Threat Actors Database

Wizard Spider is reportedly associated with Grim Spider and Lunar Spider. 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. GRIM SPIDER is a sophisticated eCrime group that has been operating the Ryuk ransomware since August 2018, targeting large organizations for a high-ransom return. This methodology, known as “big game hunting,” signals a shift in operations for WIZARD SPIDER, a criminal enterprise of which GRIM SPIDER appears to be a cell. The WIZARD SPIDER threat group, known as the Russia-based operator of the TrickBot banking malware, had focused primarily on wire fraud in the past.

FireEye characterizes APT31 as an actor specialized on intellectual property theft, focusing on data and projects that make a particular organization competetive in its field. Based on available data (April 2016), FireEye assesses that APT31 conducts network operations at the behest of the Chinese Government. Also according to Crowdstrike, this adversary is suspected of continuing to target upstream providers (e.g., law firms and managed service providers) to support additional intrusions against high-profile assets. In 2018, CrowdStrike observed this adversary using spear-phishing, URL “web bugs” and scheduled tasks to automate credential harvesting.

APT41 is a prolific cyber threat group that carries out Chinese state-sponsored espionage activity in addition to financially motivated activity potentially outside of state control.

HAFNIUM primarily targets entities in the United States across a number of industry sectors, including infectious disease researchers, law firms, higher education institutions, defense contractors, policy think tanks, and NGOs. Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) attributes this campaign with high confidence to HAFNIUM, a group assessed to be state-sponsored and operating out of China, based on observed victimology, tactics and procedures. HAFNIUM has previously compromised victims by exploiting vulnerabilities in internet-facing servers, and has used legitimate open-source frameworks, like Covenant, for command and control. Once they’ve gained access to a victim network, HAFNIUM typically exfiltrates data to file sharing sites like MEGA.In campaigns unrelated to these vulnerabilities, Microsoft has observed HAFNIUM interacting with victim Office 365 tenants. While they are often unsuccessful in compromising customer accounts, this reconnaissance activity helps the adversary identify more details about their targets’ environments. HAFNIUM operates primarily from leased virtual private servers (VPS) in the United States.

Earth Lusca is a threat actor from China that targets organizations of interest to the Chinese government, including academic institutions, telecommunication companies, religious organizations, and other civil society groups. Earth Lusca's tools closely resemble those used by Winnti Umbrella, but the group appears to operate separately from Winnti. Earth Lusca has also been observed targeting cryptocurrency payment platforms and cryptocurrency exchanges in what are likely financially motivated attacks.

A group targeting UA state organizations using the GraphSteel and GrimPlant malware.

BazarCall campaigns forgo malicious links or attachments in email messages in favor of phone numbers that recipients are misled into calling. It’s a technique reminiscent of vishing and tech support scams where potential victims are being cold called by the attacker, except in BazarCall’s case, targeted users must dial the number. And when they do, the users are connected with actual humans on the other end of the line, who then provide step-by-step instructions for installing malware into their devices.

OilAlpha has almost exclusively relied on infrastructure associated with the Public Telecommunication Corporation (PTC), a Yemeni government-owned enterprise reported to be under the direct control of the Houthi authorities. OilAlpha used encrypted chat messengers like WhatsApp to launch social engineering attacks against its targets. It has also used URL link shorteners. Per victimology assessment, it appears a majority of the targeted entities were Arabic-language speakers and operated Android devices.

SingularityMD is a threat actor group that has targeted educational institutions in the US. They gained unauthorized access to their networks by exploiting weak security practices, such as using students' dates of birth as passwords. SingularityMD demanded a ransom in cryptocurrency and threatened to leak stolen information if not paid. They have demonstrated a willingness to follow through on their threats and have already leaked some data.

Kaspersky described Naikon in a 2015 report as: 'The Naikon group is mostly active in countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Singapore, and Nepal, hitting a variety of targets in a very opportunistic way.'

TA499, also known as Vovan and Lexus, is a Russia-aligned threat actor that has aggressively engaged in email campaigns since at least 2021. The threat actor’s campaigns attempt to convince high-profile North American and European government officials as well as CEOs of prominent companies and celebrities into participating in recorded phone calls or video chats.

The Kasablanka group is a cyber-criminal organization that has specifically targeted Russia between September and December 2022, using various payloads delivered through phishing emails containing socially engineered lnk files, zip packages, and executables attached to virtual disk image files.

