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MITRE ATT&CK® Malware

S0356: KONNI

KONNI is a remote access tool that security researchers assess has been used by North Korean cyber actors since at least 2014. KONNI has significant code overlap with the NOKKI malware family, and has been linked to several suspected North Korean campaigns targeting political organizations in Russia, East Asia, Europe and the Middle East; there is some evidence potentially linking KONNI to APT37.[1][2][3][4][5]

EnterpriseS0356MalwareObject v2.2Modified
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis

Security context for executives and security teams

Automation confidenceMedium

S0356: KONNI describes [KONNI](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0356) is a remote access tool that security researchers assess has been used by North Korean cyber actors since at least 2014. [KONNI](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0356) has significant code overlap with the [NOKKI](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0353) malware family, and has been linked to several suspected North Korean campaigns targeting political organizations in Russia, East Asia, Europe and the Middle East; there is some evidence potentially linking [KONNI]...

Executive priority

S0356: KONNI 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 S0356: KONNI 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 S0356: KONNI 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

KONNI

KONNI is a remote access tool that security researchers assess has been used by North Korean cyber actors since at least 2014. KONNI has significant code overlap with the NOKKI malware family, and has been linked to several suspected North Korean campaigns targeting political organizations in Russia, East Asia, Europe and the Middle East; there is some evidence potentially linking KONNI to APT37.[1][2][3][4][5]

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.

40 rows
DomainIDNameRelationship / procedure
EnterpriseT1140Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information

KONNI has used certutil to download and decode base64 encoded strings and has also devoted a custom section to performing all the components of the deobfuscation process.[4][5]

EnterpriseT1204.002Malicious FileSub-technique

KONNI has relied on a victim to enable malicious macros within an attachment delivered via email.[5]

EnterpriseT1082System Information Discovery

KONNI can gather the OS version, architecture information, hostname, and RAM size information from the victim’s machine and has used cmd /c systeminfo command to get a snapshot of the current system state of the target machine.[1][4][5]

EnterpriseT1546.015Component Object Model HijackingSub-technique

KONNI has modified ComSysApp service to load the malicious DLL payload.[4]

EnterpriseT1016System Network Configuration Discovery

KONNI can collect the IP address from the victim’s machine.[1]

EnterpriseT1048.003Exfiltration Over Unencrypted Non-C2 ProtocolSub-technique

KONNI has used FTP to exfiltrate reconnaissance data out.[4]

EnterpriseT1049System Network Connections Discovery

KONNI has used net session on the victim's machine.[5]

EnterpriseT1555.003Credentials from Web BrowsersSub-technique

KONNI can steal profiles (containing credential information) from Firefox, Chrome, and Opera.[1]

EnterpriseT1005Data from Local System

KONNI has stored collected information and discovered processes in a tmp file.[5]

EnterpriseT1134.004Parent PID SpoofingSub-technique

KONNI has used parent PID spoofing to spawn a new `cmd` process using `CreateProcessW` and a handle to `Taskmgr.exe`.[5]

EnterpriseT1027.002Software PackingSub-technique

KONNI has been packed for obfuscation.CitationMalwarebytes KONNI Evolves Jan 2022

EnterpriseT1548.002Bypass User Account ControlSub-technique

KONNI has bypassed UAC by performing token impersonation as well as an RPC-based method, this included bypassing UAC set to “AlwaysNotify".[4][5]

EnterpriseT1071.001Web ProtocolsSub-technique

KONNI has used HTTP POST for C2.[1][5]

EnterpriseT1033System Owner/User Discovery

KONNI can collect the username from the victim’s machine.[1]

EnterpriseT1070.004File DeletionSub-technique

KONNI can delete files.[1]

EnterpriseT1547.001Registry Run Keys / Startup FolderSub-technique

A version of KONNI has dropped a Windows shortcut into the Startup folder to establish persistence.[1]

EnterpriseT1027.013Encrypted/Encoded FileSub-technique

KONNI is heavily obfuscated and includes encrypted configuration files.[5]

EnterpriseT1115Clipboard Data

KONNI had a feature to steal data from the clipboard.[1]

EnterpriseT1036.004Masquerade Task or ServiceSub-technique

KONNI has pretended to be the xmlProv Network Provisioning service.[5]

EnterpriseT1057Process Discovery

KONNI has used the command cmd /c tasklist to get a snapshot of the current processes on the target machine.[4][5]

