T1018: Remote System Discovery

Ember Bear is a Russian state-sponsored cyber espionage group that has been active since at least 2020, linked to Russia's General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) 161st Specialist Training Center (Unit 29155).[1] Ember Bear has primarily focused operations against Ukrainian government and telecommunication entities, but has also operated against critical infrastructure entities in Europe and the Americas.[2] Ember Bear conducted the WhisperGate destructive wiper attacks against Ukraine in early 2022.[3][4][1] There is some confusion as to whether Ember Bear overlaps with another Russian-linked entity referred to as Saint Bear. At present available evidence strongly suggests these are distinct activities with different behavioral profiles.[2][5]

menuPass is a threat group that has been active since at least 2006. Individual members of menuPass are known to have acted in association with the Chinese Ministry of State Security's (MSS) Tianjin State Security Bureau and worked for the Huaying Haitai Science and Technology Development Company.[1][2]

menuPass has targeted healthcare, defense, aerospace, finance, maritime, biotechnology, energy, and government sectors globally, with an emphasis on Japanese organizations. In 2016 and 2017, the group is known to have targeted managed IT service providers (MSPs), manufacturing and mining companies, and a university.[3][4][5][6][7][1][2]

Fox Kitten is threat actor with a suspected nexus to the Iranian government that has been active since at least 2017 against entities in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, Australia, and North America. Fox Kitten has targeted multiple industrial verticals including oil and gas, technology, government, defense, healthcare, manufacturing, and engineering.[1][2][3][4]

Agrius is an Iranian threat actor active since 2020 notable for a series of ransomware and wiper operations in the Middle East, with an emphasis on Israeli targets.[1][2] Public reporting has linked Agrius to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).[3]

Naikon is assessed to be a state-sponsored cyber espionage group attributed to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Chengdu Military Region Second Technical Reconnaissance Bureau (Military Unit Cover Designator 78020).[1] Active since at least 2010, Naikon has primarily conducted operations against government, military, and civil organizations in Southeast Asia, as well as against international bodies such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).[1][2]

While Naikon shares some characteristics with APT30, the two groups do not appear to be exact matches.[3]

Deep Panda is a suspected Chinese threat group known to target many industries, including government, defense, financial, and telecommunications. [1] The intrusion into healthcare company Anthem has been attributed to Deep Panda. [2] This group is also known as Shell Crew, WebMasters, KungFu Kittens, and PinkPanther. [3] Deep Panda also appears to be known as Black Vine based on the attribution of both group names to the Anthem intrusion. [4] Some analysts track Deep Panda and APT19 as the same group, but it is unclear from open source information if the groups are the same. [5]

Earth Lusca is a suspected China-based cyber espionage group that has been active since at least April 2019. Earth Lusca has targeted organizations in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Nepal, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates, Nigeria, Germany, France, and the United States. Targets included government institutions, news media outlets, gambling companies, educational institutions, COVID-19 research organizations, telecommunications companies, religious movements banned in China, and cryptocurrency trading platforms; security researchers assess some Earth Lusca operations may be financially motivated.[1]

Earth Lusca has used malware commonly used by other Chinese threat groups, including APT41 and the Winnti Group cluster, however security researchers assess Earth Lusca's techniques and infrastructure are separate.[1]

APT41 is a threat group that researchers have assessed as Chinese state-sponsored espionage group that also conducts financially-motivated operations. Active since at least 2012, APT41 has been observed targeting various industries, including but not limited to healthcare, telecom, technology, finance, education, retail and video game industries in 14 countries.[1] Notable behaviors include using a wide range of malware and tools to complete mission objectives. APT41 overlaps at least partially with public reporting on groups including BARIUM and Winnti Group.[2][3]

FIN5 is a financially motivated threat group that has targeted personally identifiable information and payment card information. The group has been active since at least 2008 and has targeted the restaurant, gaming, and hotel industries. The group is made up of actors who likely speak Russian. [1] [2] [3]

Volt Typhoon is a People's Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored actor that has been active since at least 2021, primarily targeting critical infrastructure organizations in the US and its territories including Guam. Volt Typhoon's targeting and pattern of behavior have been assessed as pre-positioning to enable lateral movement to operational technology (OT) assets for potential destructive or disruptive attacks. Volt Typhoon has emphasized stealth in operations using web shells, living-off-the-land (LOTL) binaries, hands on keyboard activities, and stolen credentials.[1][2][3][4]. The group has leveraged compromised SOHO routers to proxy command and control traffic and obscure its infrastructure, activity associated with the KV botnet.[5].

