IcePeony is a China-nexus APT group that has been active since at least 2023, targeting government agencies, academic institutions, and political organizations in countries such as India, Mauritius, and Vietnam. They primarily employ SQL injection techniques to exploit vulnerabilities in publicly accessible web servers, subsequently installing web shells or executing malware like IceCache to facilitate credential theft. IcePeony operates under harsh work conditions, potentially adhering to the 996 working hour system, and shows a particular interest in the governments of Indian Ocean countries. Their activities suggest alignment with China's national interests, possibly related to maritime strategy.


This threat actor uses spear-phishing techniques to target private-sector energy, defense, aerospace, research, and media organizations and embassies in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, for the purpose of espionage.


IndigoZebra is a Chinese state-sponsored actor mentioned for the first time by Kaspersky in its APT Trends report Q2 2017, targeting, at the time of its discovery, former Soviet Republics with multiple malware strains including Meterpreter, Poison Ivy, xDown, and a previously unknown backdoor called “xCaon.”


INDOHAXSEC TEAM is an Indonesian group that claims to have developed a web-based version of WannaCry, asserting the ability to encrypt websites and demand Bitcoin as ransom. However, their technical capabilities remain uncertain, as creating ransomware of this scale requires significant expertise. The group's claims may be exaggerated for attention, and verified evidence is needed to assess their true capabilities.


INDRIK SPIDER is a sophisticated eCrime group that has been operating Dridex since June 2014. In 2015 and 2016, Dridex was one of the most prolific eCrime banking trojans on the market and, since 2014, those efforts are thought to have netted INDRIK SPIDER millions of dollars in criminal profits. Throughout its years of operation, Dridex has received multiple updates with new modules developed and new anti-analysis features added to the malware.
In August 2017, a new ransomware variant identified as BitPaymer was reported to have ransomed the U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS), with a high ransom demand of 53 BTC (approximately $200,000 USD). The targeting of an organization rather than individuals, and the high ransom demands, made BitPaymer stand out from other contemporary ransomware at the time. Though the encryption and ransom functionality of BitPaymer was not technically sophisticated, the malware contained multiple anti-analysis features that overlapped with Dridex. Later technical analysis of BitPaymer indicated that it had been developed by INDRIK SPIDER, suggesting the group had expanded its criminal operation to include ransomware as a monetization strategy.


Dark Engine has emerged as a significant threat actor targeting industrial control systems and SCADA systems in sectors such as metallurgy and food processing. The group has conducted multiple ICS-targeted incidents, with a pronounced operational surge in June 2025. Additionally, Dark Engine is involved in a campaign that embeds fraudulent CAPTCHA prompts into legitimate WordPress sites, utilizing SEO poisoning to harvest login credentials. Reports also indicate a data leak from Dark Engine that exposed sensitive phone data in the U.S.


Infy is a group of suspected Iranian origin.
Since early 2013, we have observed activity from a unique threat actor group, which we began to investigate based on increased activities against human right activists in the beginning of 2015. In line5with other research on the campaign, released prior to publication of this document, we have adopted the name “Infy”, which is based on labels used in the infrastructure and its two families of malware agents.
Thanks to information we have been able to collect during the course of our research, such as characteristics of the group’s malware and development cycle, our research strongly supports the claim that the Infy group is of Iranian origin and potentially connected to the Iranian state. Amongst a backdrop of other incidents, Infy became one of the most frequently observed agents for attempted malware attacks against Iranian civil society beginning in late 2014, growing in use up to the February 2016 parliamentary election in Iran. After the conclusion of the parliamentary election, the rate of attempted intrusions and new compromises through the Infy agent slowed, but did not end. The trends witnessed in reports from recipients are reinforced through telemetry provided by design failures in more recent versions of the Infy malware.


INJ3CTOR3 is a threat actor first identified in 2020, known for targeting vulnerabilities in VoIP systems, specifically CVE-2019-19006 and CVE-2021-45461. Their operations involve exploiting FreePBX vulnerabilities to deploy PHP web shells for data exfiltration and persistence. The group utilizes tools for SIP server exploitation, including brute-force scripts and authentication bypass techniques. Observations indicate a resurgence of their attack patterns, reflecting historical behaviors while adapting to current vulnerabilities.


IntelBroker is a threat actor known for orchestrating high-profile data breaches targeting companies like Apple, Zscaler, and Facebook Marketplace. They have a reputation for selling access to compromised systems and data on underground forums like BreachForums. IntelBroker has claimed responsibility for breaches involving government agencies such as Europol, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the Pentagon, leaking sensitive information and classified documents. The actor has been linked to breaches at companies like Acuity, General Electric, and Home Depot, showcasing a pattern of targeting critical infrastructure and major corporations.


Adversary group targeting diplomatic missions, governmental and military organisations, mainly in Ukraine.


Resecurity’s research indicates that the attack on Parliament is a part of a multi-year cyberespionage campaign orchestrated by a nation-state actor whom we are calling IRIDIUM. This actor targets sensitive government, diplomatic, and military resources in the countries comprising the Five Eyes intelligence alliance (which includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States)


IRLeaks is a threat actor known for significant cyberattacks targeting Iranian organizations, including a major breach of SnappFood, where they exfiltrated 3TB of sensitive data from 20 million user profiles. They have also compromised data from 23 leading Iranian insurance companies, offering over 160 million records for sale. Their operations involve extortion tactics, as seen in the ransom negotiations with Tosan, and they utilize malware such as StealC for data extraction. IRLeaks communicates primarily in Persian and has been active in selling stolen data on cybercriminal marketplaces.


IronErn440 is a threat actor tracked by Oligo Security for orchestrating the ShadowRay 2.0 campaign, an evolution of attacks since September 2023 exploiting CVE-2023-48022, a missing authentication flaw in the Ray AI framework's Job Submission API. The actor submits malicious jobs to exposed Ray clusters (port 8265), deploying multi-stage Bash/Python payloads via GitHub/GitLab repositories like "ironern440-group" and "thisisforwork440-ops" to propagate worm-like, hijack NVIDIA GPUs for XMRig cryptomining, pivot laterally, create reverse shells, kill competing miners, limit CPU to 60%, and persist via cron jobs pulling updates every 15 minutes. Additional capabilities include DDoS via sockstress on port 3333 (targeting mining pools), region-specific malware (e.g., China checks), LLM-generated payloads, and use of tools like interact.sh for scanning over 230,500 public Ray servers; mitigations involve firewalling, authorization, and Anyscale's port checker.


IronHusky is a Chinese-based threat actor first attributed in July 2017 targeting Russian and Mongolian governments, as well as aviation companies and research institutes. Since their initial attacks ceased in 2018, they have been working on a new remote access trojan dubbed MysterySnail.


Iron group has developed multiple types of malware (backdoors, crypto-miners, and ransomware) for Windows, Linux and Android platforms. They have used their malware to successfully infect, at least, a few thousand victims.


ItaDuke is an actor known since 2013. It used PDF exploits for dropping malware and Twitter accounts to store C2 server urls. On 2018, an actor named DarkUniverse, which was active between 2009 to 2017, was attributed to this ItaDuke by Kaspersky.


JabaRoot is an Algerian hacker group that has targeted Moroccan government systems, successfully exfiltrating sensitive data from the Ministry of Economic Inclusion and the National Social Security Fund (CNSS). The group has claimed responsibility for the breach, which has raised concerns among cybersecurity experts regarding its scale and impact on citizens' privacy. The motives behind the attack remain unclear, but it has been noted as one of Morocco's most significant cyber-attacks affecting multiple victims. Resecurity has identified the group's activities as part of a broader trend of APT targeting government entities in the region.


