T1218.010: Regsvr32

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.

APT32 is a suspected Vietnam-based threat group that has been active since at least 2014. The group has targeted multiple private sector industries as well as foreign governments, dissidents, and journalists with a strong focus on Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos, and Cambodia. They have extensively used strategic web compromises to compromise victims.[1][2][3]

Leviathan is a Chinese state-sponsored cyber espionage group that has been attributed to the Ministry of State Security's (MSS) Hainan State Security Department and an affiliated front company.[1] Active since at least 2009, Leviathan has targeted the following sectors: academia, aerospace/aviation, biomedical, defense industrial base, government, healthcare, manufacturing, maritime, and transportation across the US, Canada, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.[1][2][3][4]

Blue Mockingbird is a cluster of observed activity involving Monero cryptocurrency-mining payloads in dynamic-link library (DLL) form on Windows systems. The earliest observed Blue Mockingbird tools were created in December 2019.[1]

Storm-0501 is a financially motivated cyber criminal group that uses commodity and open-source tools to conduct ransomware operations. Storm-0501 has been active since 2021 and has previously been affiliated with Sabbath Ransomware and other Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) variants such as Hive, BlackCat, Hunters International, LockBit 3.0, and Embargo ransomware.[1][2][3][4]

TA551 is a financially-motivated threat group that has been active since at least 2018. [1] The group has primarily targeted English, German, Italian, and Japanese speakers through email-based malware distribution campaigns. [2]

Deep Panda is a suspected Chinese threat group known to target many industries, including government, defense, financial, and telecommunications. [1] The intrusion into healthcare company Anthem has been attributed to Deep Panda. [2] This group is also known as Shell Crew, WebMasters, KungFu Kittens, and PinkPanther. [3] Deep Panda also appears to be known as Black Vine based on the attribution of both group names to the Anthem intrusion. [4] Some analysts track Deep Panda and APT19 as the same group, but it is unclear from open source information if the groups are the same. [5]

Cobalt Group is a financially motivated threat group that has primarily targeted financial institutions since at least 2016. The group has conducted intrusions to steal money via targeting ATM systems, card processing, payment systems and SWIFT systems. Cobalt Group has mainly targeted banks in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia. One of the alleged leaders was arrested in Spain in early 2018, but the group still appears to be active. The group has been known to target organizations in order to use their access to then compromise additional victims.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Reporting indicates there may be links between Cobalt Group and both the malware Carbanak and the group Carbanak.[8]

Inception is a cyber espionage group active since at least 2014. The group has targeted multiple industries and governmental entities primarily in Russia, but has also been active in the United States and throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.[1][2][3]

WIRTE is a cyberespionage actor, believed to be a subgroup of the Hamas-affiliated Gaza Cybergang, that has been active since at least August 2018. WIRTE has targeted diplomatic, financial, military, legal, and technology organizations across the Middle East, North Africa, and in Europe to gather intelligence. WIRTE has remained persistently active despite the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict and has expanded their operations to include wiper malware attacks against Israeli targets.[1][2][3][4]

APT19 is a Chinese-based threat group that has targeted a variety of industries, including defense, finance, energy, pharmaceutical, telecommunications, high tech, education, manufacturing, and legal services. In 2017, a phishing campaign was used to target seven law and investment firms. [1] Some analysts track APT19 and Deep Panda as the same group, but it is unclear from open source information if the groups are the same. [2] [3] [4]

Orz is a custom JavaScript backdoor used by Leviathan. It was observed being used in 2014 as well as in August 2017 when it was dropped by Microsoft Publisher files. [1] [2]

TONESHELL is a custom backdoor that has been used since at least Q1 2021.[1] TONESHELL malware has previously been leveraged by Chinese affiliated actors identified as Mustang Panda.[2][3]

AppleSeed is a backdoor that has been used by Kimsuky to target South Korean government, academic, and commercial targets since at least 2021.[1]

Emotet is a modular malware variant which is primarily used as a downloader for other malware variants such as TrickBot and IcedID. Emotet first emerged in June 2014, initially targeting the financial sector, and has expanded to multiple verticals over time.[1]

Squirrelwaffle is a loader that was first seen in September 2021. It has been used in spam email campaigns to deliver additional malware such as Cobalt Strike and the QakBot banking trojan.[1][2]

Raspberry Robin is initial access malware first identified in September 2021, and active through early 2024. The malware is notable for spreading via infected USB devices containing a malicious LNK object that, on execution, retrieves remote hosted payloads for installation. Raspberry Robin has been widely used against various industries and geographies, and as a precursor to information stealer, ransomware, and other payloads such as SocGholish, Cobalt Strike, IcedID, and Bumblebee.[1][2][3] The DLL componenet in the Raspberry Robin infection chain is also referred to as "Roshtyak."[4] The name "Raspberry Robin" is used to refer to both the malware as well as the threat actor associated with its use, although the Raspberry Robin operators are also tracked as Storm-0856 by some vendors.[5]

Ragnar Locker is a ransomware that has been in use since at least December 2019.[1][2]

Hi-Zor is a remote access tool (RAT) that has characteristics similar to Sakula. It was used in a campaign named INOCNATION. [1]

Xbash is a malware family that has targeted Linux and Microsoft Windows servers. The malware has been tied to the Iron Group, a threat actor group known for previous ransomware attacks. Xbash was developed in Python and then converted into a self-contained Linux ELF executable by using PyInstaller.[1]

Saint Bot is a .NET downloader that has been used by Saint Bear since at least March 2021.[1][2]

EVILNUM is fully capable backdoor that was first identified in 2018. EVILNUM is used by the APT group Evilnum which has the same name.[1][2]

Mori is a backdoor that has been used by MuddyWater since at least January 2022.[1][2]

Operation Dream Job was a cyber espionage operation likely conducted by Lazarus Group that targeted the defense, aerospace, government, and other sectors in the United States, Israel, Australia, Russia, and India. In at least one case, the cyber actors tried to monetize their network access to conduct a business email compromise (BEC) operation. In 2020, security researchers noted overlapping TTPs, to include fake job lures and code similarities, between Operation Dream Job, Operation North Star, and Operation Interception; by 2022 security researchers described Operation Dream Job as an umbrella term covering both Operation Interception and Operation North Star.[1][2][3][4]

C0015 was a ransomware intrusion during which the unidentified attackers used Bazar, Cobalt Strike, and Conti, along with other tools, over a 5 day period. Security researchers assessed the actors likely used the widely-circulated Conti ransomware playbook based on the observed pattern of activity and operator errors.[1]