Threat Actors Database

EC2 Grouper is a prolific threat actor known for leveraging AWS tools for PowerShell to conduct automated attacks in cloud environments. They typically utilize the CreateSecurityGroup API to establish remote access and exhibit a consistent security group naming convention. Credential acquisition is believed to stem from compromised cloud access keys, often sourced from public code repositories. Notably, their activities do not include calls to AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress, suggesting a selective approach to escalation.

Codefinger is a ransomware group that targets Amazon S3 buckets by exploiting AWS’s Server-Side Encryption with Customer Provided Keys to encrypt victim data. They utilize compromised AWS credentials to gain access and demand Bitcoin ransoms for the decryption keys, threatening to delete files if negotiations fail. The group has been observed abusing publicly disclosed AWS keys with permissions to read and write S3 objects, making recovery impossible without their cooperation. Halcyon has documented multiple incidents linked to Codefinger's data extortion campaign against organizations with unsecured infrastructure.

Operation DRBControl is a cyberespionage campaign targeting gambling companies in Southeast Asia, first identified in 2019. The operation involves the use of HyperBro malware and SysUpdate variants, with evidence of customer database and source code exfiltration. The threat actor has employed domain spoofing for command and control and has shown a consistent interest in the gambling industry. Trend Micro's analysis linked multiple tools and malware families to this campaign, indicating a sophisticated and evolving threat landscape.

Storm-0473 (Tomiris) is a threat actor that has been active since at least 2019. They primarily target government and diplomatic entities in the Commonwealth of Independent States region, with occasional victims in other regions being foreign representations of CIS countries. Tomiris uses a wide variety of malware implants, including downloaders, backdoors, and file stealers, developed in different programming languages. They employ various attack vectors such as spear-phishing, DNS hijacking, and exploitation of vulnerabilities. There are potential ties between Tomiris and Turla, but they are considered separate threat actors with distinct targeting and tradecraft by Kaspersky.

The Belsen Group has exploited the CVE-2022-40684 vulnerability in Fortinet devices to compromise over 15,000 FortiGate firewalls, releasing detailed configurations and plaintext VPN credentials. Their leaked data, organized by country and IP address, primarily consists of configurations from FortiOS 7.0.6 and 7.2.1, which were the last vulnerable versions before patches were issued. Security researcher Kevin Beaumont confirmed that the group leveraged this vulnerability to gain unauthorized access and warned of potential exploitation of CVE-2024-55591 by similar threat actors. Fortinet has stated that the leaked data originates from older campaigns and not from any recent incidents.

LIMINAL PANDA is a China-nexus APT that targets telecommunications entities, employing custom malware and publicly available tools for covert access, C2, and data exfiltration. The adversary demonstrates extensive knowledge of telecom networks, utilizing GSM protocols to retrieve mobile subscriber information and call metadata. LIMINAL PANDA exploits trust relationships and security gaps between providers to access core infrastructure, indicating a focus on SIGINT collection rather than financial gain. Their intrusion activity has primarily affected telecom providers in southern Asia and Africa, with potential for broader targeting based on network configurations.

ExCobalt is an APT group that has been active since at least 2016 and is believed to be linked to the notorious Cobalt Gang. The group primarily targets Russian organizations across sectors—including metallurgy, telecommunications, mining, information technology, government, and software development by exploiting supply chain weaknesses and compromised contractors for initial access. ExCobalt’s toolkit features a custom Golang‑based backdoor, GoRed, which enables remote command execution, credential harvesting, and detailed system reconnaissance, while the group also employs established tools such as Spark RAT, Mimikatz, and multiple Linux privilege escalation exploits. Researchers note that ExCobalt continually evolves its tactics and even modifies standard utilities to bypass security controls and maintain persistent access, underscoring its commitment to sophisticated cyberespionage and data theft operations.

