G0138: Andariel

Andariel is a North Korean state-sponsored threat group that has been active since at least 2009. Andariel has primarily focused its operations--which have included destructive attacks--against South Korean government agencies, military organizations, and a variety of domestic companies; they have also conducted cyber financial operations against ATMs, banks, and cryptocurrency exchanges. Andariel's notable activity includes Operation Black Mine, Operation GoldenAxe, and Campaign Rifle.[1][2][3][4][5]

Andariel is considered a sub-set of Lazarus Group, and has been attributed to North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau.[6]

North Korean group definitions are known to have significant overlap, and some security researchers report all North Korean state-sponsored cyber activity under the name Lazarus Group instead of tracking clusters or subgroups.

EnterpriseG0138GroupObject v2.0ModifiedJul 31, 2026, 18:47 UTC (UTC+00:00)

G0138: Andariel describes [Andariel](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0138) is a North Korean state-sponsored threat group that has been active since at least 2009. [Andariel](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0138) has primarily focused its operations--which have included destructive attacks--against South Korean government agencies, military organizations, and a variety of domestic companies; they have also conducted cyber financial operations against ATMs, banks, and cryptocurrency exchanges. [Andariel](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G01...

Executive priority

G0138: Andariel 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 G0138: Andariel 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 G0138: Andariel 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

Andariel

Andariel is considered a sub-set of Lazarus Group, and has been attributed to North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau.[6]

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.

Filter related techniques12 rows

Domain	ID	Name	Relationship / procedure
Enterprise	T1049	System Network Connections Discovery	Andariel has used the `netstat -naop tcp` command to display TCP connections on a victim's machine.CitationKaspersky Andariel Ransomware June 2021
Enterprise	T1203	Exploitation for Client Execution	Andariel has exploited numerous ActiveX vulnerabilities, including zero-days.[1][2][4]
Enterprise	T1005	Data from Local System	Andariel has collected large numbers of files from compromised network systems for later extraction.[1]
Enterprise	T1590.005	IP AddressesSub-technique	Andariel has limited its watering hole attacks to specific IP address ranges.[3]
Enterprise	T1189	Drive-by Compromise	Andariel has used watering hole attacks, often with zero-day exploits, to gain initial access to victims within a specific IP range.[3][4]
Enterprise	T1057	Process Discovery	Andariel has used `tasklist` to enumerate processes and find a specific string.CitationKaspersky Andariel Ransomware June 2021
Enterprise	T1592.002	SoftwareSub-technique	Andariel has inserted a malicious script within compromised websites to collect potential victim information such as browser type, system language, Flash Player version, and other data.[4]
Enterprise	T1588.001	MalwareSub-technique	Andariel has used a variety of publicly-available remote access Trojans (RATs) for its operations.[1]
Enterprise	T1204.002	Malicious FileSub-technique	Andariel has attempted to lure victims into enabling malicious macros within email attachments.[3]
Enterprise	T1566.001	Spearphishing AttachmentSub-technique	Andariel has conducted spearphishing campaigns that included malicious Word or Excel attachments.[3]CitationMalwareBytes Lazarus-Andariel Conceals Code April 2021
Enterprise	T1027.003	SteganographySub-technique	Andariel has hidden malicious executables within PNG files.CitationMalwareBytes Lazarus-Andariel Conceals Code April 2021CitationKaspersky Andariel Ransomware June 2021
Enterprise	T1105	Ingress Tool Transfer	Andariel has downloaded additional tools and malware onto compromised hosts.[3]

Associated objects

Groups, software, and campaigns

S0433: Rifdoor

Rifdoor is a remote access trojan (RAT) that shares numerous code similarities with HotCroissant.[1]

Windows

S0032: gh0st RAT

gh0st RAT is a remote access tool (RAT). The source code is public and it has been used by multiple groups.[1][2][3]

WindowsmacOS

Relationship explorer

All related ATT&CK context

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: 2.0
Created: Sep 29, 2021, 15:10 UTC (UTC+00:00)
Modified: Jul 31, 2026, 18:47 UTC (UTC+00:00)
Raw hash: 9c101709784f83cb...

Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)

Release	Bundle imported	Object version	Modified	Status	Raw hash
19.2	Aug 6, 2026, 02:58 UTC (UTC+00:00)	2.0	Jul 31, 2026, 18:47 UTC (UTC+00:00)	Current bundle	`9c101709784f…`
19.1	Jul 14, 2026, 09:14 UTC (UTC+00:00)	2.0	Sep 12, 2024, 18:36 UTC (UTC+00:00)	Older bundle	`8293469f25fc…`

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 JSON Open 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]
FSI Andariel Campaign Rifle July 2017
FSI. (2017, July 27). Campaign Rifle - Andariel, the Maiden of Anguish. Retrieved September 12, 2024.
Open source URL
[2]
IssueMakersLab Andariel GoldenAxe May 2017
IssueMakersLab. (2017, May 1). Operation GoldenAxe. Retrieved September 12, 2024.
[3]
AhnLab Andariel Subgroup of Lazarus June 2018
AhnLab. (2018, June 23). Targeted attacks by Andariel Threat Group, a subgroup of the Lazarus. Retrieved September 29, 2021.
Open source URL
[4]
TrendMicro New Andariel Tactics July 2018
Chen, Joseph. (2018, July 16). New Andariel Reconnaissance Tactics Uncovered. Retrieved September 29, 2021.
Open source URL
[5]
CrowdStrike Silent Chollima Adversary September 2021
CrowdStrike. (2021, September 29). Silent Chollima Adversary Profile. Retrieved September 29, 2021.
Open source URL
[6]
Treasury North Korean Cyber Groups September 2019
US Treasury . (2019, September 13). Treasury Sanctions North Korean State-Sponsored Malicious Cyber Groups. Retrieved September 29, 2021.
Open source URL
[7]
Andariel
(Citation: FSI Andariel Campaign Rifle July 2017)
[8]
Microsoft Threat Actor Naming July 2023
Microsoft . (2023, July 12). How Microsoft names threat actors. Retrieved November 17, 2023.
Open source URL
[9]
Onyx Sleet
(Citation: Microsoft Threat Actor Naming July 2023)
[10]
PLUTONIUM
(Citation: Microsoft Threat Actor Naming July 2023)
[11]
Silent Chollima
(Citation: CrowdStrike Silent Chollima Adversary September 2021)
[12]
mitre-attackG0138
Open source URL

Source and licensing

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