G0019: Naikon
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]
Security context for executives and security teams
G0019: Naikon describes [Naikon](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0019) 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).(Citation: CameraShy) Active since at least 2010, [Naikon](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0019) has primarily conducted operations against government, military, and civil organizations in Southeast Asia, as well as against international bodies such as...
Executive priority
G0019: Naikon 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 G0019: Naikon 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 G0019: Naikon 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.
Naikon
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]
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 | T1078.002 | Domain AccountsSub-technique | Naikon has used administrator credentials for lateral movement in compromised networks.CitationBitdefender Naikon April 2021 |
| Enterprise | T1018 | Remote System Discovery | Naikon has used a netbios scanner for remote machine identification.CitationBitdefender Naikon April 2021 |
| Enterprise | T1547.001 | Registry Run Keys / Startup FolderSub-technique | Naikon has modified a victim's Windows Run registry to establish persistence.CitationBitdefender Naikon April 2021 |
| Enterprise | T1518.001 | Security Software DiscoverySub-technique | |
| Enterprise | T1046 | Network Service Discovery | Naikon has used the LadonGo scanner to scan target networks.CitationBitdefender Naikon April 2021 |
| Enterprise | T1047 | Windows Management Instrumentation | Naikon has used WMIC.exe for lateral movement.CitationBitdefender Naikon April 2021 |
| Enterprise | T1137.006 | Add-insSub-technique | Naikon has used the RoyalRoad exploit builder to drop a second stage loader, intel.wll, into the Word Startup folder on the compromised host.CitationCheckPoint Naikon May 2020 |
| Enterprise | T1016 | System Network Configuration Discovery | |
| Enterprise | T1036.005 | Match Legitimate Resource Name or LocationSub-technique | Naikon has disguised malicious programs as Google Chrome, Adobe, and VMware executables.CitationBitdefender Naikon April 2021 |
| Enterprise | T1566.001 | Spearphishing AttachmentSub-technique | Naikon has used malicious e-mail attachments to deliver malware.CitationCheckPoint Naikon May 2020 |
| Enterprise | T1036.004 | Masquerade Task or ServiceSub-technique | Naikon renamed a malicious service |
| Enterprise | T1053.005 | Scheduled TaskSub-technique | Naikon has used schtasks.exe for lateral movement in compromised networks.CitationBitdefender Naikon April 2021 |
| Enterprise | T1204.002 | Malicious FileSub-technique | Naikon has convinced victims to open malicious attachments to execute malware.CitationCheckPoint Naikon May 2020 |
| Enterprise | T1574.001 | DLLSub-technique | Naikon has used DLL side-loading to load malicious DLL's into legitimate executables.CitationCheckPoint Naikon May 2020 |
Groups, software, and campaigns
S0095: ftp
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.
S0097: Ping
S0108: netsh
S0059: WinMM
S0096: Systeminfo
Systeminfo is a Windows utility that can be used to gather detailed information about a computer. [1]
S0629: RainyDay
S0630: Nebulae
S0055: RARSTONE
S0061: HDoor
S0060: Sys10
S0058: SslMM
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 | 2.0 | Current bundle | 74ed415d505d… | ||
| 19.1 | 2.0 | Older bundle | f18c598ef368… |
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]CameraShy
ThreatConnect Inc. and Defense Group Inc. (DGI). (2015, September 23). Project CameraShy: Closing the Aperture on China's Unit 78020. Retrieved December 17, 2015.
- [2]Baumgartner Naikon 2015
Baumgartner, K., Golovkin, M.. (2015, May). The MsnMM Campaigns: The Earliest Naikon APT Campaigns. Retrieved April 10, 2019.
Open source URL - [3]Baumgartner Golovkin Naikon 2015
Baumgartner, K., Golovkin, M.. (2015, May 14). The Naikon APT. Retrieved January 14, 2015.
Open source URL - [4]Naikon
(Citation: Baumgartner Naikon 2015)(Citation: CameraShy)(Citation: Baumgartner Golovkin Naikon 2015)
- [5]mitre-attackG0019Open source URL
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.