Reporting indicates a separate initial access cluster, SYLVANITE, has been observed exploiting internet-facing edge devices and transferring access to Volt Typhoon, also tracked as VOLTZITE, for follow-on operations. [6]

Sandworm Team is a destructive threat group that has been attributed to Russia's General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) Main Center for Special Technologies (GTsST) military unit 74455.[1][2] This group has been active since at least 2009.[3][4][5][6]

In October 2020, the US indicted six GRU Unit 74455 officers associated with Sandworm Team for the following cyber operations: the 2015 and 2016 attacks against Ukrainian electrical companies and government organizations, the 2017 worldwide NotPetya attack, targeting of the 2017 French presidential campaign, the 2018 Olympic Destroyer attack against the Winter Olympic Games, the 2018 operation against the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and attacks against the country of Georgia in 2018 and 2019.[1][2] Some of these were conducted with the assistance of GRU Unit 26165, which is also referred to as APT28.[7]

Play is a ransomware group that has been active since at least 2022 deploying Playcrypt ransomware against the business, government, critical infrastructure, healthcare, and media sectors in North America, South America, and Europe. Play actors employ a double-extortion model, encrypting systems after exfiltrating data, and are presumed by security researchers to operate as a closed group.[1][2]

MURKYTOP is a reconnaissance tool used by Leviathan. [1]

TAINTEDSCRIBE is a fully-featured beaconing implant integrated with command modules used by Lazarus Group. It was first reported in May 2020.[1]

ROADTools is a framework for enumerating Azure Active Directory environments. The tool is written in Python and publicly available on GitHub.[1]

BitPaymer is a ransomware variant first observed in August 2017 targeting hospitals in the U.K. BitPaymer uses a unique encryption key, ransom note, and contact information for each operation. BitPaymer has several indicators suggesting overlap with the Dridex malware and is often delivered via Dridex.[1]

QakBot is a modular banking trojan that has been used primarily by financially-motivated actors since at least 2007. QakBot is continuously maintained and developed and has evolved from an information stealer into a delivery agent for ransomware, most notably ProLock and Egregor.[1][2][3][4]

USBferry is an information stealing malware and has been used by Tropic Trooper in targeted attacks against Taiwanese and Philippine air-gapped military environments. USBferry shares an overlapping codebase with YAHOYAH, though it has several features which makes it a distinct piece of malware.[1]

Bazar is a downloader and backdoor that has been used since at least April 2020, with infections primarily against professional services, healthcare, manufacturing, IT, logistics and travel companies across the US and Europe. Bazar reportedly has ties to TrickBot campaigns and can be used to deploy additional malware, including ransomware, and to steal sensitive data.[1]

BADHATCH is a backdoor that has been utilized by FIN8 since at least 2019. BADHATCH has been used to target the insurance, retail, technology, and chemical industries in the United States, Canada, South Africa, Panama, and Italy.[1][2]

BlackCat is ransomware written in Rust that has been offered via the Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) model. First observed November 2021, BlackCat has been used to target multiple sectors and organizations in various countries and regions in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Europe.[1][2][3]

The Net utility is a component of the Windows operating system. It is used in command-line operations for control of users, groups, services, and network connections. [1]

Net has a great deal of functionality, [2] much of which is useful for an adversary, such as gathering system and network information for Discovery, moving laterally through SMB/Windows Admin Shares using net use commands, and interacting with services. The net1.exe utility is executed for certain functionality when net.exe is run and can be used directly in commands such as net1 user.

