S0485: Mandrake
Mandrake is a sophisticated Android espionage platform that has been active in the wild since at least 2016. Mandrake is very actively maintained, with sophisticated features and attacks that are executed with surgical precision.
Mandrake has gone undetected for several years by providing legitimate, ad-free applications with social media and real reviews to back the apps. The malware is only activated when the operators issue a specific command.[1]
Security context for executives and security teams
S0485: Mandrake describes [Mandrake](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0485) is a sophisticated Android espionage platform that has been active in the wild since at least 2016. [Mandrake](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0485) is very actively maintained, with sophisticated features and attacks that are executed with surgical precision. [Mandrake](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S0485) has gone undetected for several years by providing legitimate, ad-free applications with social media and real reviews to back the apps. The malware is ...
Executive priority
S0485: Mandrake 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 S0485: Mandrake by reviewing the official ATT&CK relationships, mapped tactics (the mapped ATT&CK tactic context), supported platforms (Android), and available local telemetry before making detection or mitigation decisions.
Likely telemetry
- Official ATT&CK relationships and object metadata
Detection direction
- Validate whether S0485: Mandrake 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.
Mandrake
Mandrake is a sophisticated Android espionage platform that has been active in the wild since at least 2016. Mandrake is very actively maintained, with sophisticated features and attacks that are executed with surgical precision.
Mandrake has gone undetected for several years by providing legitimate, ad-free applications with social media and real reviews to back the apps. The malware is only activated when the operators issue a specific command.[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.
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 | 1.0 | Current bundle | 3d04d93f433b… | ||
| 19.1 | 1.0 | Older bundle | 3d04d93f433b… |
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]Bitdefender Mandrake
R. Gevers, M. Tivadar, R. Bleotu, A. M. Barbatei, et al.. (2020, May 14). Uprooting Mandrake: The Story of an Advanced Android Spyware Framework That Went Undetected for 4 Years. Retrieved July 15, 2020.
Open source URL - [2]briar
(Citation: Bitdefender Mandrake)
- [3]darkmatter
(Citation: Bitdefender Mandrake)
- [4]mitre-attackS0485Open source URL
- [5]oxide
(Citation: Bitdefender Mandrake)
- [6]ricinus
(Citation: Bitdefender Mandrake)
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