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MITRE ATT&CK® Group

G1042: RedEcho

RedEcho is a People’s Republic of China-related threat actor associated with long-running intrusions in Indian critical infrastructure entities. RedEcho overlaps with various other PRC-linked threat groups, such as APT41, and is linked to ShadowPad malware use through shared infrastructure.[1][2]

EnterpriseG1042GroupObject v1.0 Modified
Glexia's Take

Analyst context for executives and security teams

Analyst confidence Medium

RedEcho matters because MITRE describes it as a PRC-related group associated with long-running intrusions in Indian critical infrastructure entities, with links to ShadowPad use through shared infrastructure. For leaders, the defensive value is not to over-focus on the group name, but to test whether critical infrastructure and operationally important environments can see and disrupt the command-and-control patterns ATT&CK associates with this activity.

Executive priority

Prioritize this as a resilience and evidence-readiness issue for organizations with critical infrastructure exposure, regional relevance, or dependencies on Indian power-sector operations. Executives should ask whether SOC, incident response, network security, and asset owners can prove visibility into web-based command and control, dynamic infrastructure, unusual protocol/port pairings, and encrypted outbound traffic. The object does not provide a formal detection section, so coverage should be validated through local telemetry rather than assumed from threat intelligence naming.

Technical view

MITRE links RedEcho to ShadowPad and to command-and-control/resource-development techniques including Web Protocols, Dynamic Resolution, Non-Standard Port, Asymmetric Cryptography, and acquired Domains. SOC and detection teams should validate outbound network monitoring, DNS/domain intelligence workflows, proxy and firewall logging, TLS/flow metadata, and malware-response playbooks for ShadowPad-relevant investigations. Because the RedEcho object itself does not specify platforms or tactics, detection engineering should be driven by the related techniques and by local critical-asset network paths.

Likely telemetry

  • DNS queries, resolver logs, passive DNS, and domain registration/context data
  • Proxy, web gateway, firewall, and outbound connection logs
  • NetFlow or equivalent network flow records showing destination, port, protocol, and session patterns
  • TLS/SSL metadata where collected, including certificate and handshake context
  • Endpoint and malware investigation telemetry relevant to ShadowPad on Windows where applicable

Detection direction

  • Validate alerts for web-protocol C2 patterns without relying only on known indicators, since web traffic can blend with normal operations.
  • Look for protocol and port mismatches or uncommon outbound ports, while tuning for legitimate administrative, industrial, and vendor-support traffic.
  • Review DNS and domain-monitoring coverage for dynamic or newly acquired infrastructure, including gaps in passive DNS, resolver logging, and egress allowlisting.
  • Assess whether encrypted C2 would still leave usable metadata such as destination reputation, certificate anomalies, flow timing, or beacon-like behavior.
  • Use the ShadowPad relationship as an investigation pivot, but avoid assuming every ShadowPad-related lead is RedEcho without corroborating intelligence.

Mitigation priorities

  • Start with critical asset mapping and egress control: know which systems should communicate externally and restrict unnecessary outbound paths.
  • Strengthen DNS, proxy, firewall, and network-flow retention so incident responders can reconstruct command-and-control activity.
  • Apply segmentation and monitored choke points around operationally important environments and critical infrastructure dependencies.
  • Maintain malware response procedures for ShadowPad-relevant findings, including containment, scoping, and infrastructure pivoting.
  • Use threat intelligence on domains and infrastructure as supporting context, not as the only control, because dynamic resolution and non-standard ports can reduce simple blocklist effectiveness.
Analyst notes and limits

The decision value is in validating C2 visibility and response readiness around critical infrastructure environments. ATT&CK provides a group description, cited external reporting, and relationships to ShadowPad and several C2/resource-development techniques, but no official detection guidance for the group itself.

The supplied RedEcho object does not specify platforms, tactics, labels, or official detection content. Relationship platforms and tactics come from the related software and techniques, not from the RedEcho group object directly. Local environment evidence is required to determine exposure, relevance, and detection coverage.

Official MITRE ATT&CK definition

RedEcho

RedEcho is a People’s Republic of China-related threat actor associated with long-running intrusions in Indian critical infrastructure entities. RedEcho overlaps with various other PRC-linked threat groups, such as APT41, and is linked to ShadowPad malware use through shared infrastructure.[1][2]

View the same entry on attack.mitre.org (MITRE-hosted reference; in-page links above use the Glexia ATT&CK library.)

Glexia analysis

How security teams should use this page

Treat this object as behavior context, not an attribution claim. Validate the related groups, software, data sources, and mitigations against official ATT&CK relationships and your own telemetry before making control-coverage decisions.

ATT&CK relationship table

Techniques used

This mirrors the MITRE pattern of making group, software, campaign, and technique relationships scannable. Relationship notes come from mirrored ATT&CK relationship text when available.

5 rows
Domain ID Name Relationship / procedure
Enterprise T1568 Dynamic Resolution

RedEcho used dynamic DNS domains associated with malicious infrastructure.CitationRecordedFuture RedEcho 2021

Enterprise T1071.001 Web Protocols Sub-technique

RedEcho network activity is associated with SSL traffic via TCP 443 and proxied HTTP traffic over non-standard ports.CitationRecordedFuture RedEcho 2021

Enterprise T1571 Non-Standard Port

RedEcho has used non-standard ports such as TCP 8080 for HTTP communication.CitationRecordedFuture RedEcho 2021

Enterprise T1573.002 Asymmetric Cryptography Sub-technique

RedEcho uses SSL for network communication.CitationRecordedFuture RedEcho 2021

Enterprise T1583.001 Domains Sub-technique

RedEcho has registered domains spoofing Indian critical infrastructure entities.CitationRecordedFuture RedEcho 2021

Associated objects

Groups, software, and campaigns

Malware Enterprise

S0596: ShadowPad

ShadowPad is a modular backdoor that was first identified in a supply chain compromise of the NetSarang software in mid-July 2017. The malware was originally thought to be exclusively used by APT41, but has since been observed to be used by various Chinese threat activity groups. [1][2][3]

Windows
Relationship explorer

All related ATT&CK context

Change history

Object version and sync metadata

The fields below describe the current mirrored snapshot. When Glexia retains multiple ATT&CK source imports, you can open the table to compare the same object across releases (hashes and MITRE timestamps). For MITRE’s own release notes and roadmap, see ATT&CK resources — Updates .

ATT&CK release
19.1
Object version
1.0
Created
Modified
Raw hash
2849a4bd31a77e29...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases (1)
Release Bundle imported Object version Modified Status Raw hash
19.1 1.0 Current bundle 2849a4bd31a7…
Raw source

Mirrored ATT&CK source object

The raw object is retained through the mirrored ATT&CK source bundle and object hash. The raw endpoint returns the exact object from the mirrored bundle when available.

Source references

External references and citations

MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.

  1. [1]
    RecordedFuture RedEcho 2021

    Recorded Future Insikt Group. (2021, February). China-Linked Group RedEcho Targets the Indian Power Sector Amid Heightened Border Tensions. Retrieved November 21, 2024.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    RecordedFuture RedEcho 2022

    Recorded Future Insikt Group. (2022, April 6). Continued Targeting of Indian Power Grid Assets by Chinese State-Sponsored Activity Group. Retrieved November 21, 2024.

    Open source URL
  3. [3]
    mitre-attack G1042
    Open source URL
Source and licensing

Source: MITRE ATT&CK®. © 2026 The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation. MITRE ATT&CK and ATT&CK are registered trademarks of The MITRE Corporation. Glexia is not affiliated with or endorsed by MITRE.