T1566.002: Spearphishing Link

BlackTech is a suspected Chinese cyber espionage group that has primarily targeted organizations in East Asia--particularly Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong--and the US since at least 2013. BlackTech has used a combination of custom malware, dual-use tools, and living off the land tactics to compromise media, construction, engineering, electronics, and financial company networks.[1][2][3]

MuddyWater is a cyber espionage group assessed to be a subordinate element within Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).[1] Since at least 2017, MuddyWater has targeted a range of government and private organizations across sectors, including telecommunications, local government, finance, defense, and oil and natural gas organizations, in the Middle East (specifically the UAE and Saudi Arabia), Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. MuddyWater has reused domains dating back to October 2025, and has a preference for NameCheap and Hosterdaddy Private Limited (AS136557). In late 2025 and early 2026, MuddyWater used commercial satellite internet (i.e., Starlink) for command and control (C2) communication. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]

LuminousMoth is a Chinese-speaking cyber espionage group that has been active since at least October 2020. LuminousMoth has targeted high-profile organizations, including government entities, in Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and other parts of Southeast Asia. Some security researchers have concluded there is a connection between LuminousMoth and Mustang Panda based on similar targeting and TTPs, as well as network infrastructure overlaps.[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]

Confucius is a cyber espionage group that has primarily targeted military personnel, high-profile personalities, business persons, and government organizations in South Asia since at least 2013. Security researchers have noted similarities between Confucius and Patchwork, particularly in their respective custom malware code and targets.[1][2][3]

Mofang is a likely China-based cyber espionage group, named for its frequent practice of imitating a victim's infrastructure. This adversary has been observed since at least May 2012 conducting focused attacks against government and critical infrastructure in Myanmar, as well as several other countries and sectors including military, automobile, and weapons industries.[1]

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.

Sidewinder is a suspected Indian threat actor group that has been active since at least 2012. They have been observed targeting government, military, and business entities throughout Asia, primarily focusing on Pakistan, China, Nepal, and Afghanistan.[1][2][3]

Elderwood is a suspected Chinese cyber espionage group that was reportedly responsible for the 2009 Google intrusion known as Operation Aurora. [1] The group has targeted defense organizations, supply chain manufacturers, human rights and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and IT service providers. [2] [3]

Machete is a suspected Spanish-speaking cyber espionage group that has been active since at least 2010. It has primarily focused its operations within Latin America, with a particular emphasis on Venezuela, but also in the US, Europe, Russia, and parts of Asia. Machete generally targets high-profile organizations such as government institutions, intelligence services, and military units, as well as telecommunications and power companies.[1][2][3][4]

FIN7 is a financially-motivated threat group that has been active since 2013. FIN7 has targeted the retail, restaurant, hospitality, software, consulting, financial services, medical equipment, cloud services, media, food and beverage, transportation, pharmaceutical, and utilities industries in the United States. A portion of FIN7 was operated out of a front company called Combi Security and often used point-of-sale malware for targeting efforts. Since 2020, FIN7 shifted operations to big game hunting (BGH), including use of REvil ransomware and their own Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), Darkside. FIN7 may be linked to the Carbanak Group, but multiple threat groups have been observed using Carbanak, leading these groups to be tracked separately.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

Mustard Tempest is an initial access broker that has operated the SocGholish distribution network since at least 2017. Mustard Tempest has partnered with Indrik Spider to provide access for the download of additional malware including LockBit, WastedLocker, and remote access tools.[1][2][3][4]

Kerrdown is a custom downloader that has been used by APT32 since at least 2018 to install spyware from a server on the victim's network.[1][2]

GuLoader is a file downloader that has been used since at least December 2019 to distribute a variety of remote administration tool (RAT) malware, including NETWIRE, Agent Tesla, NanoCore, FormBook, and Parallax RAT.[1][2]

OutSteel is a file uploader and document stealer developed with the scripting language AutoIT that has been used by Saint Bear since at least March 2021.[1]

KOCTOPUS's batch variant is loader used by LazyScripter since 2018 to launch Octopus and Koadic and, in some cases, QuasarRAT. KOCTOPUS also has a VBA variant that has the same functionality as the batch version.[1]

ROAMINGHOUSE is a dropper malware used by MirrorFace to extract and execute embedded payloads including UPPERCUT components.[1]