Black Basta is ransomware written in C++ that has been offered within the ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model since at least April 2022; there are variants that target Windows and VMWare ESXi servers. Black Basta operations have included the double extortion technique where in addition to demanding ransom for decrypting the files of targeted organizations the cyber actors also threaten to post sensitive information to a leak site if the ransom is not paid. Black Basta affiliates have targeted multiple high-value organizations, with the largest number of victims based in the U.S. Based on similarities in TTPs, leak sites, payment sites, and negotiation tactics, security researchers assess the Black Basta RaaS operators could include current or former members of the Conti group.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

LODEINFO is a fileless backdoor malware first identified in 2020 that has been used by actors including MirrorFace, primarily against media, diplomatic, governmental, and public sector organizations in Japan.[1][2][3]

Operation CuckooBees was a cyber espionage campaign targeting technology and manufacturing companies in East Asia, Western Europe, and North America since at least 2019. Security researchers noted the goal of Operation CuckooBees, which was still ongoing as of May 2022, was likely the theft of proprietary information, research and development documents, source code, and blueprints for various technologies. Researchers assessed Operation CuckooBees was conducted by actors affiliated with Winnti Group, APT41, and BARIUM.[1]

Operation Wocao was a cyber espionage campaign that targeted organizations around the world, including in Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The suspected China-based actors compromised government organizations and managed service providers, as well as aviation, construction, energy, finance, health care, insurance, offshore engineering, software development, and transportation companies.[1]

Security researchers assessed the Operation Wocao actors used similar TTPs and tools as APT20, suggesting a possible overlap. Operation Wocao was named after an observed command line entry by one of the threat actors, possibly out of frustration from losing webshell access.[1]

FunnyDream was a suspected Chinese cyber espionage campaign that targeted government and foreign organizations in Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, and other parts of Southeast Asia. Security researchers linked the FunnyDream campaign to possible Chinese-speaking threat actors through the use of the Chinoxy backdoor and noted infrastructure overlap with the TAG-16 threat group.[1][2][3]

Leviathan Australian Intrusions consisted of at least two long-term intrusions against victims in Australia by Leviathan, relying on similar tradecraft such as external service exploitation followed by extensive credential capture and re-use to enable privilege escalation and lateral movement. Leviathan Australian Intrusions were focused on exfiltrating sensitive data including valid credentials for the victim organizations.[1]

2015 Ukraine Electric Power Attack was a Sandworm Team campaign during which they used BlackEnergy (specifically BlackEnergy3) and KillDisk to target and disrupt transmission and distribution substations within the Ukrainian power grid. This campaign was the first major public attack conducted against the Ukrainian power grid by Sandworm Team.

Operation Digital Eye was conducted in June and July of 2024 by suspected People's Republic of China (PRC)-nexus threat actors targeting business-to-business IT service providers in Southern Europe. Operation Digital Eye activity included the use of Visual Studio Code tunnels for command and control (C2) and custom lateral movement capabilities. Overlaps in tooling between Digital Eye and previous China-nexus campaigns, Operation Soft Cell and Operation Tainted Love, indicate the potential use of shared vendors or digital quartermasters.[1]

The SolarWinds Compromise was a sophisticated supply chain cyber operation conducted by APT29 that was discovered in mid-December 2020. APT29 used customized malware to inject malicious code into the SolarWinds Orion software build process that was later distributed through a normal software update; they also used password spraying, token theft, API abuse, spear phishing, and other supply chain attacks to compromise user accounts and leverage their associated access. Victims of this campaign included government, consulting, technology, telecom, and other organizations in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. This activity has been labled the StellarParticle campaign in industry reporting.[1] Industry reporting also initially referred to the actors involved in this campaign as UNC2452, NOBELIUM, Dark Halo, and SolarStorm.[2][3][4][5][1][6][7][8]

In April 2021, the US and UK governments attributed the SolarWinds Compromise to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR); public statements included citations to APT29, Cozy Bear, and The Dukes.[9][10][11] The US government assessed that of the approximately 18,000 affected public and private sector customers of Solar Winds’ Orion product, a much smaller number were compromised by follow-on APT29 activity on their systems.[12]