EnterpriseT1059.001PowerShellSub-technique

KONNI used PowerShell to download and execute a specific 64-bit version of the malware.[1][5]

EnterpriseT1112Modify Registry

KONNI has modified registry keys of ComSysApp, Svchost, and xmlProv on the machine to gain persistence.[4][5]

EnterpriseT1680Local Storage Discovery

KONNI can gather information on connected drives and disk space from the victim’s machine.[1][4][5]

EnterpriseT1560Archive Collected Data

KONNI has encrypted data and files prior to exfiltration.[5]

EnterpriseT1105Ingress Tool Transfer

KONNI can download files and execute them on the victim’s machine.[1][5]

EnterpriseT1106Native API

KONNI has hardcoded API calls within its functions to use on the victim's machine.[5]

EnterpriseT1543.003Windows ServiceSub-technique

KONNI has registered itself as a service using its export function.[5]

EnterpriseT1132.001Standard EncodingSub-technique

KONNI has used a custom base64 key to encode stolen data before exfiltration.[4]

EnterpriseT1113Screen Capture

KONNI can take screenshots of the victim’s machine.[1]

EnterpriseT1059.003Windows Command ShellSub-technique

KONNI has used cmd.exe to execute arbitrary commands on the infected host across different stages of the infection chain.[1][4][5]

EnterpriseT1566.001Spearphishing AttachmentSub-technique

KONNI has been delivered via spearphishing campaigns through a malicious Word document.[5]

EnterpriseT1218.011Rundll32Sub-technique

KONNI has used Rundll32 to execute its loader for privilege escalation purposes.[4][5]

EnterpriseT1134.002Create Process with TokenSub-technique

KONNI has duplicated the token of a high integrity process to spawn an instance of cmd.exe under an impersonated user.[4][5]

EnterpriseT1041Exfiltration Over C2 Channel

KONNI has sent data and files to its C2 server.[1][5]CitationMalwarebytes KONNI Evolves Jan 2022

EnterpriseT1573.001Symmetric CryptographySub-technique

KONNI has used AES to encrypt C2 traffic.CitationMalwarebytes KONNI Evolves Jan 2022

EnterpriseT1083File and Directory Discovery

A version of KONNI searches for filenames created with a previous version of the malware, suggesting different versions targeted the same victims and the versions may work together.[1]

EnterpriseT1547.009Shortcut ModificationSub-technique

A version of KONNI drops a Windows shortcut on the victim’s machine to establish persistence.[1]

EnterpriseT1056.001KeyloggingSub-technique

KONNI has the capability to perform keylogging.[1]

EnterpriseT1059.007JavaScriptSub-technique

KONNI has executed malicious JavaScript code.[5]

EnterpriseT1036.005Match Legitimate Resource Name or LocationSub-technique

KONNI has created a shortcut called "Anti virus service.lnk" in an apparent attempt to masquerade as a legitimate file.[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
2.2
Created
Modified
Raw hash
c1074f33827edd0b...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)
ReleaseBundle importedObject versionModifiedStatusRaw hash
19.22.2Current bundlec1074f33827e…
19.12.2Older bundlec1074f33827e…
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]
    Talos Konni May 2017

    Rascagneres, P. (2017, May 03). KONNI: A Malware Under The Radar For Years. Retrieved November 5, 2018.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    Unit 42 NOKKI Sept 2018

    Grunzweig, J., Lee, B. (2018, September 27). New KONNI Malware attacking Eurasia and Southeast Asia. Retrieved November 5, 2018.

    Open source URL
  3. [3]
    Unit 42 Nokki Oct 2018

    Grunzweig, J. (2018, October 01). NOKKI Almost Ties the Knot with DOGCALL: Reaper Group Uses New Malware to Deploy RAT. Retrieved November 5, 2018.

    Open source URL
  4. [4]
    Medium KONNI Jan 2020

    Karmi, D. (2020, January 4). A Look Into Konni 2019 Campaign. Retrieved April 28, 2020.

    Open source URL
  5. [5]
    Malwarebytes Konni Aug 2021

    Threat Intelligence Team. (2021, August 23). New variant of Konni malware used in campaign targetting Russia. Retrieved January 5, 2022.

    Open source URL
  6. [6]
    KONNI

    (Citation: Talos Konni May 2017)(Citation: Malwarebytes Konni Aug 2021)

  7. [7]
    mitre-attackS0356
    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.