UNC3973 is a financially motivated threat actor tracked by Mandiant, distinguished from the broader BASTA ransomware ecosystem (primarily tracked as UNC4393) due to its unique operational characteristics and TTPs. This actor has demonstrated a specific focus on supply chain compromises, as evidenced by their June campaign targeting credit unions in western Canada via a compromised managed service provider (MSP). UNC3973 leverages unauthorized service accounts with elevated privileges, specifically domain administrator accounts shared between the compromised MSP and the target organizations, to gain initial access.This actor's post-exploitation activity includes attempts to disable security controls and deploy the SYSTEMBC tunneler for command and control (C2) communication, followed by attempts to deploy BASTA ransomware. While their attempts to deploy both SYSTEMBC and BASTA have been observed, these were thankfully thwarted by endpoint security solutions in observed instances. The targeted, supply chain-enabled nature of UNC3973's intrusions, coupled with its use of privileged shared accounts and attempts at deploying BASTA, all suggest that it is an exclusive group, perhaps even affiliates working closely with or possibly operating under the direct control, BASTA ransomware operators. This group's ability to exploit centralized access points, like MSPs, represents a significant threat to organizations reliant on third-party providers.

Storm-0826 is a financially motivated cybercriminal group operating as an affiliate within the Black Basta ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) ecosystem. This actor's primary known method of obtaining initial access is through handoffs from Storm-0464, a known distributor of the Qakbot malware

STAC5143 is a threat actor group tracked by Sophos, notable for its sophisticated use of Microsoft Office 365's legitimate services to conduct ransomware and data extortion campaigns. Unlike FIN7, which typically targets larger organizations through phishing and malicious Google Ads, STAC5143 focuses on smaller victims across diverse business sectors. Their operations begin with overwhelming targeted individuals with email bombing, followed by Microsoft Teams messages impersonating tech support to initiate a remote screen control session. Utilizing Microsoft's Quick Assist or direct Teams screen sharing, they deploy malware, including Java Archive (JAR) files and Python-based backdoors, from external SharePoint file stores. This cluster exploits legitimate services within the Microsoft Office 365 platform, using a Java-based proxy to execute PowerShell commands and download malicious payloads. While employing publicly available tools like RPivot, their obfuscation methods and the use of side-loaded DLLs for command and control, combined with the deployment of Black Basta ransomware in one instance, indicate a sophisticated and evolving threat actor adapting known techniques for their specific objectives.

GOLD REBELLION is a financially motivated cybercriminal threat group that operates the Black Basta name-and-shame ransomware. The group posted its first victim to its leak site in April 2022 and has continued to publish victim names at a rate of around 15 a month since then. GOLD REBELLION has not openly advertised or appeared to recruit for an affiliate program but the variety of tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) observed in Black Basta intrusions suggests that multiple individuals are engaged in the ransomware scheme.Several security vendors and independent researchers have suggested the distributors of Black Basta may be former affiliates of GOLD ULRICK's Conti operation. Technical artifacts analyzed by CTU researchers suggest that Black Basta has been under development since at least early February 2022, several weeks before extensive public leaks detailed GOLD ULRICK's Conti operation. In November 2022, researchers at SentinelOne linked custom tooling used by GOLD REBELLION to the GOLD NIAGARA (FIN7) threat group. CTU researchers have not made independent observations corroborating a relationship between these threat groups or any others.GOLD REBELLION appear to have been a key customer of GOLD LAGOON's Qakbot: CTU researchers observed multiple incidents where Black Basta was distributed through it as an initial access vector (IAV), leading to Cobalt Strike and further lateral movement into the victim network. Following the takedown of Qakbot in August 2023, GOLD REBELLION explored new methods of delivery, including DarkGate and Pikabot. In one incident, CTU researchers observed a threat actor gain access to a victim network through a managed security services provider (MSSP). In October 2024, GOLD REBELLION likely exploited a vulnerability in a Sonic Wall VPN device for access. Also in 2024, CTU researchers observed multiple instances of the group using social engineering to convince victims to download remote management and monitoring tools like AnyDesk and Quick Assist. After spamming inboxes with multiple emails, the threat actors approached the affected users via Teams, purporting to be IT Support or Help Desk employees offering assistance with email inbox issues.Other tools members of the group have used include the SystemBC back connect malware, PsExec for remote execution, RDP for lateral movement, batch files to delete their own tools and disable anti-virus programs for defense evasion, and both Rclone and MegaSync for data exfiltration.