JavaGhost is a threat actor group that has targeted cloud environments, particularly AWS, for phishing campaigns without engaging in data theft for extortion. They exploit overly permissive IAM permissions and utilize long-term access keys to gain initial access, employing the GetFederationToken API to acquire temporary credentials for console access. JavaGhost has demonstrated advanced evasion techniques, avoiding common detection methods by not using the GetCallerIdentity API call. Their activities generate detectable logging footprints in CloudTrail, allowing organizations to identify and respond to their tactics.


Wiz Threat Research identified a new variant of an ongoing malicious campaign targeting misconfigured and publicly exposed PostgreSQL servers. In the observed attack, the threat actor (tracked by Wiz as JINX-0126) abuses exposed PostgreSQL instances, configured with weak and guessable login credentials, to gain access and to deploy XMRig-C3 cryptominers. This campaign was first documented by Aqua Security, but the threat actor has since evolved, implementing defense evasion techniques such as deploying binaries with a unique hash per target and executing the miner payload filelessly—likely to evade detection by CWPP solutions that rely solely on file hash reputation.


JuiceLedger is a threat actor known for infostealing through their JuiceStealer .NET assembly. They have evolved from spreading fraudulent applications to conducting supply chain attacks, targeting PyPI contributors with phishing campaigns and typosquatting. Their malicious packages contain a code snippet that downloads and executes JuiceStealer, which has evolved to support additional browsers and Discord. Victims of JuiceLedger attacks are advised to reset passwords and report any suspicious activity to security@pypi.org.


Kairos is an extortion group that emerged with a data-leak site on 13 November 2024, claiming attacks against six organizations, primarily in the US healthcare sector. The group is financially motivated, demanding Bitcoin payments for the secure deletion of stolen files and threatening to leak data if victims do not comply. While no specific TTPs are publicly known, common techniques among extortion groups include phishing and scanning for exposed internet-facing devices. There is a potential link to a user on a Russian-language cybercriminal forum who shares a post-exploitation script, but attribution remains uncertain.


Karakurt actors have employed a variety of tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), creating significant challenges for defense and mitigation. Karakurt victims have not reported encryption of compromised machines or files; rather, Karakurt actors have claimed to steal data and threatened to auction it off or release it to the public unless they receive payment of the demanded ransom. Known ransom demands have ranged from $25,000 to $13,000,000 in Bitcoin, with payment deadlines typically set to expire within a week of first contact with the victim.


Karkadann is a threat actor that has been active since at least October 2020, targeting government bodies and news outlets in the Middle East. They have been involved in watering hole attacks, compromising high-profile websites to inject malicious JavaScript code. The group has been linked to another commercial spyware company called Candiru, suggesting they may utilize multiple spyware technologies. There are similarities in the infrastructure and tactics used by Karkadann in their campaigns.


The Kasablanka group is a cyber-criminal organization that has
specifically targeted Russia between September and December 2022,
using various payloads delivered through phishing emails containing
socially engineered lnk files, zip packages, and executables attached to
virtual disk image files.


KAX17 is a sophisticated threat actor that has been active since at least 2017. They have operated hundreds of malicious servers within the Tor network, primarily as entry and middle points. Their main objective appears to be collecting information on Tor users and mapping their routes within the network. Despite efforts to remove their servers, KAX17 has shown resilience and continues to operate.


Kazu is a financially motivated ransomware group known for employing a double extortion model, targeting sectors such as healthcare and government. The group has claimed responsibility for multiple high-profile breaches, including those of Manage My Health and the Defensoría del Pueblo de Colombia, exfiltrating sensitive data through techniques like exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities and credential reuse. Kazu has demanded ransoms ranging from $60,000 to $500,000, threatening public disclosure of stolen data if payments are not made. Their operations have primarily focused on entities in Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East, with a notable presence on dark web leak sites.


The threat group behind EnemyBot, Keksec, is well-resourced and has the ability to update and add new capabilities to its arsenal of malware on a daily basis (see below for more detail on Keksec)


KelvinSecurity is a hacker group that has been active since at least 2015. They are known for their hacktivist and black hat activities, targeting public and private organizations globally. The group sells and leaks databases, documents, and access belonging to their victims, often on the dark web or their own platforms. They have been involved in attacks against various sectors, including telecommunications, political parties, and healthcare.


Keymous is a threat actor known for executing extensive DDoS attacks across multiple Arab countries, targeting government ministries and critical infrastructure. The group has claimed access to sensitive data, including over 300,000 records from Israel's Ministry of Education, and has engaged in reconnaissance activities against various ministries in Bahrain and other nations. Keymous employs diverse infrastructure, including compromised IoT devices and DDoS-for-hire platforms, to amplify attack bandwidth. Their operations have been characterized by a focus on politically motivated cyberattacks, particularly in the context of regional conflicts.


A group targeting various countries using Denial of Services attacked.


This threat actor targets South Korean think tanks, industry, nuclear power operators, and the Ministry of Unification for espionage purposes.


This group started operating during the first quarter of 2022. They published samples of alleged stolen data from companies on their site on Tor. It is unclear if they conducted the attacks themselves, or if they bought leaked databases from third parties.


CrowdStrike identified a cryptojacking campaign targeting vulnerable Docker and Kubernetes infrastructure. Called “Kiss-a-dog,” the campaign targets Docker and Kubernetes infrastructure using an obscure domain from the payload, container escape attempt and anonymized “dog” mining pools.


KromSec is a hacktivist group that claims to be composed of hackers, activists, writers, and journalists. The group has been involved in a number of high-profile cyberattacks, including a cyber offensive against Iran in September 2022 and the sale of the database of the Iran Ministry of Industries and Mines on a hacker forum in November 2023. KromSec's attacks have been met with mixed reactions, but the group has quickly made a name for itself as a significant threat to governments and organizations around the world.


Krybit is a ransomware group that operates as a ransomware-as-a-service provider, offering affiliates 80% of ransom proceeds in exchange for technical support and a malware suite. The group has claimed attacks on various organizations across multiple countries, including asesoriauriel.com in Spain and fraper.com in Spain, without disclosing the volume of data exfiltrated. Krybit is currently engaged in a turf war with another group, 0APT, and has been accused of fabricating victim claims. Their leak site has been used to publish compromised data and to issue threats to rivals and victims alike.


LabHost is a threat actor group targeting Canadian Banks with Phishing-as-a-Service attacks. They have been observed using tools like LabRat and LabSend for real-time campaign management and SMS lures. LabHost's phishing campaigns have similarities to Frappo campaigns, but they operate separately and offer different subscription packages.


Lancefly targets government, aviation, and telecom organizations in South and Southeast Asia. They use a custom backdoor named Merdoor, developed since 2018, and employ various tactics to gain access, including phishing emails, SSH credential brute-forcing, and exploiting server vulnerabilities. Additionally, Lancefly has been observed using a newer version of the ZXShell rootkit and tools like PlugX and ShadowPad RAT, which are typically associated with Chinese-speaking APT groups.


An actor group conducting large-scale social engineering and extortion campaign against multiple organizations with some seeing evidence of destructive elements.


LARVA-208 is a financially motivated threat actor employing sophisticated phishing campaigns to harvest credentials and deploy ransomware. The actor uses multiple tactics, including Open URL Redirection, fake login pages, and social engineering, to bypass MFA and gain access to corporate networks. LARVA-208 has compromised over 618 organizations since June 2024, often deploying ransomware payloads. The threat actor is linked to LARVA-148, a threat actor managing domain acquisitions and attacks.


