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MITRE ATT&CK® Malware

S1197: GoBear

GoBear is a Go-based backdoor that abuses legitimate, stolen certificates for defense evasion purposes. GoBear is exclusively linked to Kimsuky operations.[1][2]

EnterpriseS1197MalwareObject v1.0Modified
Glexia's Take · Automated analysis

Security context for executives and security teams

Automation confidenceMedium

S1197: GoBear describes [GoBear](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S1197) is a Go-based backdoor that abuses legitimate, stolen certificates for defense evasion purposes. [GoBear](https://attack.mitre.org/software/S1197) is exclusively linked to [Kimsuky](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0094) operations.(Citation: S2W Troll Stealer 2024)(Citation: Symantec Troll Stealer 2024)

Executive priority

S1197: GoBear 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 S1197: GoBear 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 S1197: GoBear 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

GoBear

GoBear is a Go-based backdoor that abuses legitimate, stolen certificates for defense evasion purposes. GoBear is exclusively linked to Kimsuky operations.[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.

3 rows
DomainIDNameRelationship / procedure
EnterpriseT1090Proxy

GoBear implements SOCKS5 proxy functionality.[1]

EnterpriseT1036.005Match Legitimate Resource Name or LocationSub-technique

GoBear is installed through droppers masquerading as legitimate, signed software installers.[2]

EnterpriseT1553.002Code SigningSub-technique

GoBear uses stolen legitimate code signing certificates for defense evasion.[1][2]

Associated objects

Groups, software, and campaigns

GroupEnterprise

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.

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
1.0
Created
Modified
Raw hash
6bea5994e0a335a0...
Imported snapshots across ATT&CK releases(2)
ReleaseBundle importedObject versionModifiedStatusRaw hash
19.21.0Current bundle6bea5994e0a3…
19.11.0Older bundle6bea5994e0a3…
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]
    S2W Troll Stealer 2024

    Jiho Kim & Sebin Lee, S2W. (2024, February 7). Kimsuky disguised as a Korean company signed with a valid certificate to distribute Troll Stealer (English ver.). Retrieved January 17, 2025.

    Open source URL
  2. [2]
    Symantec Troll Stealer 2024

    Symantec Threat Hunter Team. (2024, May 16). Springtail: New Linux Backdoor Added to Toolkit. Retrieved January 17, 2025.

    Open source URL
  3. [3]
    mitre-attackS1197
    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.