G0026: APT18
Security context for executives and security teams
G0026: APT18 describes [APT18](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0026) is a threat group that has operated since at least 2009 and has targeted a range of industries, including technology, manufacturing, human rights groups, government, and medical. (Citation: Dell Lateral Movement)
Executive priority
G0026: APT18 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 G0026: APT18 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 G0026: APT18 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.
APT18
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 | Valid Accounts | APT18 actors leverage legitimate credentials to log into external remote services.CitationRSA2017 Detect and Respond Adair |
| Enterprise | T1027.013 | Encrypted/Encoded FileSub-technique | APT18 obfuscates strings in the payload.CitationPaloAlto DNS Requests May 2016 |
| Enterprise | T1133 | External Remote Services | APT18 actors leverage legitimate credentials to log into external remote services.CitationRSA2017 Detect and Respond Adair |
| Enterprise | T1070.004 | File DeletionSub-technique | |
| Enterprise | T1053.002 | AtSub-technique | |
| Enterprise | T1105 | Ingress Tool Transfer | APT18 can upload a file to the victim’s machine.CitationPaloAlto DNS Requests May 2016 |
| Enterprise | T1071.004 | DNSSub-technique | APT18 uses DNS for C2 communications.CitationPaloAlto DNS Requests May 2016 |
| Enterprise | T1082 | System Information Discovery | APT18 can collect system information from the victim’s machine.CitationPaloAlto DNS Requests May 2016 |
| Enterprise | T1071.001 | Web ProtocolsSub-technique | APT18 uses HTTP for C2 communications.CitationPaloAlto DNS Requests May 2016 |
| Enterprise | T1083 | File and Directory Discovery | APT18 can list files information for specific directories.CitationPaloAlto DNS Requests May 2016 |
| Enterprise | T1059.003 | Windows Command ShellSub-technique | |
| Enterprise | T1547.001 | Registry Run Keys / Startup FolderSub-technique |
Groups, software, and campaigns
S0071: hcdLoader
S0032: gh0st RAT
S0106: cmd
cmd is the Windows command-line interpreter that can be used to interact with systems and execute other processes and utilities. [1]
Cmd.exe contains native functionality to perform many operations to interact with the system, including listing files in a directory (e.g., dir [2]), deleting files (e.g., del [3]), and copying files (e.g., copy [4]).
S0124: Pisloader
Pisloader is a malware family that is notable due to its use of DNS as a C2 protocol as well as its use of anti-analysis tactics. It has been used by APT18 and is similar to another malware family, HTTPBrowser, that has been used by the group. [1]
S0070: HTTPBrowser
HTTPBrowser is malware that has been used by several threat groups. [1] [2] It is believed to be of Chinese origin. [3]
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 | 2.2 | Current bundle | b167dcc3bb26… | ||
| 19.1 | 2.2 | Older bundle | 48fa13a349da… |
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]Dell Lateral Movement
Carvey, H.. (2014, September 2). Where you AT?: Indicators of lateral movement using at.exe on Windows 7 systems. Retrieved January 25, 2016.
- [2]ThreatStream Evasion Analysis
Shelmire, A.. (2015, July 6). Evasive Maneuvers. Retrieved January 22, 2016.
Open source URL - [3]Anomali Evasive Maneuvers July 2015
Shelmire, A. (2015, July 06). Evasive Maneuvers by the Wekby group with custom ROP-packing and DNS covert channels. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
Open source URL - [4]APT18
(Citation: ThreatStream Evasion Analysis)(Citation: Anomali Evasive Maneuvers July 2015)
- [5]Dynamite Panda
(Citation: ThreatStream Evasion Analysis)(Citation: Anomali Evasive Maneuvers July 2015)
- [6]TG-0416
(Citation: ThreatStream Evasion Analysis)(Citation: Anomali Evasive Maneuvers July 2015)
- [7]Threat Group-0416
(Citation: ThreatStream Evasion Analysis)
- [8]mitre-attackG0026Open source URL
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