Larva-24005 is a threat actor that breaches servers in Korea to establish a web server and PHP environment for phishing attacks, primarily targeting individuals involved with North Korea and university professors researching the regime. They exploit the BlueKeep vulnerability for initial access and utilize RDPWrap and a custom keylogger post-compromise. Phishing emails are crafted to appear as legitimate communications, often containing malicious URLs or compressed files. The actor has been observed storing phishing pages in the IIS_USER account and XAMPP home folder, although traces of these pages were later deleted.


The Larva-24010 threat actor is distributing malware through the website of a Korean VPN service provider. As a result, when a user downloads and runs the installer from the VPN website, malware can be installed on the system. Since at least 2023, the Larva-24010 threat actor has been targeting Korean VPN users to spread malware, ultimately installing various backdoors such as MeshAgent, gs-netcat, and NKNShell. Through this, the attacker can control infected systems where the VPN is installed and steal sensitive information stored on those systems.


Larva-26002 targets improperly managed MS-SQL servers, exploiting vulnerabilities such as brute force and dictionary attacks. The actor has distributed Trigona and Mimic ransomware, utilizing the Bulk Copy Program for exploitation and installing remote access tools like AnyDesk and Teramind. In their attacks, they also deploy scanner malware, including ICE Cloud Client written in Go and a Rust-based scanner. After compromising systems, they execute commands to gather information about the infected environment.


Larva‑25012 is a threat actor known for deploying Proxyware, utilizing malware disguised as a Notepad++ installer. The actor injects Proxyware into the Windows Explorer process and employs Python-based loaders to evade detection. They distribute Proxyware installers primarily through advertisements on websites offering free YouTube video downloads and fake sites for cracked software. Larva‑25012 has been active since at least 2024, distributing multiple types of Proxyware, including DigitalPulse, Honeygain, and Infatica.


Since 2009, HIDDEN COBRA actors have leveraged their capabilities to target and compromise a range of victims; some intrusions have resulted in the exfiltration of data while others have been disruptive in nature. Commercial reporting has referred to this activity as Lazarus Group and Guardians of Peace. Tools and capabilities used by HIDDEN COBRA actors include DDoS botnets, keyloggers, remote access tools (RATs), and wiper malware. Variants of malware and tools used by HIDDEN COBRA actors include Destover, Duuzer, and Hangman.


Libyan Scorpions is a malware operation in use since September 2015 and operated by a politically motivated group whose main objective is intelligence gathering, spying on influentials and political figures and operate an espionage campaign within Libya.


Rostelecom's security team has discovered a new APT group that is breaching companies via industrial PLCs. Named Lifting Zmiy, the group's first attacks were traced back to October 2023. The group targeted PLCs from Russian company Tech-Automatics usually used with elevators and which were still using their default passwords. Rostelecom has linked the group to intrusions at a Russian government contractor, two telecom operators, and an IT company. The company says the group collected and exfiltrated data and then destroyed the victim's infrastructure. Rostelecom says Lifting Zmiy uses Starlink infrastructure for attacks and appears to operate out of Eastern Europe.


UNC1945 is an APT group that has been targeting telecommunications companies globally. They use Linux-based implants to maintain long-term access in compromised networks. UNC1945 has demonstrated advanced technical abilities, utilizing various tools and techniques to evade detection and move laterally through networks. They have also been observed targeting other industries, such as financial and professional consulting, and have been linked to other threat actors, including MustangPanada and RedDelta.


LilacSquid is an APT actor targeting a variety of industries worldwide since at least 2021. They use tactics such as exploiting vulnerabilities and compromised RDP credentials to gain access to victim organizations. Their post-compromise activities involve deploying MeshAgent and a customized version of QuasarRAT known as PurpleInk to maintain control over infected systems. LilacSquid has been observed using tools like Secure Socket Funneling for data exfiltration.


Lilac Typhoon is a threat actor attributed to China. They have been identified as exploiting the Atlassian Confluence RCE vulnerability CVE-2022-26134, which allows for remote code execution. This vulnerability has been used in cryptojacking campaigns and is included in commercial exploit frameworks. Lilac Typhoon has also been involved in deploying various payloads such as Cobalt Strike, web shells, botnets, coin miners, and ransomware.


LIMINAL PANDA is a China-nexus APT that targets telecommunications entities, employing custom malware and publicly available tools for covert access, C2, and data exfiltration. The adversary demonstrates extensive knowledge of telecom networks, utilizing GSM protocols to retrieve mobile subscriber information and call metadata. LIMINAL PANDA exploits trust relationships and security gaps between providers to access core infrastructure, indicating a focus on SIGINT collection rather than financial gain. Their intrusion activity has primarily affected telecom providers in southern Asia and Africa, with potential for broader targeting based on network configurations.


Linkc is a newly emerged ransomware group that operates an onion-based data leak site and has claimed one victim, a U.S.-based AI and cloud service provider, H2O.ai, which was attacked on January 29, 2025. The group demanded a ransom of $15 million for data decryption and removal, showcasing access to sensitive information, including GPT model source code and customer data. Linkc's DLS is well-constructed and quick to load, indicating potential for future victim listings. However, there is currently no public acknowledgment from the victim, and the group has not engaged in discussions on cybercrime forums.


LofyGang has been found to be linked to more than 200 malicious packages, with thousands of installations throughout 2022. The group, believed to have been operating for more than a year, has multiple hacking objectives, including stealing credit card information and stealing user accounts including Discord Inc. premium accounts, streaming services accounts such as Disney+ and Minecraft accounts.


Longhorn has been active since at least 2011. It has used a range of back door Trojans in addition to zero-day vulnerabilities to compromise its targets. Longhorn has infiltrated governments and internationally operating organizations, in addition to targets in the financial, telecoms, energy, aerospace, information technology, education, and natural resources sectors. All of the organizations targeted would be of interest to a nation-state attacker.  Longhorn has infected 40 targets in at least 16 countries across the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Africa. On one occasion a computer in the United States was compromised but, following infection, an uninstaller was launched within hours, which may indicate this victim was infected unintentionally. According to cfr, this threat actor compromises governments, international organizations, academic institutions, and financial, telecommunications, energy, aerospace, information technology, and natural resource  industries for espionage purposes. Some of the tools used by this threat actor were released by Wikileaks under the name "Vault 7."


LongNosedGoblin is a China-aligned APT group targeting governmental entities in Southeast Asia and Japan for cyberespionage. The group employs Group Policy for malware deployment and utilizes cloud services like Microsoft OneDrive and Google Drive as C&C servers. Their operations feature a modular malware ecosystem, including backdoors, browser data stealers, and PowerShell-based downloaders that execute multi-stage payloads in memory. LongNosedGoblin's tactics emphasize reconnaissance-driven targeting and the abuse of trusted enterprise mechanisms, allowing for stealthy persistence within compromised networks.


Lotus Blossom is a threat group that has targeted government and military organizations in Southeast Asia.


A series of attacks, targeting both Indian military research and south Asian shipping organizations, demonstrate the minimum level of effort required to successfully compromise a target and steal sensitive information. The attackers use very simple malware, which required little development time or skills, in conjunction with freely available Web hosting, to implement a highly effective attack. It is a case of the attackers obtaining a maximum return on their investment. The attack shows how an intelligent attacker does not need to be particularly technically skilled in order to steal the information they are after. The attack begins, as is often the case, with an email sent to the victim. A malicious document is attached to the email, which, when loaded, activates the malware. The attackers use tailored emails to encourage the victim to open the email. For example, one email sent to an academic claimed to be a call for papers for a conference (CFP).
The vast majority of the victims were based in India, with some in Malaysia. The victim industry was mostly military research and also shipping based in the Arabian and South China seas. In some instances the attackers appeared to have a clear goal, whereby specific files were retrieved from certain compromised computers. In other cases, the attackers used more of a ‘shotgun’ like approach, copying every file from a computer. Military technologies were obviously the focus of one particular attack with what appeared to be source code stolen. 45 different attacker IP addresses were observed. Out of those, 43 were within the same IP address range based in Sichuan province, China. The remaining two were based in South Korea. The pattern of attacker connections implies that the IP addresses are being used as a VPN, probably in an attempt to render the attackers anonymous.ænThe attacks have been active from at least April 2011 up to February 2012. The attackers are intelligent and focused, employing the minimum amount of work necessary for the maximum gain. They do not use zero day exploits or complicated threats, instead they rely on effective social engineering and lax security measures on the part of the victims.


