LiveActive security incident?Get immediate response
MITRE ATT&CK® Campaign

C0021: C0021

C0021 was a spearphishing campaign conducted in November 2018 that targeted public sector institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), educational institutions, and private-sector corporations in the oil and gas, chemical, and hospitality industries. The majority of targets were located in the US, particularly in and around Washington D.C., with other targets located in Europe, Hong Kong, India, and Canada. C0021's technical artifacts, tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), and targeting overlap with previous suspected APT29 activity.[1][2]

EnterpriseC0021CampaignObject v1.0Modified
Discuss defensive coverageBack to ATT&CK
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis

Security context for executives and security teams

Automation confidenceMedium

C0021: C0021 describes [C0021](https://attack.mitre.org/campaigns/C0021) was a spearphishing campaign conducted in November 2018 that targeted public sector institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), educational institutions, and private-sector corporations in the oil and gas, chemical, and hospitality industries. The majority of targets were located in the US, particularly in and around Washington D.C., with other targets located in Europe, Hong Kong, India, and Canada. [C0021](https://attack.mitre.org/campaigns/C0021)'s techn...

Executive priority

C0021: C0021 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 C0021: C0021 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 C0021: C0021 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.

Official MITRE ATT&CK definition

C0021

C0021 was a spearphishing campaign conducted in November 2018 that targeted public sector institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), educational institutions, and private-sector corporations in the oil and gas, chemical, and hospitality industries. The majority of targets were located in the US, particularly in and around Washington D.C., with other targets located in Europe, Hong Kong, India, and Canada. C0021's technical artifacts, tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), and targeting overlap with previous suspected APT29 activity.[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.

15 rows
DomainIDNameRelationship / procedure
EnterpriseT1583.001DomainsSub-technique

For C0021, the threat actors registered domains for use in C2.[2]

EnterpriseT1218.011Rundll32Sub-technique

During C0021, the threat actors used `rundll32.exe` to execute the Cobalt Strike Beacon loader DLL.[2]

EnterpriseT1027.010Command ObfuscationSub-technique

During C0021, the threat actors used encoded PowerShell commands.[2][1]

EnterpriseT1584.001DomainsSub-technique

For C0021, the threat actors used legitimate but compromised domains to host malicious payloads.[1]

EnterpriseT1204.001Malicious LinkSub-technique

During C0021, the threat actors lured users into clicking a malicious link which led to the download of a ZIP archive containing a malicious .LNK file.[2]

EnterpriseT1095Non-Application Layer Protocol

During C0021, the threat actors used TCP for some C2 communications.[2]

EnterpriseT1588.002ToolSub-technique

For C0021, the threat actors used Cobalt Strike configured with a modified variation of the publicly available Pandora Malleable C2 Profile.[2][1]

EnterpriseT1071.001Web ProtocolsSub-technique

During C0021, the threat actors used HTTP for some of their C2 communications.[2]

EnterpriseT1608.001Upload MalwareSub-technique

For C0021, the threat actors uploaded malware to websites under their control.[2][1]

EnterpriseT1105Ingress Tool Transfer

During C0021, the threat actors downloaded additional tools and files onto victim machines.[1][2]

EnterpriseT1140Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information

During C0021, the threat actors deobfuscated encoded PowerShell commands including use of the specific string `'FromBase'+0x40+'String'`, in place of `FromBase64String` which is normally used to decode base64.[2][1]

EnterpriseT1566.002Spearphishing LinkSub-technique

During C0021, the threat actors sent phishing emails with unique malicious links, likely for tracking victim clicks.[2][1]

EnterpriseT1573.002Asymmetric CryptographySub-technique

During C0021, the threat actors used SSL via TCP port 443 for C2 communications.[2]

EnterpriseT1059.001PowerShellSub-technique

During C0021, the threat actors used obfuscated PowerShell to extract an encoded payload from within an .LNK file.[2][1]

EnterpriseT1027.009Embedded PayloadsSub-technique

For C0021, the threat actors embedded a base64-encoded payload within a LNK file.[1]

Associated objects

Groups, software, and campaigns

MalwareEnterprise

S0154: Cobalt Strike

Cobalt Strike is a commercial, full-featured, remote access tool that bills itself as “adversary simulation software designed to execute targeted attacks and emulate the post-exploitation actions of advanced threat actors”. Cobalt Strike’s interactive post-exploit capabilities cover the full range of ATT&CK tactics, all executed within a single, integrated system.[1]

In addition to its own capabilities, Cobalt Strike leverages the capabilities of other well-known tools such as Metasploit and Mimikatz.[1]

LinuxmacOSWindows
Relationship explorer

All related ATT&CK context

uses · TechniqueT1583.001: DomainsEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1218.011: Rundll32Enterpriseuses · TechniqueT1027.010: Command ObfuscationEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1584.001: DomainsEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1204.001: Malicious LinkEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1095: Non-Application Layer ProtocolEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1588.002: ToolEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1071.001: Web ProtocolsEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1608.001: Upload MalwareEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1105: Ingress Tool TransferEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1140: Deobfuscate/Decode Files or InformationEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1566.002: Spearphishing LinkEnterpriseuses · MalwareS0154: Cobalt StrikeEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1573.002: Asymmetric CryptographyEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1059.001: PowerShellEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1027.009: Embedded PayloadsEnterprise
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
19.2
Object version
1.0
Created
Modified
Raw hash
d1b1084a6aafed36...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)
ReleaseBundle importedObject versionModifiedStatusRaw hash
19.21.0Current bundled1b1084a6aaf…
19.11.0Older bundle11fb25f7b47f…
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.

Open mirrored raw JSONOpen MITRE-hosted copy
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]
    Microsoft Unidentified Dec 2018

    Microsoft Defender Research Team. (2018, December 3). Analysis of cyberattack on U.S. think tanks, non-profits, public sector by unidentified attackers. Retrieved April 15, 2019.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    FireEye APT29 Nov 2018

    Dunwoody, M., et al. (2018, November 19). Not So Cozy: An Uncomfortable Examination of a Suspected APT29 Phishing Campaign. Retrieved November 27, 2018.

    Open source URL
  3. [3]
    mitre-attackC0021
    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.

Official MITRE ATT&CK siteOfficial STIX data repositoryMITRE ATT&CK terms of use