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MITRE ATT&CK® Malware

S0268: Bisonal

Bisonal is a remote access tool (RAT) that has been used by Tonto Team against public and private sector organizations in Russia, South Korea, and Japan since at least December 2010.[1][2]

EnterpriseS0268MalwareObject v2.1Modified
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis

Security context for executives and security teams

Automation confidenceMedium

S0268: Bisonal describes [Bisonal](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0268) is a remote access tool (RAT) that has been used by [Tonto Team](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0131) against public and private sector organizations in Russia, South Korea, and Japan since at least December 2010.(Citation: Unit 42 Bisonal July 2018)(Citation: Talos Bisonal Mar 2020)

Executive priority

S0268: Bisonal 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 S0268: Bisonal 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 S0268: Bisonal 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

Bisonal

Bisonal is a remote access tool (RAT) that has been used by Tonto Team against public and private sector organizations in Russia, South Korea, and Japan since at least December 2010.[1][2]

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.

34 rows
DomainIDNameRelationship / procedure
EnterpriseT1106Native API

Bisonal has used the Windows API to communicate with the Service Control Manager to execute a thread.[2]

EnterpriseT1070.004File DeletionSub-technique

Bisonal will delete its dropper and VBS scripts from the victim’s machine.[1]CitationKaspersky CactusPete Aug 2020[2]

EnterpriseT1573.001Symmetric CryptographySub-technique

Bisonal variants reported on in 2014 and 2015 used a simple XOR cipher for C2. Some Bisonal samples encrypt C2 communications with RC4.[1]CitationKaspersky CactusPete Aug 2020[2]

EnterpriseT1057Process Discovery

Bisonal can obtain a list of running processes on the victim’s machine.[1]CitationKaspersky CactusPete Aug 2020[2]

EnterpriseT1105Ingress Tool Transfer

Bisonal has the capability to download files to execute on the victim’s machine.[1]CitationKaspersky CactusPete Aug 2020[2]

EnterpriseT1497Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion

Bisonal can check to determine if the compromised system is running on VMware.[2]

EnterpriseT1543.003Windows ServiceSub-technique

Bisonal has been modified to be used as a Windows service.[2]

EnterpriseT1137.006Add-insSub-technique

Bisonal has been loaded through a `.wll` extension added to the ` %APPDATA%\microsoft\word\startup\` repository.[2]

EnterpriseT1059.005Visual BasicSub-technique

Bisonal's dropper creates VBS scripts on the victim’s machine.[1][2]

EnterpriseT1140Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information

Bisonal has decoded strings in the malware using XOR and RC4.[1][2]

EnterpriseT1027.013Encrypted/Encoded FileSub-technique

Bisonal's DLL file and non-malicious decoy file are encrypted with RC4 and some function name strings are obfuscated.[1][2]

EnterpriseT1083File and Directory Discovery

Bisonal can retrieve a file listing from the system.CitationKaspersky CactusPete Aug 2020[2]

EnterpriseT1547.001Registry Run Keys / Startup FolderSub-technique

Bisonal has added itself to the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\CurrentVersion\Run\ for persistence.[1][2]

EnterpriseT1005Data from Local System

Bisonal has collected information from a compromised host.[2]

EnterpriseT1497.003Time Based ChecksSub-technique

Bisonal has checked if the malware is running in a virtual environment with the anti-debug function GetTickCount() to compare the timing.CitationKaspersky CactusPete Aug 2020[2]

EnterpriseT1071.001Web ProtocolsSub-technique

Bisonal has used HTTP for C2 communications.[1]CitationKaspersky CactusPete Aug 2020

EnterpriseT1112Modify Registry

Bisonal has deleted Registry keys to clean up its prior activity.[2]

EnterpriseT1218.011Rundll32Sub-technique

Bisonal has used rundll32.exe to execute as part of the Registry Run key it adds: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\”vert” = “rundll32.exe c:\windows\temp\pvcu.dll , Qszdez”.[1]

EnterpriseT1204.002Malicious FileSub-technique

Bisonal has relied on users to execute malicious file attachments delivered via spearphishing emails.[2]

EnterpriseT1027.001Binary PaddingSub-technique

Bisonal has appended random binary data to the end of itself to generate a large binary.[2]

EnterpriseT1566.001Spearphishing AttachmentSub-technique

Bisonal has been delivered as malicious email attachments.[2]

EnterpriseT1132.001Standard EncodingSub-technique

Bisonal has encoded binary data with Base64 and ASCII.CitationKaspersky CactusPete Aug 2020[2]

EnterpriseT1012Query Registry

Bisonal has used the RegQueryValueExA function to retrieve proxy information in the Registry.[2]

EnterpriseT1027.002Software PackingSub-technique

Bisonal has used the MPRESS packer and similar tools for obfuscation.[2]

EnterpriseT1041Exfiltration Over C2 Channel

Bisonal has added the exfiltrated data to the URL over the C2 channel.[2]

EnterpriseT1095Non-Application Layer Protocol

Bisonal has used raw sockets for network communication.[2]

EnterpriseT1090Proxy

Bisonal has supported use of a proxy server.[2]

EnterpriseT1059.003Windows Command ShellSub-technique

Bisonal has launched cmd.exe and used the ShellExecuteW() API function to execute commands on the system.[1]CitationKaspersky CactusPete Aug 2020[2]

EnterpriseT1082System Information Discovery

Bisonal has used commands and API calls to gather system information.[1]CitationKaspersky CactusPete Aug 2020[2]

EnterpriseT1568Dynamic Resolution

Bisonal has used a dynamic DNS service for C2.[2]

EnterpriseT1016System Network Configuration Discovery

Bisonal can execute ipconfig on the victim’s machine.[1]CitationKaspersky CactusPete Aug 2020[2]

EnterpriseT1124System Time Discovery

Bisonal can check the system time set on the infected host.CitationKaspersky CactusPete Aug 2020

EnterpriseT1036.005Match Legitimate Resource Name or LocationSub-technique

Bisonal has renamed malicious code to `msacm32.dll` to hide within a legitimate library; earlier versions were disguised as `winhelp`.[2]

EnterpriseT1036Masquerading

Bisonal dropped a decoy payload with a .jpg extension that contained a malicious Visual Basic script.[2]

Associated objects

Groups, software, and campaigns

GroupEnterprise

G0131: Tonto Team

Tonto Team is a suspected Chinese state-sponsored cyber espionage threat group that has primarily targeted South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and the United States since at least 2009; by 2020 they expanded operations to include other Asian as well as Eastern European countries. Tonto Team has targeted government, military, energy, mining, financial, education, healthcare, and technology organizations, including through the Heartbeat Campaign (2009-2012) and Operation Bitter Biscuit (2017).[1][2][3][4][5][6]

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
20.0
Object version
2.1
Created
Modified
Raw hash
fa0ae1983029161c...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(3)
ReleaseBundle importedObject versionModifiedStatusRaw hash
20.02.1Current bundlefa0ae1983029…
19.22.1Older bundlefa0ae1983029…
19.12.1Older bundlefa0ae1983029…
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]
    Unit 42 Bisonal July 2018

    Hayashi, K., Ray, V. (2018, July 31). Bisonal Malware Used in Attacks Against Russia and South Korea. Retrieved August 7, 2018.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    Talos Bisonal Mar 2020

    Mercer, W., et al. (2020, March 5). Bisonal: 10 years of play. Retrieved January 26, 2022.

    Open source URL
  3. [3]
    Bisonal

    (Citation: Unit 42 Bisonal July 2018)(Citation: Talos Bisonal Mar 2020)

  4. [4]
    mitre-attackS0268
    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.