NoName057(16) is performing DDoS attacks on websites belonging to governments, news agencies, armies, suppliers, telecommunications companies, transportation authorities, financial institutions, and more in Ukraine and neighboring countries supporting Ukraine, like Ukraine itself, Estonia, Lithuania, Norway, and Poland.

Since 2021, Red Menshen, a China based threat actor, which has been observed targeting telecommunications providers across the Middle East and Asia, as well as entities in the government, education, and logistics sectors using a custom backdoor referred as BPFDoor. This threat actor uses a variety of tools in its post-exploitation phase. This includes custom variants of the shared tool Mangzamel (including Golang variants), custom variants of Gh0st, and open source tools like Mimikatz and Metasploit to aid in its lateral movement across Windows systems. Also, They have been seen sending commands to BPFDoor victims via Virtual Privat Servers (VPSs) hosted at a well-known provider, and that these VPSs, in turn, are administered via compromised routers based in Taiwan, which the threat actor uses as VPN tunnels. Most Red Menshen activity that has been observed took place between Monday to Friday (with none observed on the weekends), with most communication taking place between 01:00 and 10:00 UTC.131 This pattern suggests a consistent 8 to 9-hour activity window for the threat actor, with realistic probability of it aligning to local working hours.

EXOTIC LILY is a resourceful, financially motivated group whose activities appear to be closely linked with data exfiltration and deployment of human-operated ransomware such as Conti and Diavol. In early September 2021, the group has been obeserved exploiting a 0day in Microsoft MSHTML (CVE-2021-40444). Investigation lead researchers to believe that they are an Initial Access Broker (IAB) who appear to be working with the Russian cyber crime gang known as FIN12 (Mandiant, FireEye) / WIZARD SPIDER (CrowdStrike). This threat actor deploys tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) that are traditionally associated with more targeted attacks, like spoofing companies and employees as a means of gaining trust of a targeted organization through email campaigns that are believed to be sent by real human operators using little-to-no automation. Additionally and rather uniquely, they leverage legitimate file-sharing services like WeTransfer, TransferNow and OneDrive to deliver the payload, namely BUMBLEEBEE and BAZARLOADER, further evading detection mechanisms. This level of human-interaction is rather unusual for cyber crime groups focused on mass scale operations.

BlackOasis is a Middle Eastern threat group that is believed to be a customer of Gamma Group. The group has shown interest in prominent figures in the United Nations, as well as opposition bloggers, activists, regional news correspondents, and think tanks. A group known by Microsoft as NEODYMIUM is reportedly associated closely with BlackOasis operations, but evidence that the group names are aliases has not been identified.

FireEye first identified this activity during a recent investigation at an organization in the financial industry. They identified the presence of a financially motivated threat group that they track as FIN1, whose activity at the organization dated back several years. The threat group deployed numerous malicious files and utilities, all of which were part of a malware ecosystem referred to as ‘Nemesis’ by the malware developer(s), and used this malware to access the victim environment and steal cardholder data. FIN1, which may be located in Russia or a Russian-speaking country based on language settings in many of their custom tools, is known for stealing data that is easily monetized from financial services organizations such as banks, credit unions, ATM operations, and financial transaction processing and financial business services companies.

The FBI issued a rare bulletin admitting that a group named Advanced Persistent Threat 6 (APT6) hacked into US government computer systems as far back as 2011 and for years stole sensitive data. The FBI alert was issued in February and went largely unnoticed. Nearly a month later, security experts are now shining a bright light on the alert and the mysterious group behind the attack. “This is a rare alert and a little late, but one that is welcomed by all security vendors as it offers a chance to mitigate their customers and also collaborate further in what appears to be an ongoing FBI investigation,” said Deepen Desai, director of security research at the security firm Zscaler in an email to Threatpost. Details regarding the actual attack and what government systems were infected are scant. Government officials said they knew the initial attack occurred in 2011, but are unaware of who specifically is behind the attacks. “Given the nature of malware payload involved and the duration of this compromise being unnoticed – the scope of lateral movement inside the compromised network is very high possibly exposing all the critical systems,”Deepen said.

TAG-28 is a Chinese state-sponsored threat actor that has been targeting Indian organizations, including media conglomerates and government agencies. They have been using the Winnti malware, which is commonly shared among Chinese state-sponsored groups. TAG-28's main objective is to gather intelligence on Indian targets, potentially for espionage purposes.