LulzSec Black is a hacktivist group that has claimed responsibility for coordinated DDoS attacks against Cyprus' government and critical infrastructure in response to the country's support for Israel. They have also announced cyberattacks targeting the UAE, including breaches of a government website and Alfa Electronics, asserting these actions are in support of Palestine. The group has indicated intentions for further attacks and has not provided independently verifiable evidence of their claims. Their operations reflect a focus on disrupting services and compromising data as part of their political agenda.


According to CrowdStrike, this actor is using BokBok/IcedID, potentially buying distribution through Emotet infections.
On March 17, 2019, CrowdStrike Intelligence observed the use of a new BokBot (developed and operated by LUNAR SPIDER) proxy module in conjunction with TrickBot (developed and operated by WIZARD SPIDER), which may provide WIZARD SPIDER with additional tools to steal sensitive information and conduct fraudulent wire transfers. This activity also provides further evidence to support the existence of a flourishing relationship between these two actors.
Lunar Spider is reportedly associated withGrim Spider and Wizard Spider.


Luna Moth conducts high-tempo callback phishing campaigns targeting legal and financial organizations in the U.S., using social engineering to lure victims into calling fake helpdesk numbers. Attackers impersonate IT staff to install legitimate RMM tools, enabling direct access to victim systems for data exfiltration. The group demands ransoms between $1 million and $8 million, threatening to leak stolen data if payments are not made. Their operations reflect a shift from traditional ransomware tactics to data breach extortion, leveraging trusted systems to evade detection.


Luoxk is a malware campaign targeting web servers throughout Asia, Europe and North America.


Lyceum is an Iranian APT group that has been active since at least 2014. They primarily target Middle Eastern governments and organizations in the energy and telecommunications sectors. Lyceum is known for using cyber espionage techniques and has been linked to other Iranian threat groups such as APT34. They have developed and deployed malware families like Shark and Milan, and have been observed using DNS tunneling and HTTPfor command and control communication.


Kaspersky Lab and Seculert worked together to sinkhole the Madi Command & Control (C&C) servers to monitor the campaign. Kaspersky Lab and Seculert identified more than 800 victims located in Iran, Israel and select countries across the globe connecting to the C&Cs over the past eight months. Statistics from the sinkhole revealed that the victims were primarily business people working on Iranian and Israeli critical infrastructure projects, Israeli financial institutions, Middle Eastern engineering students, and various government agencies communicating in the Middle East.
Common applications and websites that were spied on include accounts on Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, ICQ, Skype, Google+, and Facebook. Surveillance is also performed over integrated ERP/CRM systems, business contracts, and financial management systems.


Digital threat management company RiskIQ tracks the activity of MageCart group and reported their use of web-based card skimmers since 2016.


Earliest activity back to November 2008. An established group of cyber attackers based in Iran, who carried on several campaigns in 2013, including a series of attacks targeting political dissidents and those supporting Iranian political opposition.


MalKamak is an Iranian threat actor that has been operating since at least 2018. They have been involved in highly targeted cyber espionage campaigns against global aerospace and telecommunications companies. MalKamak utilizes a sophisticated remote access Trojan called ShellClient, which evades antivirus tools and uses cloud services like Dropbox for command and control.


Crowdstrike tarcks the operators behind the Qbot as MALLARD SPIDER


Malsmoke primarily targets Japanese users through malvertising campaigns that deliver Zloader malware, often leveraging adult content lures and geographic IP information. The group has transitioned from exploit kits, such as Fallout, to social engineering tactics, including fake Java updates, while maintaining a focus on high-traffic adult websites. Their operations are characterized by the use of DGA for C2 server domains and the distribution of payloads via a custom loader, previously relying on Smoke Loader. Connections to past campaigns are evident through similarities in malware masquerading as Java plugins and shared registrar information among domains.


This group of cybercriminals is named Malteiroby SCILabs, they operate and distribute the URSA/Mispadu banking trojan.


Markopolo is a threat actor known for running scams targeting cryptocurrency users through a fake app called Vortax. They use social media and a dedicated blog to legitimize their malicious activities. Markopolo has been linked to a credential-harvesting operation and is agile in pivoting to new scams when detected. The actor leverages shared hosting and C2 infrastructure for their malicious builds.


Massgrave is a hacking group that has developed a method to bypass Microsoft's software licensing for Windows and Office, enabling permanent activation of versions from Windows Vista to Windows 11. They are known for creating effective scripts for software activation, which are distributed through an unofficial repository at massgrave.dev. The group claims their exploit supports volume activation via the Key Management Services model and has gained traction within the piracy scene. Reports indicate that their tools may be used by unauthorized individuals, including Microsoft support agents, raising legal and security concerns.


Metador primarily targets telecommunications, internet service providers, and universities in several countries in the Middle East and Africa. Metador’s attack chains are designed to bypass native security solutions while deploying malware platforms directly into memory. SentinelLabs researchers discovered variants of two long-standing Windows malware platforms, and indications of an additional Linux implant.


MIMIC SPIDER is mentioned in two summary reports only


MirrorFace is a Chinese-speaking advanced persistent threat group that has been targeting high-value organizations in Japan, including media, government, diplomatic, and political entities. They have been conducting spear-phishing campaigns, utilizing malware such as LODEINFO and MirrorStealer to steal credentials and exfiltrate sensitive data. While there is speculation about their connection to APT10, ESET currently track them as a separate entity.


Mocha Manakin is a threat actor that employs the paste and run technique for initial access, tricking users into executing scripts that download various payloads, including LummaC2, HijackLoader, and Vidar. This actor is notable for utilizing a bespoke NodeJS-based backdoor named NodeInitRAT, which facilitates persistence and reconnaissance activities while communicating with adversary-controlled servers over HTTP. Mocha Manakin has been linked to Interlock ransomware, and while direct ransomware activity has not been observed, there is moderate confidence that unmitigated activity may lead to such outcomes. The effectiveness of paste and run lures, distributed through methods like phishing and web browser injects, has contributed to the actor's increased scope and scale.


Our research into these intrusions revealed a decade of persistent malicious activity targeting specific groups and individuals that we now attribute to a previously unknown threat actor named ModifiedElephant. This actor has operated for years, evading research attention and detection due to their limited scope of operations, the mundane nature of their tools, and their regionally-specific targeting. ModifiedElephant is still active at the time of writing.


Mogilevich is a ransomware group known for claiming to breach organizations like Epic Games and Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs, offering stolen data for sale without providing proof of the attacks. They operate as an extortion group, targeting high-profile victims and demanding payment for the data they claim to have stolen. Despite their claims, security researchers have noted that Mogilevich's tactics and website design suggest they may not be a sophisticated threat actor.


Molatori is a threat actor group identified by Malwarebytes researchers, known for utilizing malicious ScreenConnect clients hosted on domains like atmolatori.icu and gomolatori.cyou. They employ phishing tactics, masquerading as communications from the Social Security Administration to lure targets into installing the client. Once installed, the ScreenConnect client allows the actors to remotely access the victim's computer, facilitating the exfiltration of sensitive information such as banking details and personal identification numbers. The primary objective of the Molatori group is financial fraud, leveraging the stolen data for identity theft and other malicious activities.


