Threat Actors Database

The most recent Unit 42 Ransomware Threat Report includes observations of Cuba Ransomware impacting 33 organizations. As of July 2022, Tropical Scorpius has used Cuba Ransomware to impact 27 additional organizations across multiple vectors, such as Professional and Legal Services, State and Local Government, Manufacturing, Transportation and Logistics, Wholesale and Retail, Real Estate, Financial Services, Health Care, High Technology, Utilities and Energy, Construction, and Education. A total of 60 organizations were exposed by this ransomware gang on its leak site since the group first surfaced in 2019.

Note: This is a developing campaign under active analysis by Mandiant and Ivanti. We will continue to add more indicators, detections, and information to this blog post as needed. On January 10, 2024, Ivanti disclosed two vulnerabilities, CVE-2023-46805 and CVE-2024-21887, impacting Ivanti Connect Secure VPN (“CS”, formerly Pulse Secure) and Ivanti Policy Secure (“PS”) appliances. Successful exploitation could result in authentication bypass and command injection, leading to further downstream compromise of a victim network. Mandiant has identified zero-day exploitation of these vulnerabilities in the wild beginning as early as December 2023 by a suspected espionage threat actor, currently being tracked as UNC5221.

Starting in April this year, 360 Baize Lab intercepted a large number of attack samples from an unknown hacker organization. The hacker organization sent a phishing email to the victim by forging a police station investigation letter, COVID-19 detection notice, etc. Through the backdoor virus to control the victim’s machine, steal valuable sensitive data related to the target. ( Proofpoint ) In late March 2020, Proofpoint researchers began tracking a new actor with a penchant for using NanoCore and later AsyncRAT, popular commodity remote access trojans (RATs). Dubbed TA2719 by Proofpoint, the actor uses localized lures with colorful images that impersonate local banks, law enforcement, and shipping services. To date, Proofpoint has observed this actor send low volume campaigns to recipients in Austria, Chile, Greece, Hungary, Italy, North Macedonia, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United States, and Uruguay.

Since the middle of 2018, Proofpoint has been tracking campaigns abusing legitimate messaging services, offering fake jobs, and repeatedly following up via email to ultimately deliver the More_eggs backdoor. These campaigns primarily targeted US companies in various industries including retail, entertainment, pharmacy, and others that commonly employ online payments, such as online shopping portals. The actor sending these campaigns attempts to establish rapport with potential victims by abusing LinkedIn’s direct messaging service. In direct follow-up emails, the actor pretends to be from a staffing company with an offer of employment. In many cases, the actor supports the campaigns with fake websites that impersonate legitimate staffing companies. These websites, however, host the malicious payloads. In other cases, the actor uses a range of malicious attachments to distribute More_eggs. Taurus Loader has been observed to distribute GandCrab and Sodinokibi ( Pinchy Spider, Gold Southfield ) and Trickbot ( Wizard Spider, Gold Blackburn ), as well as their own tool More_eggs.

Viking Spider first began ransom operations in December 2019, and they use ransomware known as Ragnar Locker to compromise and extort organizations. Below are key findings identified while researching Viking Spider activity. • Viking Spider is the first ransomware attacker to install their own virtual machine (VM) into victim environments. They use this VM to evade detection, and they also use it as a launch point to execute the attack. • The gang is the first to use Facebook ads to pressure victims into paying the ransom. • Viking Spider outsources call centers in India to contact victims asking them to pay the ransom or risk data exposure. • Viking Spider uses Managed Service Provider (MSP) software to deliver malware and hacktools as well as provide remote access into victim environments. • Viking Spider is one of the few gangs who conduct DDoS attacks alongside ransom attacks to pressure victims to pay. Another Cartel gang first used this tactic, but Viking Spider quickly adopted it for their uses as well. • Viking Spider uses social media such as Twitter to shame non-paying victims publicly.

Winnti Group, Wicked Panda refers to the targeted intrusion operations of the actor publicly known as “Winnti,” whereas Wicked Spider represents this group’s financially-motivated criminal activity. Originally, Wicked Spider was observed exploiting a number of gaming companies and stealing code-signing certificates for use in other operations associated with the malware known as Winnti. Now, Winnti is commonly associated with the interests of the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Wicked Spider has been observed targeting technology companies in Germany, Indonesia, the Russian Federation, South Korea, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, the United States, and elsewhere. Notably, Wicked Spider has often targeted gaming companies for their certificates, which can be used in future PRC-based operations to sign malware. Ongoing analysis is still evaluating how these certificates are used — whether Wicked Spider hands the certificates off to other adversaries for use in future campaigns or stockpiles them for its own use.

