T1059.003: Windows Command Shell

Lazarus Group is a North Korean state-sponsored cyber threat group attributed to the Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB). [1] [2] Lazarus Group has been active since at least 2009 and is reportedly responsible for the November 2014 destructive wiper attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, identified by Novetta as part of Operation Blockbuster. Malware used by Lazarus Group correlates to other reported campaigns, including Operation Flame, Operation 1Mission, Operation Troy, DarkSeoul, and Ten Days of Rain.[3]

North Korea’s cyber operations have shown a consistent pattern of adaptation, forming and reorganizing units as national priorities shift. These units frequently share personnel, infrastructure, malware, and tradecraft, making it difficult to attribute specific operations with high confidence. Public reporting often uses “Lazarus Group” as an umbrella term for multiple North Korean cyber operators conducting espionage, destructive attacks, and financially motivated campaigns.[4][5][6]

Suckfly is a China-based threat group that has been active since at least 2014. [1]

GALLIUM is a cyberespionage group that has been active since at least 2012, primarily targeting telecommunications companies, financial institutions, and government entities in Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Cambodia, Malaysia, Mozambique, the Philippines, Russia, and Vietnam. This group is particularly known for launching Operation Soft Cell, a long-term campaign targeting telecommunications providers.[1] Security researchers have identified GALLIUM as a likely Chinese state-sponsored group, based in part on tools used and TTPs commonly associated with Chinese threat actors.[1][2][3]

Magic Hound is an Iranian-sponsored threat group that conducts long term, resource-intensive cyber espionage operations, likely on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They have targeted European, U.S., and Middle Eastern government and military personnel, academics, journalists, and organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), via complex social engineering campaigns since at least 2014.[1][2][3][4][5]

ZIRCONIUM is a threat group operating out of China, active since at least 2017, that has targeted individuals associated with the 2020 US presidential election and prominent leaders in the international affairs community.[1][2]

Dark Caracal is threat group that has been attributed to the Lebanese General Directorate of General Security (GDGS) and has operated since at least 2012. [1]

Wizard Spider is a Russia-based financially motivated threat group originally known for the creation and deployment of TrickBot since at least 2016. Wizard Spider possesses a diverse arsenal of tools and has conducted ransomware campaigns against a variety of organizations, ranging from major corporations to hospitals.[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]

OilRig is a suspected Iranian threat group that has targeted Middle Eastern and international victims since at least 2014. The group has targeted a variety of sectors, including financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications. It appears the group carries out supply chain attacks, leveraging the trust relationship between organizations to attack their primary targets. The group works on behalf of the Iranian government based on infrastructure details that contain references to Iran, use of Iranian infrastructure, and targeting that aligns with nation-state interests.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

Threat Group-3390 is a Chinese threat group that has extensively used strategic Web compromises to target victims.[1] The group has been active since at least 2010 and has targeted organizations in the aerospace, government, defense, technology, energy, manufacturing and gambling/betting sectors.[2][3][4]

Threat Group-1314 is an unattributed threat group that has used compromised credentials to log into a victim's remote access infrastructure. [1]

Saint Bear is a Russian-nexus threat actor active since early 2021, primarily targeting entities in Ukraine and Georgia. The group is notable for a specific remote access tool, Saint Bot, and information stealer, OutSteel in campaigns. Saint Bear typically relies on phishing or web staging of malicious documents and related file types for initial access, spoofing government or related entities.[1][2] Saint Bear has previously been confused with Ember Bear operations, but analysis of behaviors, tools, and targeting indicates these are distinct clusters.

SeaDuke is malware that was used by APT29 from 2014 to 2015. It was used primarily as a secondary backdoor for victims that were already compromised with CozyCar. [1]

InnaputRAT is a remote access tool that can exfiltrate files from a victim’s machine. InnaputRAT has been seen out in the wild since 2016. [1]

Daserf is a backdoor that has been used to spy on and steal from Japanese, South Korean, Russian, Singaporean, and Chinese victims. Researchers have identified versions written in both Visual C and Delphi. [1] [2]

CozyCar is malware that was used by APT29 from 2010 to 2015. It is a modular malware platform, and its backdoor component can be instructed to download and execute a variety of modules with different functionality. [1]

OutSteel is a file uploader and document stealer developed with the scripting language AutoIT that has been used by Saint Bear since at least March 2021.[1]

Orz is a custom JavaScript backdoor used by Leviathan. It was observed being used in 2014 as well as in August 2017 when it was dropped by Microsoft Publisher files. [1] [2]

BackConfig is a custom Trojan with a flexible plugin architecture that has been used by Patchwork.[1]

FlawedAmmyy is a remote access tool (RAT) that was first seen in early 2016. The code for FlawedAmmyy was based on leaked source code for a version of Ammyy Admin, a remote access software.[1]

LunarWeb is a backdoor that has been used by Turla since at least 2020 including in a compromise of a European ministry of foreign affairs (MFA) together with LunarLoader and LunarMail. LunarWeb has only been observed deployed against servers and can use Steganography to obfuscate command and control.[1]

Lizar is a modular remote access tool written using the .NET Framework that shares structural similarities to Carbanak. It has likely been used by FIN7 since at least February 2021.[1][2][3]

BoxCaon is a Windows backdoor that was used by IndigoZebra in a 2021 spearphishing campaign against Afghan government officials. BoxCaon's name stems from similarities shared with the malware family xCaon.[1]

AsyncRAT is an open-source remote access tool originally available through the NYANxCAT Github repository that has been used in malicious campaigns.[1][2][3]

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]

APT28 Nearest Neighbor Campaign was conducted by APT28 from early February 2022 to November 2024 against organizations and individuals with expertise on Ukraine. APT28 primarily leveraged living-off-the-land techniques, while leveraging the zero-day exploitation of CVE-2022-38028. Notably, APT28 leveraged Wi-Fi networks in close proximity to the intended target to gain initial access to the victim environment. By daisy-chaining multiple compromised organizations nearby the intended target, APT28 discovered dual-homed systems (with both a wired and wireless network connection) to enable Wi-Fi and use compromised credentials to connect to the victim network.[1]

Pikabot was distributed in Water Curupira Pikabot Distribution throughout 2023 by an entity linked to BlackBasta ransomware deployment via email attachments. This activity followed the take-down of QakBot, with several technical overlaps and similarities with QakBot, indicating a possible connection. The identified activity led to the deployment of tools such as Cobalt Strike, while coinciding with campaigns delivering DarkGate and IcedID en route to ransomware deployment.[1]