In October 2012, malware attacks against Israeli government targets grabbed media attention as officials temporarily cut off Internet access for its entire police force and banned the use of USB memory sticks. Security researchers subsequently linked these attacks to a broader, yearlong campaign that targeted not just Israelis but Palestinians as well. and as discovered later, even the U.S. and UK governments. Further research revealed a connection between these attacks and members of the so-called “Gaza Hackers Team.” We refer to this campaign as “Molerats.”


In less than two years, this group has conducted over 20 successful attacks on financial institutions and legal firms in the USA, UK and Russia. The group has primarily been targeting card processing systems, including the AWS CBR (Russian Interbank System) and purportedly SWIFT (US). Given the wide usage of STAR in LATAM, financial institutions in LATAM could have particular exposure to a potential interest from the MoneyTaker group.


Spambots continued to decline in 2019, with MONTY SPIDER’s CraP2P spambot falling silent in April.


Mora_001 is a threat actor exhibiting a distinct operational signature that combines opportunistic attacks with ties to the LockBit ecosystem. The actor has been observed exploiting CVE-2024-55591 and CVE-2025-24472 vulnerabilities affecting Fortinet devices. The ransom note associated with Mora_001 includes the same TOX ID used by LockBit, indicating a potential affiliation or shared communication channels. Their post-exploitation patterns suggest a structured playbook that differentiates them from other ransomware operators, including LockBit affiliates.


MORH4x is a self-proclaimed Moroccan hacking group that claimed responsibility for a data leak from Algeria's pharmaceutical industry ministry. The group announced the breach on the BreachForums website, stating that the leaked files span from 2019 to 2025 and include internal documents related to Algeria's pharmaceutical imports. This incident is part of a series of escalating cyberattacks between Moroccan and Algerian hacking groups.


Cybereason Nocturnus describes Moses Staff as an Iranian hacker group, first spotted in October 2021. Their motivation appears to be to harm Israeli companies by leaking sensitive, stolen data.


Moshen Dragon is a Chinese-aligned cyberespionage threat actor operating in Central Asia. They have been observed deploying multiple malware triads and utilizing DLL search order hijacking to sideload ShadowPad and PlugX variants. The threat actor also employs various tools, including an LSA notification package and a passive backdoor known as GUNTERS. Their activities involve targeting the telecommunication sector and leveraging Impacket for lateral movement and data exfiltration.


MoustachedBouncer is a cyberespionage group discovered by ESET Research and first publicly disclosed in August 2023. The group has been active since at least 2014 and only targets foreign embassies in Belarus. Since 2020, MoustachedBouncer has most likely been able to perform adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) attacks at the ISP level, within Belarus, in order to compromise its targets. The group uses two separate toolsets that we have named NightClub and Disco.


The MuddyWater attacks are primarily against Middle Eastern nations. However, we have also observed attacks against surrounding nations and beyond, including targets in India and the USA. MuddyWater attacks are characterized by the use of a slowly evolving PowerShell-based first stage backdoor we call “POWERSTATS”. Despite broad scrutiny and reports on MuddyWater attacks, the activity continues with only incremental changes to the tools and techniques.


MUMMY SPIDER is a criminal entity linked to the core development of the malware most commonly known as Emotet or Geodo. First observed in mid-2014, this malware shared code with the Bugat (aka Feodo) banking Trojan. However, MUMMY SPIDER swiftly developed the malware’s capabilities to include an RSA key exchange for command and control (C2) communication and a modular architecture.
MUMMY SPIDER does not follow typical criminal behavioral patterns. In particular, MUMMY SPIDER usually conducts attacks for a few months before ceasing operations for a period of between three and 12 months, before returning with a new variant or version.
After a 10 month hiatus, MUMMY SPIDER returned Emotet to operation in December 2016 but the latest variant is not deploying a banking Trojan module with web injects, it is currently acting as a ‘loader’ delivering other malware packages. The primary modules perform reconnaissance on victim machines, drop freeware tools for credential collection from web browsers and mail clients and a spam plugin for self-propagation. The malware is also issuing commands to download and execute other malware families such as the banking Trojans Dridex and Qakbot.
 MUMMY SPIDER advertised Emotet on underground forums until 2015, at which time it became private. Therefore, it is highly likely that Emotet is operate


MurenShark is an advanced persistent threat group that operates primarily in the Middle East, with a focus on targeting Turkey. They have shown interest in military projects, as well as research institutes and universities. This group is highly skilled in counter-analysis and reverse traceability, using sophisticated tactics to avoid detection. They utilize compromised websites as file servers and command and control servers, and have been known to use attack tools like NiceRender for phishing purposes.


This threat actor targets nongovernmental organizations using Mongolian-themed lures for espionage purposes.
In April 2017, CrowdStrike Falcon Intelligence observed a previously unattributed actor group with a Chinese nexus targeting a U.S.-based think tank. Further analysis revealed a wider campaign with unique tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). This adversary targets non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in general, but uses Mongolian language decoys and themes, suggesting this actor has a specific focus on gathering intelligence on Mongolia. These campaigns involve the use of shared malware like Poison Ivy or PlugX.
Recently, Falcon Intelligence observed new activity from MUSTANG PANDA, using a unique infection chain to target likely Mongolia-based victims. This newly observed activity uses a series of redirections and fileless, malicious implementations of legitimate tools to gain access to the targeted systems. Additionally, MUSTANG PANDA actors reused previously-observed legitimate domains to host files.


Mustard Tempest is a threat actor that primarily uses malvertising as their main technique to gain access to and profile networks. They deploy FakeUpdates, disguised as browser updates or software packages, to lure targets into downloading a ZIP file containing a JavaScript file. Once executed, the JavaScript framework acts as a loader for other malware campaigns, often Cobalt Strike payloads. Mustard Tempest has been associated with the cybercrime syndicate Mustard Tempest, also known as EvilCorp, and has been involved in ransomware attacks using payloads such as WastedLocker, PhoenixLocker, and Macaw.


Arcane Werewolf has been observed targeting Russian manufacturing enterprises through phishing emails that lead to malicious links and spoofed websites. The actor has utilized ZIP archives containing malicious LNK files and a C++ dropper in their campaigns. Their infrastructure includes a C2 server disguised as a Russian manufacturing company website. Kaspersky researchers have noted their evolving TTPs, indicating either a new group or one that has significantly improved its methods.


In March 2022, a hacking group calling themselves N4ughtySecTU claimed to have breached TransUnion’s systems and threatened to leak four terabytes of data if the credit bureau didn’t pay a $15-million (R242-million) ransom.


Kaspersky described Naikon in a 2015 report as: 'The Naikon group is mostly active in countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Singapore, and Nepal, hitting a variety of targets in a very opportunistic way.'


Nam3L3ss is a threat actor who has leaked data from 25 companies, including over 2.8 million lines of Amazon employee data, which was confirmed to be stolen from a third-party service provider. The actor is distributing this data on BreachForums and claims to have numerous unreleased datasets.


NARWHAL SPIDER’s operation of Cutwail v2 was limited to country-specific spam campaigns, although late in 2019 there appeared to be an effort to expand by bringing in INDRIK SPIDER as a customer.


Natohub is a hacker who claimed to have stolen 42,000 documents from the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization and is offering the data for sale on underground forums. The compromised documents allegedly contain personal records of ICAO staff and others associated with the agency. While ICAO is investigating the potential breach, Natohub has also made unverified claims about accessing personal data on thousands of UN delegates. The actor's track record of leaks is limited, raising questions about the credibility of their assertions.