Mofang is a threat actor that almost certainly operates out of China and is probably government-affiliated. It is highly likely that Mofang’s targets are selected based on involvement with investments, or technological advances that could be perceived as a threat to the Chinese sphere of influence. This is most clearly the case in a campaign focusing on government and critical infrastructure of Myanmar that is described in this report. Chances are about even, though, that Mofang is a relevant threat actor to any organization that invests in Myanmar or is otherwise politically involved. In addition to the campaign in Myanmar, Mofang has been observed to attack targets across multiple sectors (government, military, critical infrastructure and the automotive and weapon industries) in multiple countries.

A corporate espionage group has compromised a string of major corporations over the past three years in order to steal confidential information and intellectual property. The gang, which Symantec calls Butterfly, is not-state sponsored, rather financially motivated. It has attacked multi-billion dollar companies operating in the internet, IT software, pharmaceutical, and commodities sectors. Twitter, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft are among the companies who have publicly acknowledged attacks. Butterfly is technically proficient and well resourced. The group has developed a suite of custom malware tools capable of attacking both Windows and Apple computers, and appears to have used at least one zero-day vulnerability in its attacks. It keeps a low profile and maintains good operational security. After successfully compromising a target organization, it cleans up after itself before moving on to its next target. This group operates at a much higher level than the average cybercrime gang. It is not interested in stealing credit card details or customer databases and is instead focused on high-level corporate information. Butterfly may be selling this information to the highest bidder or may be operating as hackers for hire. Stolen information could also be used for insider-trading purposes.

Winnti Group is a threat group with Chinese origins that has been active since at least 2010. The group has heavily targeted the gaming industry, but it has also expanded the scope of its targeting. Some reporting suggests a number of other groups, including APT 41 , Axiom, Group 72 , APT 17, Deputy Dog, Elderwood, Sneaky Panda , and Ke3chang, Vixen Panda, APT 15, GREF, Playful Dragon , are closely linked to or overlap with Winnti Group. ( Trend Micro ) The group behind the Winnti malware (which we will call the Winnti group for brevity) sprung up as a band of traditional cyber crooks, comprising black hats whose technical skills were employed to perpetrate financial fraud. Based on the use of domain names they registered, the group started out in the business of fake/rogue anti-virus products in 2007. In 2009, the Winnti group shifted to targeting gaming companies in South Korea using a self-named data- and file-stealing malware. The group, which was primarily motivated by profit, is noted for utilizing self-developed technically-proficient tools for their attacks. They once attacked a game server to illicitly farm in-game currency (“gaming gold”, which also has real-world value) and stole source codes of online game projects. The group also engaged in the theft of digital certificates which they then used to sign their malware to make them stealthier. The Winnti group diversified its targets to include enterprises such as those in pharmaceutics and telecommunications. The group has since earned infamy for being involved in malicious activities associated with targeted attacks, such as deploying spear-phishing campaigns and building a backdoor.

Between May and June 2019, Unit 42 observed previously unknown tools used in the targeting of transportation and shipping organizations based in Kuwait. The first known attack in this campaign targeted a Kuwait transportation and shipping company in which the actors installed a backdoor tool named Hisoka. Several custom tools were later downloaded to the system in order to carry out post-exploitation activities. All of these tools appear to have been created by the same developer. We were able to collect several variations of these tools including one dating back to July 2018. The developer of the collected tools used character names from the anime series Hunter x Hunter, which is the basis for the campaign name “xHunt.” The names of the tools collected include backdoor tools Sakabota, Hisoka, Netero and Killua. These tools not only use HTTP for their command and control (C2) channels, but certain variants of these tools use DNS tunneling or emails to communicate with their C2 as well. While DNS tunneling as a C2 channel is fairly common, the specific method in which this group used email to facilitate C2 communications has not been observed by Unit 42 in quite some time. This method uses Exchange Web Services (EWS) and stolen credentials to create email “drafts” to communicate between the actor and the tool. In addition to the aforementioned backdoor tools, we also observed tools referred to as Gon and EYE, which provide the backdoor access and the ability to carry out post-exploitation activities.

