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MITRE ATT&CK® Malware

S0042: LOWBALL

LOWBALL is malware used by admin@338. It was used in August 2015 in email messages targeting Hong Kong-based media organizations. [1]

EnterpriseS0042MalwareObject v1.1Modified
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis

Security context for executives and security teams

Automation confidenceMedium

S0042: LOWBALL describes [LOWBALL](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0042) is malware used by [admin@338](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0018). It was used in August 2015 in email messages targeting Hong Kong-based media organizations. (Citation: FireEye admin@338)

Executive priority

S0042: LOWBALL is an official MITRE ATT&CK software. 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 S0042: LOWBALL by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (the mapped ATT&CK tactic context), supported platforms (Windows), and available local telemetry before making detection or mitigation decisions.

Likely telemetry

  • Official ATT&CK relationships and object metadata
  • Network, endpoint, and security-tool telemetry

Detection direction

  • Validate whether S0042: LOWBALL 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

LOWBALL

LOWBALL is malware used by admin@338. It was used in August 2015 in email messages targeting Hong Kong-based media organizations. [1]

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.

3 rows
DomainIDNameRelationship / procedure
EnterpriseT1071.001Web ProtocolsSub-technique

LOWBALL command and control occurs via HTTPS over port 443.[1]

EnterpriseT1105Ingress Tool Transfer

LOWBALL uses the Dropbox API to request two files, one of which is the same file as the one dropped by the malicious email attachment. This is most likely meant to be a mechanism to update the compromised host with a new version of the LOWBALL malware.[1]

EnterpriseT1102.002Bidirectional CommunicationSub-technique

LOWBALL uses the Dropbox cloud storage service for command and control.[1]

Associated objects

Groups, software, and campaigns

GroupEnterprise

G0018: admin@338

admin@338 is a China-based cyber threat group. It has previously used newsworthy events as lures to deliver malware and has primarily targeted organizations involved in financial, economic, and trade policy, typically using publicly available RATs such as PoisonIvy, as well as some non-public backdoors. [1]

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
1.1
Created
Modified
Raw hash
7ac44e517afab79e...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)
ReleaseBundle importedObject versionModifiedStatusRaw hash
19.21.1Current bundle7ac44e517afa…
19.11.1Older bundle7ac44e517afa…
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.

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]
    FireEye admin@338

    FireEye Threat Intelligence. (2015, December 1). China-based Cyber Threat Group Uses Dropbox for Malware Communications and Targets Hong Kong Media Outlets. Retrieved December 4, 2015.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    mitre-attackS0042
    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.