This actor was identified by Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade from the SIG37 cluster as published in the ShadowBrokers' 'Lost in Translation' leak. Earliest known sighting potentially dates back to as far as 2008 with a confirmed center of activity around 2010-2013. The actor name is derived from a PDB debug string fragment: 'khzer'. Victimology indicates targeting of Iran, assessed with low confidence based on VT file submission locations. Nazar employs a modular toolkit where a main dropper silently registers multiple DLLs as OLE controls in the Windows registry. Functionality includes keylogging, sound and screen grabbing, as well as traffic capture using the MicroOlap Packet Sniffer library.


Network Battalion 65 is an hactivist group with ties to Anonymous, known for attacking Russian companies and performing hack-and-leak operations.


NEODYMIUM is an activity group that is known to use a backdoor malware detected by Microsoft as Wingbird. This backdoor’s characteristics closely match FinFisher, a government-grade commercial surveillance package. Data about Wingbird activity indicate that it is typically used to attack individual computers instead of networks.


NetRunnerPR has claimed to breach the networks of Shiraume Hospital and Nippon Medical School Musashi Kosugi Hospital in Japan, exfiltrating patient PII and medical records. The actor announced plans to release a complete database on March 5, 2026, and an additional 20,000 records on February 16, 2026, contingent on undisclosed conditions. The claims were made on a cybercrime forum, accompanied by sample data to validate the breaches. NetRunnerPR's account shows limited activity history and lacks a documented history of major ransomware operations or confirmed breaches, raising questions about the credibility of the claims.


NewsPenguin is threat actor that has been targeting organizations in Pakistan. They use a complex payload delivery mechanism and exploit the upcoming Pakistan International Maritime Expo & Conference as a lure to trick their victims. The group has been linked to a phishing campaign that leverages spear-phishing emails and weaponized documents to deliver an advanced espionage tool.


Nexus Zeta is no stranger when it comes to implementing SOAP related exploits. The threat actor has already been observed in implementing two other known SOAP related exploits, CVE-2014–8361 and CVE-2017–17215 in his Satori botnet project. A third SOAP exploit, TR-069 bug has also been observed previously in IoT botnets. This makes EDB 38722 the fourth SOAP related exploit which is discovered in the wild by IoT botnets.


NightEagle is an advanced Threat Actor that targeted China's High-Tech Industry and Military Organisation, leveraging sophisticated techniques, 0 days, and specialized detection avoiding malware. The threat actor seems to have access to significant funding, with dedicated infrastructure, and focuses on low-noise, low-impact intelligence gathering operations. NightEagle is identified as a North-American, state-sponsored or affiliated group that has been active since at least 2023.


These attackers were the subject of an extensive report by Symantec in 2011, which termed the attackers Nitro and stated: 'The goal of the attackers appears to be to collect intellectual property such as design documents, formulas, and manufacturing processes. In addition, the same attackers appear to have a lengthy operation history including attacks on other industries and organizations. Attacks on the chemical industry are merely their latest attack wave. As part of our investigations, we were also able to identify and contact one of the attackers to try and gain insights into the motivations behind these attacks.' Palo Alto Networks reported on continued activity by the attackers in 2014.


Mentioned as MaaS operator in CrowdStrike's 2020 Report.


In the first quarter of 2018, CrowdStrike Intelligence identified NOMAD PANDA activity targeting Central Asian nations with exploit documents built with the 8.t tool.


NoName057(16) is performing DDoS attacks on websites belonging to governments, news agencies, armies, suppliers, telecommunications companies, transportation authorities, financial institutions, and more in Ukraine and neighboring countries supporting Ukraine, like Ukraine itself, Estonia, Lithuania, Norway, and Poland.


Researchers at FireEye report finding a hacking group (dubbed NOTROBIN) that has been bundling mitigation code for NetScaler servers with its exploits. In effect, the hackers exploit the flaw to get access to the server, kill any existing malware, set up their own backdoor, then block off the vulnerable code from future exploit attempts by mitigation.


NullBulge is a cybercriminal threat group targeting AI and gaming focused entities. They weaponize code in publicly available repositories to distribute malware, including LockBit ransomware. The group claims to be motivated by a pro-art, anti-AI cause, but their activities indicate a financial focus. NullBulge uses obfuscated code in public repositories and malicious mods to target their victims.


OilAlpha has almost exclusively relied on infrastructure associated with the Public Telecommunication Corporation (PTC), a Yemeni government-owned enterprise reported to be under the direct control of the Houthi authorities. OilAlpha used encrypted chat messengers like WhatsApp to launch social engineering attacks against its targets. It has also used URL link shorteners. Per victimology assessment, it appears a majority of the targeted entities were Arabic-language speakers and operated Android devices.


OilRig is an Iranian threat group operating primarily in the Middle East by targeting organizations in this region that are in a variety of different industries; however, this group has occasionally targeted organizations outside of the Middle East as well. It also appears OilRig carries out supply chain attacks, where the threat group leverages the trust relationship between organizations to attack their primary targets.

OilRig is an active and organized threat group, which is evident based on their systematic targeting of specific organizations that appear to be carefully chosen for strategic purposes. Attacks attributed to this group primarily rely on social engineering to exploit the human rather than software vulnerabilities; however, on occasion this group has used recently patched vulnerabilities in the delivery phase of their attacks. The lack of software vulnerability exploitation does not necessarily suggest a lack of sophistication, as OilRig has shown maturity in other aspects of their operations. Such maturities involve:

-Organized evasion testing used the during development of their tools.
-Use of custom DNS Tunneling protocols for command and control (C2) and data exfiltration.
-Custom web-shells and backdoors used to persistently access servers.

OilRig relies on stolen account credentials for lateral movement. After OilRig gains access to a system, they use credential dumping tools, such as Mimikatz, to steal credentials to accounts logged into the compromised system. The group uses these credentials to access and to move laterally to other systems on the network. After obtaining credentials from a system, operators in this group prefer to use tools other than their backdoors to access the compromised systems, such as remote desktop and putty. OilRig also uses phishing sites to harvest credentials to individuals at targeted organizations to gain access to internet accessible resources, such as Outlook Web Access.

Since at least 2014, an Iranian threat group tracked by FireEye as APT34 has conducted reconnaissance aligned with the strategic interests of Iran. The group conducts operations primarily in the Middle East, targeting financial, government, energy, chemical, telecommunications and other industries. Repeated targeting of Middle Eastern financial, energy and government organizations leads FireEye to assess that those sectors are a primary concern of APT34. The use of infrastructure tied to Iranian operations, timing and alignment with the national interests of Iran also lead FireEye to assess that APT34 acts on behalf of the Iranian government.


OldGremlin is a Russian-speaking ransomware group that has been active for several years. They primarily target organizations in Russia, including banks, logistics, industrial, insurance, retail, and IT companies. OldGremlin is known for using phishing emails as an initial infection vector and has developed custom malware for both Windows and Linux systems. They have conducted multiple malicious email campaigns and demand large ransoms from their victims, with some reaching millions of dollars.


This threat actor targets the South Korean government, transportation, and energy sectors.


Konni is a threat actor associated with APT37, a North Korean cyber crime group. They have been active since 2012 and are known for their cyber-espionage activities. Konni has targeted various sectors, including education, government, business organizations, and the cryptocurrency industry. They have exploited vulnerabilities such as CVE-2023-38831 and have used malware like KonniRAT to gain control of victim hosts and steal important information.


This threat actor targets critical infrastructure entities in the oil and gas sector, primarily in Ukraine. The threat actors deploy the BugDrop malware to remotely access the microphones in their targets' computers to eavesdrop on conversations.