Wizard Spider is reportedly associated with Lunar Spider . ( Crowdstrike ) The Wizard Spider threat group is the Russia-based operator of the TrickBot banking malware. This group represents a growing criminal enterprise of which Grim Spider appears to be a subset. The Lunar Spider threat group is the Eastern European-based operator and developer of the commodity banking malware called BokBot (aka IcedID), which was first observed in April 2017. The BokBot malware provides Lunar Spider affiliates with a variety of capabilities to enable credential theft and wire fraud, through the use of webinjects and a malware distribution function. Dyre has been observed to be distributed by Cutwail (operated by Narwhal Spider ), as well as their own botnets Gophe and Upatre. TrickBot has been observed to be distributed via Emotet (operated by Mummy Spider, TA542 ), BokBot (operated by Lunar Spider ), Smoke Loader (operated by Smoky Spider ), DanaBot (operated by Scully Spider, TA547 ), Kelihos (operated by Zombie Spider ), Necurs (operated by Monty Spider ) and Taurus Loader (operated by Venom Spider, Golden Chickens ), as well as their own botnet Gophe.

Group-IB, a leading creator of cybersecurity technologies to investigate, prevent, and fight digital crime, announced today that it has contributed to a joint operation of the Royal Thai Police and the Singapore Police Force which led to the arrest of an individual responsible for more than 90 instances of data leaks worldwide, including 65 across the Asia-Pacific region. It resulted in over 13TB of personal data which has been sold on the dark web. In some countries the government agencies were also attacked, compromising sensitive information on a large scale. Operating under aliases ALTDOS, DESORDEN, GHOSTR and 0mid16B, the arrested individual was one of the most active cybercriminals in the Asia-Pacific since 2021, targeting companies and businesses in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and many more.

8220 Gang (also known as “8220 Mining Group,” derived from their use of port 8220 for command and control or C&C communications exchange) has been active since 2017 and continues to scan for vulnerable applications in cloud and container environments. Researchers have documented this group targeting Oracle WebLogic, Apache Log4j, Atlassian Confluence vulnerabilities, and misconfigured Docker containers to deploy cryptocurrency miners in both Linux and Microsoft Windows hosts. The group was documented to have used Tsunami malware, XMRIG cryptominer, masscan, and spirit, among other tools in their campaigns.

BISMUTH, which shares similarities with APT 32, OceanLotus, SeaLotus , has been running increasingly complex cyberespionage attacks as early as 2012, using both custom and open-source tooling to target large multinational corporations, governments, financial services, educational institutions, and human and civil rights organizations. But in campaigns from July to August 2020, the group deployed Monero coin miners in attacks that targeted both the private sector and government institutions in France and Vietnam. Because BISMUTH’s attacks involved techniques that ranged from typical to more advanced, devices with common threat activities like phishing and coin mining should be elevated and inspected for advanced threats. More importantly, organizations should prioritize reducing attack surface and hardening networks against the full range of attacks. In this blog, we’ll provide in-depth technical details about the BISMUTH attacks in July and August 2020 and mitigation recommendations for building organizational resilience.

Andromeda, also known as Gamaru and Wauchos, is a modular and HTTP-based botnet that was discovered in late 2011. From that point on, it managed to survive and continue hardening by evolving in different ways. In particular, the complexity of its loader and AV evasion methods increased repeatedly, and C&C communication changed between the different versions as well. We deal with versions of this threat on a daily basis and we have collected a number of different variants. The botnet first came onto our tracking radar at version 2.06, and we have tracked the versions since then. In this paper we will describe the evolution of Andromeda from version 2.06 to 2.10 and demonstrate both how it has improved its loader to evade automatic analysis/detection and how the payload varies among the different versions. This article could also be seen as a way to say 'goodbye' to the botnet: a takedown effort, followed by the arrest of the suspected botnet owner in December 2017, may mean we have seen the last of the botnet that has plagued Internet users for more than half a decade. The Andromeda botnet has been observed to be used by Transparent Tribe, APT 36 .

When it comes to discovering new malware, it is much more common for researchers to run across information stealers, ransomware and remote-access tools (RATs) than it is to encounter brand new complex codes like banking Trojans or targeted attack tools such as Duqu. Nonetheless, it is the lesser breeds, like information stealers and RATs, that are a lot more prolific in the wild. And while banking Trojans or targeted attacks are quite specific in what they do, information stealers are by far less discriminatory and thus end up affecting a greater number of people and organizations. That brings us to CoreBot, a new information stealer discovered and analyzed by IBM Security X-Force researchers, who indicate this is one malware piece to watch out for. CoreBot appears to be quite modular, which means that its structure and internal makeup were programmed in a way that allows for the easy adding of new data theft and endpoint control mechanisms. CoreBot was discovered while the researchers were studying the activity of malware on Trusteer-protected enterprise endpoints. The malware’s compiled file was named “core” by its developer. Antivirus engines do not specify this malware’s name yet and detect it under generic names such as Dynamer!ac or Eldorado. But while CoreBot may appear artless at first glance, without real-time theft capabilities, it is more interesting on the inside. CoreBot has been observed to be distributed by DinaBot (operated by Scully Spider, TA547 ).

