G1036: Moonstone Sleet
Moonstone Sleet is a North Korean-linked threat actor executing both financially motivated attacks and espionage operations. The group previously overlapped significantly with another North Korean-linked entity, Lazarus Group, but has differentiated its tradecraft since 2023. Moonstone Sleet is notable for creating fake companies and personas to interact with victim entities, as well as developing unique malware such as a variant delivered via a fully functioning game.[1]
Security context for executives and security teams
G1036: Moonstone Sleet describes [Moonstone Sleet](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G1036) is a North Korean-linked threat actor executing both financially motivated attacks and espionage operations. The group previously overlapped significantly with another North Korean-linked entity, [Lazarus Group](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0032), but has differentiated its tradecraft since 2023. [Moonstone Sleet](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G1036) is notable for creating fake companies and personas to interact with victim entities, as well as develop...
Executive priority
G1036: Moonstone Sleet 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 G1036: Moonstone Sleet 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 G1036: Moonstone Sleet 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.
Moonstone Sleet
Moonstone Sleet is a North Korean-linked threat actor executing both financially motivated attacks and espionage operations. The group previously overlapped significantly with another North Korean-linked entity, Lazarus Group, but has differentiated its tradecraft since 2023. Moonstone Sleet is notable for creating fake companies and personas to interact with victim entities, as well as developing unique malware such as a variant delivered via a fully functioning game.[1]
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 | T1587.001 | MalwareSub-technique | Moonstone Sleet has developed custom malware, including a malware delivery mechanism masquerading as a legitimate game.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1033 | System Owner/User Discovery | Moonstone Sleet deployed various malware such as YouieLoader that can perform system user discovery actions.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1071.001 | Web ProtocolsSub-technique | Moonstone Sleet used curl to connect to adversary-controlled infrastructure and retrieve additional payloads.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1585.002 | Email AccountsSub-technique | Moonstone Sleet has created email accounts to interact with victims, including for phishing purposes.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1589.002 | Email AddressesSub-technique | Moonstone Sleet gathered victim email address information for follow-on phishing activity.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1140 | Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information | Moonstone Sleet delivered payloads using multiple rounds of obfuscation and encoding to evade defenses and analysis.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1591 | Gather Victim Org Information | Moonstone Sleet has gathered information on victim organizations through email and social media interaction.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1053.005 | Scheduled TaskSub-technique | Moonstone Sleet used scheduled tasks for program execution during initial access to victim machines.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1547.001 | Registry Run Keys / Startup FolderSub-technique | Moonstone Sleet used registry run keys for process execution during initial victim infection.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1204.002 | Malicious FileSub-technique | Moonstone Sleet relied on users interacting with malicious files, such as a trojanized PuTTY installer, for initial execution.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1566.001 | Spearphishing AttachmentSub-technique | Moonstone Sleet delivered various payloads to victims as spearphishing attachments.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1027 | Obfuscated Files or Information | Moonstone Sleet delivers encrypted payloads in pieces that are then combined together to form a new portable executable (PE) file during installation.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1583.003 | Virtual Private ServerSub-technique | Moonstone Sleet registered virtual private servers to host payloads for download.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1105 | Ingress Tool Transfer | Moonstone Sleet retrieved a final stage payload from command and control infrastructure during initial installation on victim systems.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1016 | System Network Configuration Discovery | Moonstone Sleet has gathered information on victim network configuration.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1598.003 | Spearphishing LinkSub-technique | Moonstone Sleet used spearphishing messages containing items such as tracking pixels to determine if users interacted with malicious messages.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1003.001 | LSASS MemorySub-technique | Moonstone Sleet retrieved credentials from LSASS memory.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1608.001 | Upload MalwareSub-technique | Moonstone Sleet staged malicious capabilities online for follow-on download by victims or malware.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1598 | Phishing for Information | Moonstone Sleet has interacted with victims to gather information via email.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1195.002 | Compromise Software Supply ChainSub-technique | Moonstone Sleet has distributed a trojanized version of PuTTY software for initial access to victims.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1569.002 | Service ExecutionSub-technique | Moonstone Sleet used intermediate loader malware such as YouieLoader and SplitLoader that create malicious services.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1583.001 | DomainsSub-technique | Moonstone Sleet registered domains to develop effective personas for fake companies used in phishing activity.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1217 | Browser Information Discovery | Moonstone Sleet deployed malware such as YouieLoader capable of capturing victim system browser information.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1566.003 | Spearphishing via ServiceSub-technique | Moonstone Sleet has used social media services to spear phish victims to deliver trojainized software.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1486 | Data Encrypted for Impact | Moonstone Sleet has deployed ransomware in victim environments.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1585.001 | Social Media AccountsSub-technique | Moonstone Sleet has created social media accounts to interact with victims.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1587 | Develop Capabilities | Moonstone Sleet developed malicious npm packages for delivery to or retrieval by victims.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1082 | System Information Discovery | Moonstone Sleet has gathered information on victim systems.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1027.013 | Encrypted/Encoded FileSub-technique | Moonstone Sleet has used encrypted payloads within files for follow-on execution and defense evasion.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1027.009 | Embedded PayloadsSub-technique | Moonstone Sleet embedded payloads in trojanized software for follow-on execution.[1] |
Groups, software, and campaigns
S1242: Qilin
Qilin is a ransomware family operated as a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) that has been active since at least 2022. It includes variants written in Go and Rust capable of targeting Windows, Linux, and VMware ESXi environments. Qilin shares functionality overlaps with Black Basta, REvil, and BlackCat ransomware. Qilin affiliates have targeted multiple entities worldwide with the majority of victims in the US, France, Canada, and the UK, primarily in the manufacturing, technology, financial services, and healthcare sectors.[1][2][3][4][5]
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(3)
| Release | Bundle imported | Object version | Modified | Status | Raw hash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20.0 | 1.0 | Current bundle | 5c124e9033fc… | ||
| 19.2 | 1.0 | Older bundle | 5c124e9033fc… | ||
| 19.1 | 1.0 | Older bundle | 63c67cbad290… |
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]Microsoft Moonstone Sleet 2024
Microsoft Threat Intelligence. (2024, May 28). Moonstone Sleet emerges as new North Korean threat actor with new bag of tricks. Retrieved August 26, 2024.
Open source URL - [2]Storm-1789
(Citation: Microsoft Moonstone Sleet 2024)
- [3]mitre-attackG1036Open 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.