--- title: Almost Half of Malware Samples Communicate Direct to IP description: Analysis of 4 million dynamic analysis reports reveals that 45.32% of malware samples with C2 activity bypass DNS entirely by connecting directly to hard-coded... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/almost-half-of-malware-samples-communicate-direct-to-ip-xvqgrqnnp twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Almost Half of Malware Samples Communicate Direct to IP | daily.dev og:description: Analysis of 4 million dynamic analysis reports reveals that 45.32% of malware samples with C2 activity bypass DNS entirely by connecting directly to hard-coded... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/almost-half-of-malware-samples-communicate-direct-to-ip-xvqgrqnnp og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/xvQgRqnnp.png og:image:alt: Almost Half of Malware Samples Communicate Direct to IP og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Almost Half of Malware Samples Communicate Direct to IP **[Unit 42](https://daily.dev/sources/unit42)** · 11 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Analysis of 4 million dynamic analysis reports reveals that 45.32% of malware samples with C2 activity bypass DNS entirely by connecting directly to hard-coded IP addresses. This 'direct-to-IP' (D2IP) behavior renders DNS-based defenses blind to nearly half of malware C2 traffic. The research introduces Zero Trust IP (ZT-IP), a network-level enforcement approach that only permits outbound connections to IP addresses previously resolved via a trusted DNS response. Real-world threats uncovered through ZT-IP analysis include Phorpiex ransomware droppers, a persistent data exfiltration campaign using obfuscated \GET HTTP requests, SectopRAT targeting educational institutions, and Mozi/Boatnet IoT botnets targeting legacy hardware across 14 architectures. Indicators of compromise and a technical appendix explaining ZT-IP mechanics are included. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. 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