Zeus Panda, Panda Banker, or Panda is a variant of the original Zeus under the banking Trojan category. Its discovery was in 2016 in Brazil around the time of the Olympic Games. The majority of the code is derived from the original Zeus trojan, and maintains the coding to carry out man-in-the-browser, keystroke logging, and form grabbing attacks. ZeuS Panda launches attack campaigns with a variety of exploit kits and loaders by way of drive-by downloads and phishing emails, and also hooking internet search results to infected pages. Stealth capabilities make not only detecting but analyzing the malware difficult. GozNym has been observed to be distributed via the Avalanche botnet. Zeus Panda has been observed to be distributed by Emotet (operated by Mummy Spider, TA542 ), Smoke Loader (operated by Smoky Spider ), Cutwail (operated by Narwhal Spider ) and Kelihos (operated by Zombie Spider ).

On September 18, 2012, the Qassam Cyber Fighters (QCF) posted its first message, in both English and Arabic, on its Pastebin page; the message warned the world that it was now targeting U.S. banks for hacking attacks, and would do so in the future as well. Since its emergence, the group has vowed to continue to carry out cyber attacks against Western targets until YouTube removes the anti-Muslim video 'Innocence of Muslims,' stating in its first communiqué: 'All the Muslim youths who are active in the Cyber world will attack to American and Zionist bases as much as needed such that they say that they are sorry about that insult.' Since the September 18, 2012 message, in which it announced that it was planning to attack the Bank of America and New York Stock Exchange on that date, it has been widely speculated that the group's origins are in fact Iranian. Western media sources, as well as analysts who have studied the QCF, have stated that it is actually an Iranian front. Cyber security analyst Dancho Danchev performed the most authoritative open-source intelligence (OSINT) analysis on the issue of the group's links to Iran, aimed at exposing one of the individuals in the group, while former Senator Joseph I. Lieberman told C-Span that he believed that Iran's government was sponsoring the group's attacks on U.S. banks in retaliation for Western economic sanctions. Additionally, The New York Times quoted unnamed U.S. intelligence officials stating that the 'group is a convenient cover for Iran.' The QCF claims to have attacked Bank of America, the New York Stock Exchange, Capital One Financial Corp, SunTrust Banks Inc., BB&T, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase & CO, PNC Financial Services, U.S. Bancorp, Citigroup Citibank, Wells Fargo & Company, Ally Financial, Fifth Third Bancorp, Zions Bancorporation, Union Bank, Comerica, Citizens Bank, Umpqua Bank, People's United Bank, University Federal Credit Union, Patelco Credit Union, American Express, KeyCorp, Ameriprise Financial, Citizens Financial, BBVA Compass, UMB Financial Corporation, M&T Bank, Bank of the West, Regions Financial Corp, Euronext, and Synovus Financial Corporation. Recorded Future found a possible overlap with Desert Falcons .

Quant is not new or a very novel piece of malware: we covered the basics of it last year when it was first advertised by its creator, MrRaiX, and began to emerge in the wild. However, analysis of the newly obtained samples quickly revealed some differences to the previously documented Quant-based Locky and Pony campaigns. Further, these newest samples all appeared to attempt to download the same payload files from the C2 server after their initial connection.

Dungeon Spider is a criminal group operating the ransomware most commonly known as Locky, which has been active since February 2016 and was last observed in late 2017. Locky is a ransomware tool that encrypts files using a combination of cryptographic algorithms: RSA with a key size of 2,048 bits, and AES with a key size of 128 bits. Locky targets a large number of file extensions and is able to encrypt data on shared network drives. In an attempt to further impact victims and prevent file recovery, Locky deletes all of the Shadow Volume Copies on the machine. Dungeon Spider primarily relies on broad spam campaigns with malicious attachments for distribution. Locky is the community/industry name associated with this actor. Locky has been observed to be distributed via Necurs (operated by Monty Spider ).