Kali365 is a Phishing-as-a-Service (PHaaS) kit first observed in April 2026 that generates victim-targeted lures across multiple operating systems to induce users into copying and pasting actor-controlled commands for local execution.[1][2][3][4] Kali365 incorporates on-demand device code generation and mirrors the copy-paste execution tradecraft associated with ClickFix. [3] Operators have used Kali365 to harvest victims' OAuth tokens and session cookies through adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) interception, enabling account takeover.[1][5][2][3][4] Kali365 PHaaS was first observed in April 2026.[1] Kali365 has also been affiliated with other branding to include Octopi365 and Freedom365.[3]

Javali is a banking trojan that has targeted Portuguese and Spanish-speaking countries since 2017, primarily focusing on customers of financial institutions in Brazil and Mexico.[1]

DarkGate first emerged in 2018 and has evolved into an initial access and data gathering tool associated with various criminal cyber operations. Written in Delphi and named "DarkGate" by its author, DarkGate is associated with credential theft, cryptomining, cryptotheft, and pre-ransomware actions.[1] DarkGate use increased significantly starting in 2022 and is under active development by its author, who provides it as a Malware-as-a-Service offering.[2]

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]

AppleJeus is a family of downloaders initially discovered in 2018 embedded within trojanized cryptocurrency applications. AppleJeus has been used by Lazarus Group, targeting companies in the energy, finance, government, industry, technology, and telecommunications sectors, and several countries including the United States, United Kingdom, South Korea, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, and Russia. AppleJeus has been used to distribute the FALLCHILL RAT.[1]

Qilin is a ransomware family operated as a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) that has been active since at least 2022. It includes variants written in Go and Rust capable of targeting Windows, Linux, and VMware ESXi environments. Qilin shares functionality overlaps with Black Basta, REvil, and BlackCat ransomware. Qilin affiliates have targeted multiple entities worldwide with the majority of victims in the US, France, Canada, and the UK, primarily in the manufacturing, technology, financial services, and healthcare sectors.[1][2][3][4][5]

Vidar is a Windows infostealer that was first advertised in November 2018. Written in C++, Vidar collects PII, cryptocurrency wallets, documents and other data within the compromised machine. Version 2 of Vidar was published in October 2025, and has been used in numerous operations since its release. Vidar has been observed alongside other malware strains, including STOP/Djvu ransomware, Mina.exe (an XMRIG miner), and Clip1.exe (a Laplas Clipper sample).[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

Night Dragon was a cyber espionage campaign that targeted oil, energy, and petrochemical companies, along with individuals and executives in Kazakhstan, Taiwan, Greece, and the United States. The unidentified threat actors searched for information related to oil and gas field production systems, financials, and collected data from SCADA systems. Based on the observed techniques, tools, and network activities, security researchers assessed the campaign involved a threat group based in China.[1]

Operation Spalax was a campaign that primarily targeted Colombian government organizations and private companies, particularly those associated with the energy and metallurgical industries. The Operation Spalax threat actors distributed commodity malware and tools using generic phishing topics related to COVID-19, banking, and law enforcement action. Security researchers noted indicators of compromise and some infrastructure overlaps with other campaigns dating back to April 2018, including at least one separately attributed to APT-C-36, however identified enough differences to report this as separate, unattributed activity.[1]

C0011 was a suspected cyber espionage campaign conducted by Transparent Tribe that targeted students at universities and colleges in India. Security researchers noted this campaign against students was a significant shift from Transparent Tribe's historic targeting Indian government, military, and think tank personnel, and assessed it was still ongoing as of July 2022.[1]

RedDelta Modified PlugX Infection Chain Operations was executed by Mustang Panda from mid-2023 through the end of 2024 against multiple entities in East and Southeast Asia. RedDelta Modified PlugX Infection Chain Operations involved phishing to deliver malicious files or links to users prompting follow-on installer downloads to load PlugX on victim machines in a persistent state.[1]

C0021 was a spearphishing campaign conducted in November 2018 that targeted public sector institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), educational institutions, and private-sector corporations in the oil and gas, chemical, and hospitality industries. The majority of targets were located in the US, particularly in and around Washington D.C., with other targets located in Europe, Hong Kong, India, and Canada. C0021's technical artifacts, tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), and targeting overlap with previous suspected APT29 activity.[1][2]

Operation AkaiRyū (Japanese for RedDragon) was a cyberespionage spearphishing campaign conducted by MirrorFace between June and September 2024 against entities in Japan and Central Europe. Operation AkaiRyū notably included the first reported targeting of a European entity by MirrorFace, as well as their use of UPPERCUT, which was thought to be exclusive to menuPass.[1][2]