Group targeting Indian Army or related assets in India, as well as activists and civil society in Pakistan. Attribution to a Pakistani connection has been made by TrendMicro and others.


Operation Comando is a pure cybercrime campaign, possibly with Brazilian origin, with a concrete and persistent focus on the hospitality sector, which proves how a threat actor can be successful in pursuing its objectives while maintaining a cheap budget. The use of DDNS services, publicly available remote access tools, and having a minimum knowledge on software development (in this case VB.NET) has been enough for running a campaign lasting month, and potentially gathering credit card information and other possible data.


Operation DRBControl is a cyberespionage campaign targeting gambling companies in Southeast Asia, first identified in 2019. The operation involves the use of HyperBro malware and SysUpdate variants, with evidence of customer database and source code exfiltration. The threat actor has employed domain spoofing for command and control and has shown a consistent interest in the gambling industry. Trend Micro's analysis linked multiple tools and malware families to this campaign, indicating a sophisticated and evolving threat landscape.


Operation Emmental, also known as the Retefe gang, is a threat actor group that has been active since at least 2012. They primarily target customers of banks in countries such as Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, and Japan. The group has developed sophisticated malware, including a Mac alternative called Dok, to bypass two-factor authentication and hijack network traffic. They have also been observed using phishing emails to spread their malware. The group is believed to be Russian-speaking and has continuously improved their malicious codes over the years.


Operation ForumTroll is a sophisticated cyber espionage campaign discovered by Kaspersky in mid-March 2025. The attack exploited a zero-day vulnerability in Google Chrome, identified as CVE-2025-2783, which allowed attackers to bypass the browser's security features. Victims were infected by clicking on personalized phishing links in emails, allegedly from the organizers of the "Primakov Readings" forum, targeting media outlets, educational institutions, and government organizations in Russia. The goal of the attack appears to be espionage, and the campaign is believed to be the work of a state-sponsored APT group. Google quickly released an update to fix the vulnerability after being notified by Kaspersky.


Operation Ghoul is a profit-driven threat actor that targeted over 130 organizations in 30 countries, primarily in the industrial and engineering sectors. They employed high-quality social engineering techniques, such as spear-phishing emails disguised as payment advice from a UAE bank, to distribute malware. The group's main motivation is financial gain through the sale of stolen intellectual property and business intelligence, as well as attacks on banking accounts. Their attacks were effective, particularly against companies that were unprepared to detect them.


This threat actor uses spear-phishing techniques to target parliaments, government ministries, academics, and media organizations, primarily in the Middle East, for the purpose of espionage.
Based on our findings, we believe the attackers represent a previously unknown geopolitically motivated threat actor. The campaign started in 2017, with the attackers doing just enough to achieve their goals. They most likely have access to additional tools when needed and appear to have access to an elaborate database of contacts in sensitive organizations and personnel worldwide, especially of vulnerable and non-trained staff. The victim systems range from personal desktop or laptop systems to large servers with domain controller roles or similar. The nature of the targeted ministries varied, including those responsible for telecommunications, health, energy, justice, finance and so on.
Operation Parliament appears to be another symptom of escalating tensions in the Middle East region. The attackers have taken great care to stay under the radar, imitating another attack group in the region. They have been particularly careful to verify victim devices before proceeding with the infection, safeguarding their command and control servers. The targeting seems to have slowed down since the beginning of 2018, probably winding down when the desired data or access was obtained. The targeting of specific victims is unlike previously seen behavior in regional campaigns by Gaza Cybergang or Desert Falcons and points to an elaborate information-gathering exercise that was carried out before the attacks (physical and/or digital).
With deception and false flags increasingly being employed by threat actors, attribution is a hard and complicated task that requires solid evidence, especially in complex regions such as the Middle East.


What’s noteworthy is that according to the introduction on the compromised website of the polyclinic (http://www.p2f.ru), the institution was established in 1965 and it was founded by the Presidential Administration of Russia. The multidisciplinary outpatient institution mainly serves the civil servants of the highest executive, legislative, judicial authorities of the Russian Federation, as well as famous figures of science and art.
Since it is the first detection of this APT attack by 360 Security on a global scale, we code-named it as “Operation Poison Needles”, considering that the target was a medical institution. Currently, the attribution of the attacker is still under investigation. However, the special background of the polyclinic and the sensitiveness of the group it served both indicate the attack is highly targeted. Simultaneously, the attack occurred at a very sensitive timing of the Kerch Strait Incident, so it also aroused the assumption on the political attribution of the attack.


The threat actors compromised the update server of a remote support solutions provider to deliver a remote access tool called 9002 RAT to their targets of interest through the update process. They carried this out by first stealing the company’s certificate then using it to sign the malware. They also configured the update server to only deliver malicious files if the client is located in the range of IP addresses of their target organisations.


Newly discovered supply chain attack that leveraged ASUS Live Update software.
The goal of the attack was to surgically target an unknown pool of users, which were identified by their network adapters’ MAC addresses. To achieve this, the attackers had hardcoded a list of MAC addresses in the trojanized samples and this list was used to identify the actual intended targets of this massive operation. We were able to extract more than 600 unique MAC addresses from over 200 samples used in this attack. Of course, there might be other samples out there with different MAC addresses in their list.


Operation Shadow Force is a group of malware that is representative of Shadow Force and Wgdrop from 2013 to 2020, and is a group activity that attacks Korean companies and organizations. The group's first confirmed attack was in March 2013, but considering the date of malware creation, it is likely to have been active before 2012. Since the malware used mainly by them is Shadow Force, it was named Operation Shadow Force, and it has not been confirmed whether the attacker is associated with a known group.


The McAfee Advanced Threat Research team and McAfee Labs Malware Operations Group have discovered a new global campaign targeting nuclear, defense, energy, and financial companies, based on McAfee® Global Threat Intelligence. This campaign, Operation Sharpshooter, leverages an in-memory implant to download and retrieve a second-stage implant—which we call Rising Sun—for further exploitation. According to our analysis, the Rising Sun implant uses source code from the Lazarus Group’s 2015 backdoor Trojan Duuzer in a new framework to infiltrate these key industries.
Operation Sharpshooter’s numerous technical links to the Lazarus Group seem too obvious to immediately draw the conclusion that they are responsible for the attacks, and instead indicate a potential for false flags. Our research focuses on how this actor operates, the global impact, and how to detect the attack. We shall leave attribution to the broader security community.


In 2018, the Cybereason Nocturnus team identified an advanced, persistent attack targeting global telecommunications providers carried out by a threat actor using tools and techniques commonly associated with Chinese-affiliated threat actors, such as APT10.  This multi-wave attacks focused on obtaining data of specific, high-value targets and resulted in a complete takeover of the network.


Operation Triangulation is an ongoing APT campaign targeting iOS devices with zero-click iMessage exploits. The threat actor behind the campaign has been active since at least 2019 and continues to operate. The attack chain involves the delivery of a malicious iMessage attachment that launches a series of exploits, ultimately leading to the deployment of the TriangleDB implant. Kaspersky researchers have discovered and reported multiple vulnerabilities used in the campaign, with patches released by Apple.


We are calling these attacks Operation WizardOpium. So far, we have been unable to establish a definitive link with any known threat actors. There are certain very weak code similarities with Lazarus attacks, although these could very well be a false flag. The profile of the targeted website is more in line with earlier DarkHotel attacks that have recently deployed similar false flag attacks.


