C0013: Operation Sharpshooter
Operation Sharpshooter was a global cyber espionage campaign that targeted nuclear, defense, government, energy, and financial companies, with many located in Germany, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Security researchers noted the campaign shared many similarities with previous Lazarus Group operations, including fake job recruitment lures and shared malware code.[1][2][3]
Security context for executives and security teams
C0013: Operation Sharpshooter describes [Operation Sharpshooter](https://attack.mitre.org/campaigns/C0013) was a global cyber espionage campaign that targeted nuclear, defense, government, energy, and financial companies, with many located in Germany, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Security researchers noted the campaign shared many similarities with previous [Lazarus Group](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0032) operations, including fake job recruitment lures and shared malware code.(Citation: McAfee Sharpshooter December 2018)(Cita...
Executive priority
C0013: Operation Sharpshooter is an official MITRE ATT&CK campaign. Glexia treats it as defensive behavior context for prioritizing monitoring, control validation, and response planning without using the object by itself as an attribution claim.
Technical view
Security teams should validate C0013: Operation Sharpshooter by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (the mapped ATT&CK tactic context), supported platforms (the platforms named in the official object), and available local telemetry before making detection or mitigation decisions.
Likely telemetry
- Official ATT&CK relationships and object metadata
Detection direction
- Validate whether C0013: Operation Sharpshooter appears in your detection coverage and tabletop scenarios.
- Use the object to align executive risk language with SOC, incident response, and detection engineering work.
- Do not treat ATT&CK relationship context as attribution without corroborating evidence.
Mitigation priorities
- Map the object to existing controls and identify missing telemetry or response ownership.
- Prioritize mitigations that reduce exposure on the listed platforms and tactics.
- Review adjacent ATT&CK relationships before changing policy, detections, or reporting language.
Additional notes and limits
Baseline Glexia take generated from the official MITRE ATT&CK STIX object, source hash, tactics, platforms, and detection fields. It is safe to replace with a richer model-generated take for the same source hash later.
This baseline take is source-grounded and schema-validated, but it does not include environment-specific telemetry, incident evidence, or threat-intelligence corroboration.
Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.
Operation Sharpshooter
Operation Sharpshooter was a global cyber espionage campaign that targeted nuclear, defense, government, energy, and financial companies, with many located in Germany, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Security researchers noted the campaign shared many similarities with previous Lazarus Group operations, including fake job recruitment lures and shared malware code.[1][2][3]
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.
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.
| Domain | ID | Name | Relationship / procedure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | T1559.002 | Dynamic Data ExchangeSub-technique | During Operation Sharpshooter, threat actors sent malicious Word OLE documents to victims.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1584.004 | ServerSub-technique | For Operation Sharpshooter, the threat actors compromised a server they used as part of the campaign's infrastructure.[2] |
| Enterprise | T1608.001 | Upload MalwareSub-technique | For Operation Sharpshooter, the threat actors staged malicious files on Dropbox and other websites.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1583.006 | Web ServicesSub-technique | For Operation Sharpshooter, the threat actors used Dropbox to host lure documents and their first-stage downloader.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1106 | Native API | During Operation Sharpshooter, the first stage downloader resolved various Windows libraries and APIs, including `LoadLibraryA()`, `GetProcAddress()`, and `CreateProcessA()`.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1055 | Process Injection | During Operation Sharpshooter, threat actors leveraged embedded shellcode to inject a downloader into the memory of Word.[3] |
| Enterprise | T1059.005 | Visual BasicSub-technique | During Operation Sharpshooter, the threat actors used a VBA macro to execute a simple downloader that installed Rising Sun.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1547.001 | Registry Run Keys / Startup FolderSub-technique | During Operation Sharpshooter, a first-stage downloader installed Rising Sun to `%Startup%\mssync.exe` on a compromised host.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1105 | Ingress Tool Transfer | During Operation Sharpshooter, additional payloads were downloaded after a target was infected with a first-stage downloader.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1587.001 | MalwareSub-technique | For Operation Sharpshooter, the threat actors used the Rising Sun modular backdoor.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1204.002 | Malicious FileSub-technique | During Operation Sharpshooter, the threat actors relied on victims executing malicious Microsoft Word or PDF files.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1036.005 | Match Legitimate Resource Name or LocationSub-technique | During Operation Sharpshooter, threat actors installed Rising Sun in the Startup folder and disguised it as `mssync.exe`.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1090 | Proxy | For Operation Sharpshooter, the threat actors used the ExpressVPN service to hide their location.[2] |
Groups, software, and campaigns
S0448: Rising Sun
Rising Sun is a modular backdoor that was used extensively in Operation Sharpshooter between 2017 and 2019. Rising Sun infected at least 87 organizations around the world, including nuclear, defense, energy, and financial service companies. Security researchers assessed Rising Sun included some source code from Lazarus Group's Trojan Duuzer.[1]
All related ATT&CK context
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.
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19.2 | 1.0 | Current bundle | a6b9a3767c87… | ||
| 19.1 | 1.0 | Older bundle | ec8283b7b5b9… |
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.
External references and citations
MITRE external references are preserved separately from Glexia analysis so citations remain traceable to their original source records.
- [1]McAfee Sharpshooter December 2018
Sherstobitoff, R., Malhotra, A., et. al.. (2018, December 18). Operation Sharpshooter Campaign Targets Global Defense, Critical Infrastructure. Retrieved May 14, 2020.
Open source URL - [2]Bleeping Computer Op Sharpshooter March 2019
I. Ilascu. (2019, March 3). Op 'Sharpshooter' Connected to North Korea's Lazarus Group. Retrieved September 26, 2022.
Open source URL - [3]Threatpost New Op Sharpshooter Data March 2019
L. O'Donnell. (2019, March 3). RSAC 2019: New Operation Sharpshooter Data Reveals Higher Complexity, Scope. Retrieved September 26, 2022.
Open source URL - [4]mitre-attackC0013Open source URL
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