G0009: Deep Panda
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]
Security context for executives and security teams
G0009: Deep Panda describes [Deep Panda](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0009) is a suspected Chinese threat group known to target many industries, including government, defense, financial, and telecommunications. (Citation: Alperovitch 2014) The intrusion into healthcare company Anthem has been attributed to [Deep Panda](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0009). (Citation: ThreatConnect Anthem) This group is also known as Shell Crew, WebMasters, KungFu Kittens, and PinkPanther. (Citation: RSA Shell Crew) [Deep Panda](https://attack.mitre.org/...
Executive priority
G0009: Deep Panda is an official MITRE ATT&CK group. 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 G0009: Deep Panda 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 G0009: Deep Panda 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.
Deep Panda
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]
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 | T1057 | Process Discovery | Deep Panda uses the Microsoft Tasklist utility to list processes running on systems.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1018 | Remote System Discovery | Deep Panda has used ping to identify other machines of interest.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1505.003 | Web ShellSub-technique | Deep Panda uses Web shells on publicly accessible Web servers to access victim networks.CitationCrowdStrike Deep Panda Web Shells |
| Enterprise | T1027.005 | Indicator Removal from ToolsSub-technique | Deep Panda has updated and modified its malware, resulting in different hash values that evade detection.[4] |
| Enterprise | T1218.010 | Regsvr32Sub-technique | Deep Panda has used regsvr32.exe to execute a server variant of Derusbi in victim networks.[3] |
| Enterprise | T1564.003 | Hidden WindowSub-technique | Deep Panda has used |
| Enterprise | T1059.001 | PowerShellSub-technique | Deep Panda has used PowerShell scripts to download and execute programs in memory, without writing to disk.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1546.008 | Accessibility FeaturesSub-technique | Deep Panda has used the sticky-keys technique to bypass the RDP login screen on remote systems during intrusions.[3] |
| Enterprise | T1047 | Windows Management Instrumentation | The Deep Panda group is known to utilize WMI for lateral movement.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1021.002 | SMB/Windows Admin SharesSub-technique | Deep Panda uses net.exe to connect to network shares using |
Groups, software, and campaigns
S0080: Mivast
Mivast is a backdoor that has been used by Deep Panda. It was reportedly used in the Anthem breach. [1]
S0097: Ping
S0039: Net
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.
S0142: StreamEx
StreamEx is a malware family that has been used by Deep Panda since at least 2015. In 2016, it was distributed via legitimate compromised Korean websites. [1]
S0074: Sakula
S0057: Tasklist
S0021: Derusbi
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 | 1.2 | Current bundle | f9648b96aaa1… | ||
| 19.1 | 1.2 | Older bundle | 85f7871f6ad8… |
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]Alperovitch 2014
Alperovitch, D. (2014, July 7). Deep in Thought: Chinese Targeting of National Security Think Tanks. Retrieved November 12, 2014.
Open source URL - [2]ThreatConnect Anthem
ThreatConnect Research Team. (2015, February 27). The Anthem Hack: All Roads Lead to China. Retrieved January 26, 2016.
Open source URL - [3]RSA Shell Crew
RSA Incident Response. (2014, January). RSA Incident Response Emerging Threat Profile: Shell Crew. Retrieved January 14, 2016.
Open source URL - [4]Symantec Black Vine
DiMaggio, J.. (2015, August 6). The Black Vine cyberespionage group. Retrieved January 26, 2016.
Open source URL - [5]ICIT China's Espionage Jul 2016
Scott, J. and Spaniel, D. (2016, July 28). ICIT Brief - China’s Espionage Dynasty: Economic Death by a Thousand Cuts. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
Open source URL - [6]Black Vine
(Citation: Symantec Black Vine)
- [7]Deep Panda
(Citation: Alperovitch 2014)
- [8]KungFu Kittens
(Citation: RSA Shell Crew)
- [9]PinkPanther
(Citation: RSA Shell Crew)
- [10]Shell Crew
(Citation: RSA Shell Crew)
- [11]WebMasters
(Citation: RSA Shell Crew)
- [12]mitre-attackG0009Open source URL
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