S0249: Gold Dragon
Gold Dragon is a Korean-language, data gathering implant that was first observed in the wild in South Korea in July 2017. Gold Dragon was used along with Brave Prince and RunningRAT in operations targeting organizations associated with the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. [1]
Security context for executives and security teams
S0249: Gold Dragon describes [Gold Dragon](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0249) is a Korean-language, data gathering implant that was first observed in the wild in South Korea in July 2017. [Gold Dragon](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0249) was used along with [Brave Prince](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0252) and [RunningRAT](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0253) in operations targeting organizations associated with the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. (Citation: McAfee Gold Dragon)
Executive priority
S0249: Gold Dragon 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 S0249: Gold Dragon 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 S0249: Gold Dragon 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.
Gold Dragon
Gold Dragon is a Korean-language, data gathering implant that was first observed in the wild in South Korea in July 2017. Gold Dragon was used along with Brave Prince and RunningRAT in operations targeting organizations associated with the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. [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 | T1685 | Disable or Modify Tools | Gold Dragon terminates anti-malware processes if they’re found running on the system.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1070.004 | File DeletionSub-technique | Gold Dragon deletes one of its files, 2.hwp, from the endpoint after establishing persistence.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1033 | System Owner/User Discovery | Gold Dragon collects the endpoint victim's username and uses it as a basis for downloading additional components from the C2 server.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1105 | Ingress Tool Transfer | Gold Dragon can download additional components from the C2 server.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1074.001 | Local Data StagingSub-technique | Gold Dragon stores information gathered from the endpoint in a file named 1.hwp.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1547.001 | Registry Run Keys / Startup FolderSub-technique | Gold Dragon establishes persistence in the Startup folder.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1560 | Archive Collected Data | Gold Dragon encrypts data using Base64 before being sent to the command and control server.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1057 | Process Discovery | Gold Dragon checks the running processes on the victim’s machine.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1083 | File and Directory Discovery | Gold Dragon lists the directories for Desktop, program files, and the user’s recently accessed files.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1059.003 | Windows Command ShellSub-technique | Gold Dragon uses cmd.exe to execute commands for discovery.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1082 | System Information Discovery | Gold Dragon collects endpoint information using the |
| Enterprise | T1071.001 | Web ProtocolsSub-technique | Gold Dragon uses HTTP for communication to the control servers.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1518.001 | Security Software DiscoverySub-technique | Gold Dragon checks for anti-malware products and processes.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1012 | Query Registry | Gold Dragon enumerates registry keys with the command |
Groups, software, and campaigns
G0094: Kimsuky
Kimsuky is a Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)-based cyber espionage group that has been active since at least 2012. The group initially targeted South Korean government agencies, think tanks, and subject-matter experts in various fields. Its operations expanded to include the United Nations and organizations in the government, education, business services, and manufacturing sectors across the United States, Japan, Russia, and Europe. Kimsuky has focused collection on foreign policy and national security issues tied to the Korean Peninsula, nuclear policy, and sanctions. Kimsuky operations have overlapped with those of other North Korean state-sponsored cyber espionage actors as a result of ad hoc collaborations or other limited resource sharing.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Kimsuky was assessed to be responsible for the 2014 Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. compromise; other notable campaigns include Operation STOLEN PENCIL (2018), Operation Kabar Cobra (2019), and Operation Smoke Screen (2019).[7][8][9] In 2023, Kimsuky was observed using commercial large language models (LLMs) to assist with vulnerability research, scripting, social engineering and reconnaissance.[10]
DPRK threat actor cluster boundaries overlap in open source reporting, with some security researchers consolidating all attributed North Korean state-sponsored cyber activity under Lazarus Group, rather than tracking operationally distinct subgroups.
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 | 1.3 | Current bundle | 9dd26ce86b12… | ||
| 19.1 | 1.3 | Older bundle | 9dd26ce86b12… |
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]McAfee Gold Dragon
Sherstobitoff, R., Saavedra-Morales, J. (2018, February 02). Gold Dragon Widens Olympics Malware Attacks, Gains Permanent Presence on Victims’ Systems. Retrieved June 6, 2018.
Open source URL - [2]Gold Dragon
(Citation: McAfee Gold Dragon)
- [3]mitre-attackS0249Open source URL
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