.

• Corrected Hash Validation

  • Corrected a hash mismatch during PE resource extraction - ensuring accurate file integrity checks.

• Sharper Verdict Accuracy

  • Refined detection logic for Office documents, emails, and URLs to minimize false positives, in turn sharpening verdict confidence.

• Fixed URL Construction

  • Corrected URL construction logic for absolute paths in Open Directory Scans.

• Enhanced Extractor Stability

  • Improved stability of the base64-encoded file extractor, which now handles edge cases that previously caused failures.

• Smali Parsing Fix

  • Fixed an error in parsing Smali files within APK packages - improving visibility into APK Packages.

MetaDefender Sandbox 2.4.0 Engine Release Notes

Advanced Windows PE Emulator (Beta)

Enhancements

• Shellcode Execution:

  • Support for standalone shell-code and forwarder binding.

• Event Tracking:

  • Detect suspicious activity such as memory/disk writes, protection manipulation, DNS resolution, HTTP request and more.

• Relevant Dumps:

  • Automatically extracted memory dumps from significant execution points, including PE Files, providing deeper inspection.

• Integration with Disassembly:

  • Routing meaningful memory dumps directly to the disassembler for in-depth analysis.

• Overview and Trace:

  • Summary stats, versioning and configurable API Log enhancements bringing the detail closer.

• New Threat Indicators:

  • PE-specific behavioral threat indicators added to enrich analysis with targeted insight.

• Additional IOC Extraction:

  • Dynamically uncover IOCs that are invisible to static scanning, enabled through emulation.

• Defeating Evasion:

  • Enhanced simulated fingerprinting checks to avoid evasive malware techniques.

What's New

• .lnk Batch Drop Detection

  • Detects Windows shortcut files that generate and execute batch payloads, closing a visibility gap for “living-off-the-land” techniques.

• Configurable Indicator-Based Verdict Enforcement

  • New config allows enforcing MALICIOUS verdict if any selected indicators trigger. Specific indicators can be disabled—set to unknown strength—with optional notifications to reflect customer overrides.

• Clipboard API Emulation (write() / writeText())

  • Web emulation now understands modern clipboard calls, capturing write events used by phishing kits and droppers.

• ECMAScript 6 Support in Anesidora

  • JavaScript emulation upgraded to handle ES6 syntax, broadening coverage of modern malicious scripts.

Improvements

• Automated Button/Link Clicks in HTML Emulation

  • Enhanced coverage of drive-by scripts that hide malicious functions behind UI events.

• Event Handler Execution on onclick

  • Inline handler bodies now executed, boosting exploit detection in weaponized HTML/JS samples.

• document.body.append() & Self-Read / Stage-Spawn Support

  • Higher-fidelity DOM simulation and self-analysis behavior handling.

• HtmlUnit Upgrades

  • Brings JavaScript engine fixes, improved CSS support, and stability enhancements.

Bug Fixes:

• Optimized memory usage within JavaScript emulation pipeline to improve reliability under load.
• Filled gaps where emulation-derived threat indicators were missing from final reports.