G1031: Saint Bear
Saint Bear is a Russian-nexus threat actor active since early 2021, primarily targeting entities in Ukraine and Georgia. The group is notable for a specific remote access tool, Saint Bot, and information stealer, OutSteel in campaigns. Saint Bear typically relies on phishing or web staging of malicious documents and related file types for initial access, spoofing government or related entities.[1][2] Saint Bear has previously been confused with Ember Bear operations, but analysis of behaviors, tools, and targeting indicates these are distinct clusters.
Security context for executives and security teams
G1031: Saint Bear describes [Saint Bear](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G1031) is a Russian-nexus threat actor active since early 2021, primarily targeting entities in Ukraine and Georgia. The group is notable for a specific remote access tool, [Saint Bot](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S1018), and information stealer, [OutSteel](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S1017) in campaigns. [Saint Bear](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G1031) typically relies on phishing or web staging of malicious documents and related file types for initial acc...
Executive priority
G1031: Saint Bear 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 G1031: Saint Bear 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 G1031: Saint Bear 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.
Saint Bear
Saint Bear is a Russian-nexus threat actor active since early 2021, primarily targeting entities in Ukraine and Georgia. The group is notable for a specific remote access tool, Saint Bot, and information stealer, OutSteel in campaigns. Saint Bear typically relies on phishing or web staging of malicious documents and related file types for initial access, spoofing government or related entities.[1][2] Saint Bear has previously been confused with Ember Bear operations, but analysis of behaviors, tools, and targeting indicates these are distinct clusters.
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 | T1566.001 | Spearphishing AttachmentSub-technique | Saint Bear uses a variety of file formats, such as Microsoft Office documents, ZIP archives, PDF documents, and other items as phishing attachments for initial access.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1203 | Exploitation for Client Execution | Saint Bear has leveraged vulnerabilities in client applications such as CVE-2017-11882 in Microsoft Office to enable code execution in victim environments.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1059.007 | JavaScriptSub-technique | Saint Bear has delivered malicious Microsoft Office files containing an embedded JavaScript object that would, on execution, download and execute OutSteel and Saint Bot.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1589.002 | Email AddressesSub-technique | Saint Bear gathered victim email information in advance of phishing operations for targeted attacks.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1497 | Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion | Saint Bear contains several anti-analysis and anti-virtualization checks.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1059.003 | Windows Command ShellSub-technique | Saint Bear initial loaders will also drop a malicious Windows batch file, available via open source GitHub repositories, that disables Microsoft Defender functionality.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1553.002 | Code SigningSub-technique | Saint Bear has used an initial loader malware featuring a legitimate code signing certificate associated with "Electrum Technologies GmbH."[1] |
| Enterprise | T1204.001 | Malicious LinkSub-technique | Saint Bear has, in addition to email-based phishing attachments, used malicious websites masquerading as legitimate entities to host links to malicious files for user execution.[1][2] |
| Enterprise | T1027.013 | Encrypted/Encoded FileSub-technique | Saint Bear initial payloads included encoded follow-on payloads located in the resources file of the first-stage loader.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1685 | Disable or Modify Tools | Saint Bear will modify registry entries and scheduled task objects associated with Windows Defender to disable its functionality.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1684.001 | ImpersonationSub-technique | Saint Bear has impersonated government and related entities in both phishing activity and developing web sites with malicious links that mimic legitimate resources.[2] |
| Enterprise | T1059.001 | PowerShellSub-technique | Saint Bear relies extensively on PowerShell execution from malicious attachments and related content to retrieve and execute follow-on payloads.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1204.002 | Malicious FileSub-technique | Saint Bear relies on user interaction and execution of malicious attachments and similar for initial execution on victim systems.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1059 | Command and Scripting Interpreter | Saint Bear has used the Windows Script Host (wscript) to execute intermediate files written to victim machines.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1583.006 | Web ServicesSub-technique | Saint Bear has leveraged the Discord content delivery network to host malicious content for retrieval during initial access operations.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1608.001 | Upload MalwareSub-technique | Saint Bear has used the Discord content delivery network for hosting malicious content referenced in links and emails.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1027.002 | Software PackingSub-technique | Saint Bear clones .NET assemblies from other .NET binaries as well as cloning code signing certificates from other software to obfuscate the initial loader payload.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1112 | Modify Registry | Saint Bear will leverage malicious Windows batch scripts to modify registry values associated with Windows Defender functionality.[1] |
Groups, software, and campaigns
S1017: OutSteel
OutSteel is a file uploader and document stealer developed with the scripting language AutoIT that has been used by Saint Bear since at least March 2021.[1]
S1018: Saint Bot
Saint Bot is a .NET downloader that has been used by Saint Bear since at least March 2021.[1][2]
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 | 1.0 | Current bundle | 401a4b841e82… | ||
| 19.1 | 1.0 | Older bundle | b54992411aee… |
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]Palo Alto Unit 42 OutSteel SaintBot February 2022
Unit 42. (2022, February 25). Spear Phishing Attacks Target Organizations in Ukraine, Payloads Include the Document Stealer OutSteel and the Downloader SaintBot. Retrieved June 9, 2022.
Open source URL - [2]Cadet Blizzard emerges as novel threat actor
Microsoft Threat Intelligence. (2023, June 14). Cadet Blizzard emerges as a novel and distinct Russian threat actor. Retrieved July 10, 2023.
Open source URL - [3]Lorec53
(Citation: Palo Alto Unit 42 OutSteel SaintBot February 2022 )
- [4]Storm-0587
(Citation: Cadet Blizzard emerges as novel threat actor)
- [5]TA471
(Citation: Palo Alto Unit 42 OutSteel SaintBot February 2022 )
- [6]UAC-0056
(Citation: Palo Alto Unit 42 OutSteel SaintBot February 2022 )
- [7]mitre-attackG1031Open 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.