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MITRE ATT&CK® Group

G0127: TA551

TA551 is a financially-motivated threat group that has been active since at least 2018. [1] The group has primarily targeted English, German, Italian, and Japanese speakers through email-based malware distribution campaigns. [2]

EnterpriseG0127GroupObject v1.2Modified
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Glexia's Take · Automated analysis

Security context for executives and security teams

Automation confidenceMedium

G0127: TA551 describes [TA551](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0127) is a financially-motivated threat group that has been active since at least 2018. (Citation: Secureworks GOLD CABIN) The group has primarily targeted English, German, Italian, and Japanese speakers through email-based malware distribution campaigns. (Citation: Unit 42 TA551 Jan 2021)

Executive priority

G0127: TA551 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 G0127: TA551 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 G0127: TA551 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

TA551

TA551 is a financially-motivated threat group that has been active since at least 2018. [1] The group has primarily targeted English, German, Italian, and Japanese speakers through email-based malware distribution campaigns. [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.

14 rows
DomainIDNameRelationship / procedure
EnterpriseT1218.010Regsvr32Sub-technique

TA551 has used regsvr32.exe to load malicious DLLs.[3]

EnterpriseT1589.002Email AddressesSub-technique

TA551 has used spoofed company emails that were acquired from email clients on previously infected hosts to target other individuals.[2]

EnterpriseT1204.002Malicious FileSub-technique

TA551 has prompted users to enable macros within spearphishing attachments to install malware.[2]

EnterpriseT1218.011Rundll32Sub-technique

TA551 has used rundll32.exe to load malicious DLLs.[2]

EnterpriseT1027.003SteganographySub-technique

TA551 has hidden encoded data for malware DLLs in a PNG.[2]

EnterpriseT1566.001Spearphishing AttachmentSub-technique

TA551 has sent spearphishing attachments with password protected ZIP files.[3][2][1]

EnterpriseT1132.001Standard EncodingSub-technique

TA551 has used encoded ASCII text for initial C2 communications.[3]

EnterpriseT1568.002Domain Generation AlgorithmsSub-technique

TA551 has used a DGA to generate URLs from executed macros.[2][1]

EnterpriseT1027.010Command ObfuscationSub-technique

TA551 has used obfuscated variable names in a JavaScript configuration file.[3]

EnterpriseT1071.001Web ProtocolsSub-technique

TA551 has used HTTP for C2 communications.[3]

EnterpriseT1105Ingress Tool Transfer

TA551 has retrieved DLLs and installer binaries for malware execution from C2.[2]

EnterpriseT1218.005MshtaSub-technique

TA551 has used mshta.exe to execute malicious payloads.[2]

EnterpriseT1059.003Windows Command ShellSub-technique

TA551 has used cmd.exe to execute commands.[2]

EnterpriseT1036Masquerading

TA551 has masked malware DLLs as dat and jpg files.[2]

Associated objects

Groups, software, and campaigns

MalwareEnterprise

S0650: QakBot

QakBot is a modular banking trojan that has been used primarily by financially-motivated actors since at least 2007. QakBot is continuously maintained and developed and has evolved from an information stealer into a delivery agent for ransomware, most notably ProLock and Egregor.[1][2][3][4]

Windows
MalwareEnterprise

S0483: IcedID

IcedID is a modular banking malware designed to steal financial information that has been observed in the wild since at least 2017. IcedID has been downloaded by Emotet in multiple campaigns.[1][2]

Windows
MalwareEnterprise

S0476: Valak

Valak is a multi-stage modular malware that can function as a standalone information stealer or downloader, first observed in 2019 targeting enterprises in the US and Germany.[1][2]

Windows
ToolEnterprise

S0633: Sliver

Sliver is an open source, cross-platform, red team command and control (C2) framework written in Golang. Sliver includes its own package manager, "armory," for staging and downloading additional tools and payloads to the primary C2 framework.[1][2]

WindowsLinuxmacOS
MalwareEnterprise

S0386: Ursnif

Ursnif is a banking trojan and variant of the Gozi malware observed being spread through various automated exploit kits, Spearphishing Attachments, and malicious links.[1][2] Ursnif is associated primarily with data theft, but variants also include components (backdoors, spyware, file injectors, etc.) capable of a wide variety of behaviors.[3]

Windows
Relationship explorer

All related ATT&CK context

uses · TechniqueT1218.010: Regsvr32Enterpriseuses · MalwareS0650: QakBotEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1589.002: Email AddressesEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1204.002: Malicious FileEnterpriseuses · MalwareS0483: IcedIDEnterpriseuses · MalwareS0476: ValakEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1218.011: Rundll32Enterpriseuses · TechniqueT1027.003: SteganographyEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1566.001: Spearphishing AttachmentEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1132.001: Standard EncodingEnterpriseuses · ToolS0633: SliverEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1568.002: Domain Generation AlgorithmsEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1027.010: Command ObfuscationEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1071.001: Web ProtocolsEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1105: Ingress Tool TransferEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1218.005: MshtaEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1059.003: Windows Command ShellEnterpriseuses · MalwareS0386: UrsnifEnterpriseuses · TechniqueT1036: MasqueradingEnterprise
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
1.2
Created
Modified
Raw hash
a16b7facd5205496...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)
ReleaseBundle importedObject versionModifiedStatusRaw hash
19.21.2Current bundlea16b7facd520…
19.11.2Older bundle2801977a3115…
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]
    Secureworks GOLD CABIN

    Secureworks. (n.d.). GOLD CABIN Threat Profile. Retrieved March 17, 2021.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    Unit 42 TA551 Jan 2021

    Duncan, B. (2021, January 7). TA551: Email Attack Campaign Switches from Valak to IcedID. Retrieved March 17, 2021.

    Open source URL
  3. [3]
    Unit 42 Valak July 2020

    Duncan, B. (2020, July 24). Evolution of Valak, from Its Beginnings to Mass Distribution. Retrieved August 31, 2020.

    Open source URL
  4. [4]
    GOLD CABIN

    (Citation: Secureworks GOLD CABIN)

  5. [5]
    Shathak

    (Citation: Unit 42 Valak July 2020)(Citation: Unit 42 TA551 Jan 2021)

  6. [6]
    mitre-attackG0127
    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.

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