T1071.002: File Transfer Protocols

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.

APT41 is a threat group that researchers have assessed as Chinese state-sponsored espionage group that also conducts financially-motivated operations. Active since at least 2012, APT41 has been observed targeting various industries, including but not limited to healthcare, telecom, technology, finance, education, retail and video game industries in 14 countries.[1] Notable behaviors include using a wide range of malware and tools to complete mission objectives. APT41 overlaps at least partially with public reporting on groups including BARIUM and Winnti Group.[2][3]

Dragonfly is a cyber espionage group that has been attributed to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) Center 16.[1][2] Active since at least 2010, Dragonfly has targeted defense and aviation companies, government entities, companies related to industrial control systems, and critical infrastructure sectors worldwide through supply chain, spearphishing, and drive-by compromise attacks.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]

SilverTerrier is a Nigerian threat group that has been seen active since 2014. SilverTerrier mainly targets organizations in high technology, higher education, and manufacturing.[1][2]

MirrorFace is a People's Republic of China (PRC)-aligned cyberespionage actor believed to be a subgroup under the menuPass umbrella based on targeting, tools, and infrastructure overlaps. MirrorFace has been active since at least 2019, at first exclusively targeting Japanese organizations across the media, defense, diplomatic, financial, manufacturing, and academic sectors. Subsequent MirrorFace operations included targets in Central Europe and featured use of LODEINFO, HiddenFace, and UPPERCUT malware.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

NOKKI is a modular remote access tool. The earliest observed attack using NOKKI was in January 2018. NOKKI has significant code overlap with the KONNI malware family. There is some evidence potentially linking NOKKI to APT37.[1][2]

Havoc is an open-source post-exploitation command and control (C2) framework first released on GitHub in October 2022 by C5pider (Paul Ungur), who continues to maintain and develop it with community contributors. Havoc provides a wide range of offensive security capabilities and has been adopted by multiple threat actors to establish and maintain control over compromised systems.

SharpDisco is a dropper developed in C# that has been used by MoustachedBouncer since at least 2020 to load malicious plugins.[1]

BADHATCH is a backdoor that has been utilized by FIN8 since at least 2019. BADHATCH has been used to target the insurance, retail, technology, and chemical industries in the United States, Canada, South Africa, Panama, and Italy.[1][2]

Machete is a cyber espionage toolset used by Machete. It is a Python-based backdoor targeting Windows machines that was first observed in 2010.[1][2][3]

PUBLOAD is a stager malware that has been observed installing itself in existing directories such as `C:\Users\Public` or creating new directories to stage the malware and its components.[1] PUBLOAD malware collects details of the victim host, establishes persistence, encrypts victim details using RC4 and communicates victim details back to C2. PUBLOAD malware has previously been leveraged by China-affiliated actors identified as Mustang Panda. PUBLOAD is also known as “NoFive” and some public reporting identifies the loader component as CLAIMLOADER.[2]

Regin is a malware platform that has targeted victims in a range of industries, including telecom, government, and financial institutions. Some Regin timestamps date back to 2003. [1]

Kazuar is a fully featured, multi-platform backdoor Trojan written using the Microsoft .NET framework. [1]

XAgentOSX is a trojan that has been used by APT28 on OS X and appears to be a port of their standard CHOPSTICK or XAgent trojan. [1]

Attor is a Windows-based espionage platform that has been seen in use since 2013. Attor has a loadable plugin architecture to customize functionality for specific targets.[1]

Cobalt Strike is a commercial, full-featured, remote access tool that bills itself as “adversary simulation software designed to execute targeted attacks and emulate the post-exploitation actions of advanced threat actors”. Cobalt Strike’s interactive post-exploit capabilities cover the full range of ATT&CK tactics, all executed within a single, integrated system.[1]

In addition to its own capabilities, Cobalt Strike leverages the capabilities of other well-known tools such as Metasploit and Mimikatz.[1]

PoetRAT is a remote access trojan (RAT) that was first identified in April 2020. PoetRAT has been used in multiple campaigns against the private and public sectors in Azerbaijan, including ICS and SCADA systems in the energy sector. The STIBNITE activity group has been observed using the malware. PoetRAT derived its name from references in the code to poet William Shakespeare. [1][2][3]

Operation Honeybee was a campaign that targeted humanitarian aid and inter-Korean affairs organizations from at least late 2017 through early 2018. Operation Honeybee initially targeted South Korea, but expanded to include Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, Argentina, and Canada. Security researchers assessed the threat actors were likely Korean speakers based on metadata used in both lure documents and executables, and named the campaign "Honeybee" after the author name discovered in malicious Word documents.[1]

Quad7 Activity, also known as CovertNetwork-1658 or the 7777 Botnet, is a network of compromised small office/home office (SOHO) routers. [1] [2] The botnet was initially composed primarily of TP-Link routers and was named Quad7 due to compromised devices exposing TCP port 7777 with the distinctive banner xlogin. Later activity showed a significant increase in compromised Asus routers and the addition of new ports and banners, including TCP port 63256 displaying alogin. Quad7 infrastructure functions as a collection of egress IPs that various China-affiliated threat actors have used to conduct password-spraying and brute-force operations. [1][3] Microsoft has reported that Storm-0940 leveraged credentials obtained through Quad7 Activity to target organizations in North America and Europe, including government agencies, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, law firms, energy firms, IT providers, and defense industrial base entities. [2]