G0044: Winnti Group
Winnti Group is a threat group with Chinese origins that has been active since at least 2010. The group has heavily targeted the gaming industry, but it has also expanded the scope of its targeting.[1][2][3] Some reporting suggests a number of other groups, including Axiom, APT17, and Ke3chang, are closely linked to Winnti Group.[4]
Security context for executives and security teams
G0044: Winnti Group describes [Winnti Group](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0044) is a threat group with Chinese origins that has been active since at least 2010. The group has heavily targeted the gaming industry, but it has also expanded the scope of its targeting.(Citation: Kaspersky Winnti April 2013)(Citation: Kaspersky Winnti June 2015)(Citation: Novetta Winnti April 2015) Some reporting suggests a number of other groups, including [Axiom](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0001), [APT17](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0025), and [Ke3ch...
Executive priority
G0044: Winnti Group 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 G0044: Winnti Group 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 G0044: Winnti Group 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.
Winnti Group
Winnti Group is a threat group with Chinese origins that has been active since at least 2010. The group has heavily targeted the gaming industry, but it has also expanded the scope of its targeting.[1][2][3] Some reporting suggests a number of other groups, including Axiom, APT17, and Ke3chang, are closely linked to Winnti Group.[4]
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 | T1014 | Rootkit | Winnti Group used a rootkit to modify typical server functionality.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1105 | Ingress Tool Transfer | Winnti Group has downloaded an auxiliary program named ff.exe to infected machines.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1083 | File and Directory Discovery | Winnti Group has used a program named ff.exe to search for specific documents on compromised hosts.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1583.001 | DomainsSub-technique | Winnti Group has registered domains for C2 that mimicked sites of their intended targets.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1057 | Process Discovery | Winnti Group looked for a specific process running on infected servers.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1553.002 | Code SigningSub-technique | Winnti Group used stolen certificates to sign its malware.[1] |
Groups, software, and campaigns
S0501: PipeMon
PipeMon is a multi-stage modular backdoor used by Winnti Group.[1]
S0141: Winnti for Windows
Winnti for Windows is a modular remote access Trojan (RAT) that has been used likely by multiple groups to carry out intrusions in various regions since at least 2010, including by one group referred to as the same name, Winnti Group.[1][2][3][4]. The Linux variant is tracked separately under Winnti for Linux.[5]
S0013: PlugX
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 | 377812019bb5… | ||
| 19.1 | 1.2 | Older bundle | f8d5cb61f083… |
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]Kaspersky Winnti April 2013
Kaspersky Lab's Global Research and Analysis Team. (2013, April 11). Winnti. More than just a game. Retrieved February 8, 2017.
Open source URL - [2]Kaspersky Winnti June 2015
Tarakanov, D. (2015, June 22). Games are over: Winnti is now targeting pharmaceutical companies. Retrieved January 14, 2016.
Open source URL - [3]Novetta Winnti April 2015
Novetta Threat Research Group. (2015, April 7). Winnti Analysis. Retrieved February 8, 2017.
Open source URL - [4]401 TRG Winnti Umbrella May 2018
Hegel, T. (2018, May 3). Burning Umbrella: An Intelligence Report on the Winnti Umbrella and Associated State-Sponsored Attackers. Retrieved July 8, 2018.
Open source URL - [5]Blackfly
(Citation: Symantec Suckfly March 2016)
- [6]Symantec Suckfly March 2016
DiMaggio, J. (2016, March 15). Suckfly: Revealing the secret life of your code signing certificates. Retrieved August 3, 2016.
- [7]Winnti Group
(Citation: Kaspersky Winnti April 2013) (Citation: Kaspersky Winnti June 2015)
- [8]mitre-attackG0044Open source URL
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