JavaGhost is a threat actor group that has targeted cloud environments, particularly AWS, for phishing campaigns without engaging in data theft for extortion. They exploit overly permissive IAM permissions and utilize long-term access keys to gain initial access, employing the GetFederationToken API to acquire temporary credentials for console access. JavaGhost has demonstrated advanced evasion techniques, avoiding common detection methods by not using the GetCallerIdentity API call. Their activities generate detectable logging footprints in CloudTrail, allowing organizations to identify and respond to their tactics.

Angry Likho is an APT group that has been active since 2023, primarily targeting large organizations and government agencies in Russia and Belarus. Their attacks typically involve spear-phishing emails with malicious attachments, such as RAR archives, and utilize a known payload, the Lumma stealer, for data exfiltration. The group employs a compact infrastructure and has been linked to espionage activities, particularly in sectors like aviation and pharmaceuticals. Their operations have shown a focus on collecting sensitive information, including cryptowallet files and user credentials.

PlushDaemon is a China-aligned APT group that has conducted cyberespionage operations against targets in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, the United States, and New Zealand. They executed a supply chain attack on the South Korean VPN provider IPany, compromising its installer to deploy the SlowStepper backdoor, which features a toolkit of over 30 components. PlushDaemon primarily gains initial access by hijacking legitimate updates of Chinese applications and has also exploited vulnerabilities in legitimate web servers. Additionally, they have utilized the Visual Studio command line utility regcap.exe to side-load a malicious DLL named lregdll.dll.

Storm-2139 is a cybercrime group that exploited stolen API keys from compromised Azure OpenAI Service accounts to generate harmful content, including non-consensual intimate imagery, using the DALL-E model. The group utilized reverse proxy infrastructure and custom software to bypass guardrails in Microsoft’s GenAI services. Microsoft has filed a lawsuit against four individuals associated with Storm-2139, alleging they modified customer systems and resold access to these capabilities. The group systematically harvested authentication tokens from U.S.-based enterprises and is linked to a broader network of illicit AI tool development and distribution.

LARVA-208 is a financially motivated threat actor employing sophisticated phishing campaigns to harvest credentials and deploy ransomware. The actor uses multiple tactics, including Open URL Redirection, fake login pages, and social engineering, to bypass MFA and gain access to corporate networks. LARVA-208 has compromised over 618 organizations since June 2024, often deploying ransomware payloads. The threat actor is linked to LARVA-148, a threat actor managing domain acquisitions and attacks.

Cyber Alliance is a hacktivist group that has demonstrated capabilities in exploiting vulnerabilities, such as CVE-2023-22515 in Confluence, to escalate privileges and access targeted infrastructure. They successfully accessed Trigona's systems, exfiltrating sensitive data and ultimately defacing and deleting the organization's site.

Larva-24005 is a threat actor that breaches servers in Korea to establish a web server and PHP environment for phishing attacks, primarily targeting individuals involved with North Korea and university professors researching the regime. They exploit the BlueKeep vulnerability for initial access and utilize RDPWrap and a custom keylogger post-compromise. Phishing emails are crafted to appear as legitimate communications, often containing malicious URLs or compressed files. The actor has been observed storing phishing pages in the IIS_USER account and XAMPP home folder, although traces of these pages were later deleted.

GreenSpot is an APT group believed to operate from Taiwan, active since at least 2007, primarily targeting government, academic, and military entities in China through phishing campaigns. The group frequently targets 163.com, aiming to steal login credentials using deceptive domains, manipulated TLS certificates, and counterfeit interfaces. Their tactics highlight the sophistication of modern credential theft operations, necessitating detection efforts focused on irregular domain registrations and certificate anomalies.

Teleboyi is a threat actor reportedly based in China, associated with the PlugX RAT. TeamT5 identified a custom PlugX loader used by Teleboyi that employs a similar string decryption algorithm as seen in the McUtil.dll loader from Operation Harvest. While there are weak links to the dsqurey[.]com domain, the connection remains uncertain due to the domain's registration history.