Operation Wocao (我操, “Wǒ cāo”, used as “shit” or “damn”) is the name that Fox-IT uses to describe the hacking activities of a Chinese based hacking group.
This report details the profile of a publicly underreported threat actor that Fox-IT has dealt with over the past two years. Fox-IT assesses with high confidence that the actor is a Chinese group and that they are likely working to support the interests of the Chinese government and are tasked with obtaining information for espionage purposes. With medium confidence, Fox-IT assesses that the tools, techniques and procedures are those of the actor referred to as APT20 by industry partners. We have identified victims of this actor in more than 10 countries, in government entities, managed service providers and across a wide variety of industries, including Energy, Health Care and High-Tech.


Symantec has identified a previously unknown group called Orangeworm that has been observed installing a custom backdoor called Trojan.Kwampirs within large international corporations that operate within the healthcare sector in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
First identified in January 2015, Orangeworm has also conducted targeted attacks against organizations in related industries as part of a larger supply-chain attack in order to reach their intended victims. Known victims include healthcare providers, pharmaceuticals, IT solution providers for healthcare and equipment manufacturers that serve the healthcare industry, likely for the purpose of corporate espionage.


OurMine is known for celebrity internet accounts, often causing cyber vandalism, to advertise their commercial services.
(Trend Micro) In light of the recent report detailing its willingness to pay US$250,000 in exchange for the 1.5 terabytes’ worth of data swiped by hackers from its servers, HBO finds itself dealing with yet another security breach.
Known for hijacking prominent social media accounts, the self-styled white hat hacking group OurMine took over a number of verified Twitter and Facebook accounts belonging to the cable network. These include accounts for HBO shows, such as “Game of Thrones,” “Girls,” and “Ballers.”
This is not the first time that OurMine has claimed responsibility for hacking high- profile social networking accounts. Last year, the group victimized Marvel, The New York Times, and even the heads of some of the biggest technology companies in the world. Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Sundar Pichai, and Daniel Ek — the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, Google and Spotify, respectively — have also fallen victim to the hackers, dispelling the notion that a career in software and technology exempts one from being compromised.


On May 7, 2019, Mayor Bernard “Jack” Young confirmed that the network for the U.S. City of Baltimore (CoB) was infected with ransomware, which was announced via Twitter1. This infection was later confirmed to be conducted by OUTLAW SPIDER, which is the actor behind the RobbinHood ransomware. The actor demanded to be paid 3 BTC (approximately $17,600 USD at the time) per infected system, or 13 BTC (approximately $76,500 USD at the time) for all infected systems to recover the city’s files.


OverFlame is a hacktivist group known for executing DDoS attacks and website defacements, primarily targeting government institutions and corporations in Europe and North America. The group has been involved in coordinated attacks alongside other pro-Russian threat actors, such as NoName057and the People’s Cyber Army, often motivated by anti-government and anti-corporate sentiments. OverFlame operates through underground forums and encrypted messaging platforms to coordinate attacks and recruit members. Their activities have included targeting financial services, political parties, and educational institutions, demonstrating a focus on disrupting critical infrastructure.


OVERLORD SPIDER, aka The Dark Overlord. Similar to ransomware operators today, OVERLORD SPIDER likely purchased RDP access to compromised servers on underground forums in order to exfiltrate data from corporate networks. The actor was known to attempt to “sell back” the data to the respective victims, threatening to sell the data to interested parties should the victim refuse to pay. There was at least one identified instance of OVERLORD SPIDER successfully selling victim data on an underground market.


Antd is a miner found in the wild on September 18, 2018. Recently we discovered that the authors from Antd are actively delivering newer campaigns deploying a broad number of components, most of them completely undetected and operating within compromised third party Linux servers. Furthermore, we have observed that some of the techniques implemented by this group are unconventional, and there is an element of sophistication to them. We believe the authors behind this malware are from Chinese origin. We have labeled the undetected Linux.Antd variants, Linux.GreedyAntd and classified the threat actor as Pacha Group.


A threat group that has been active for at least seven years has used malware, phishing and disinformation tactics to target activists, journalists, politicians and public figures in various Latin American countries.  The threat actor, dubbed Packrat based on its preference for remote access Trojans (RATs) and because it has used the same infrastructure for several years, has been analyzed by Citizen Lab researchers John Scott-Railton, Morgan Marquis-Boire, and Claudio Guarnieri, and Cyphort researcher Marion Marschalek, best known for her extensive analysis of state-sponsored threats.


One actor that has emerged in this trend of human-operated attacks is an active, highly adaptive group that frequently drops Wadhrama as payload.
 PARINACOTA impacts three to four organizations every week and appears quite resourceful: during the 18 months that we have been monitoring it, we have observed the group change tactics to match its needs and use compromised machines for various purposes, including cryptocurrency mining, sending spam emails, or proxying for other attacks. The group’s goals and payloads have shifted over time, influenced by the type of compromised infrastructure, but in recent months, they have mostly deployed the Wadhrama ransomware.
The group most often employs a smash-and-grab method, whereby they attempt to infiltrate a machine in a network and proceed with subsequent ransom in less than an hour. There are outlier campaigns in which they attempt reconnaissance and lateral movement, typically when they land on a machine and network that allows them to quickly and easily move throughout the environment.
PARINACOTA’s attacks typically brute forces their way into servers that have Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) exposed to the internet, with the goal of moving laterally inside a network or performing further brute-force activities against targets outside the network. This allows the group to expand compromised infrastructure under their control. Frequently, the group targets built-in local administrator accounts or a list of common account names. In other instances, the group targets Active Directory (AD) accounts that they compromised or have prior knowledge of, such as service accounts of known vendors.
The group adopted the RDP brute force technique that the older ransomware called Samas (also known as SamSam) infamously used. Other malware families like GandCrab, MegaCortext, LockerGoga, Hermes, and RobbinHood have also used this method in targeted ransomware attacks. PARINACOTA, however, has also been observed to adapt to any path of least resistance they can utilize. For instance, they sometimes discover unpatched systems and use disclosed vulnerabilities to gain initial access or elevate privileges.


The PassCV group continues to be one of the most successful and active threat groups that leverage a wide array of stolen Authenticode-signing certificates.  Snorre Fagerland of Blue Coat Systems first coined the term PassCV in a blog post. His post provides a good introduction to the group and covers some of the older infrastructure, stolen code-signing certificate reuse, and other connections associated with the PassCV malware. There are several clues alluding to the possibility that multiple groups may be utilizing the same stolen signing certificates, but at this time SPEAR believes the current attacks are more likely being perpetrated by a single group employing multiple publicly available Remote Administration Tools (RATs).  The PassCV group has been operating with continued success and has already started to expand their malware repertoire into different off-the-shelf RATs and custom code. SPEAR identified eighteen previously undisclosed stolen Authenticode certificates. These certificates were originally issued to companies and individuals scattered across China, Taiwan, Korea, Europe, the United States and Russia.  In this post we expand the usage of the term ‘PassCV’ to encompass the malware mentioned in the Blue Coat Systems report, as well as the APT group behind the larger C2 infrastructure and stolen Authenticode certificates. We’d like to share some of our findings as they pertain to the stolen certificates, command and control infrastructure, and some of the newer custom RATs they’ve begun development on.


PayTool is a threat actor that operates a phishing ecosystem focused on traffic violation and fine payment scams targeting Canadians through SMS-based social engineering. Their campaigns impersonate Canadian government traffic enforcement services, utilizing a federal-style "Traffic Ticket Search Portal" model that aggregates provincial fine payment portals. PayTool maintains a pool of generic domains to ensure continuity when specific provincial domains are blacklisted, exploiting brand trust with disposable domains. Recommendations include implementing DNS and web gateway controls to block newly registered domains and known PayTool-related IP ranges.


Pearl Sleet is a nation state activity group based in North Korea that has been active since at least 2012. They primarily target defectors from North Korea, media organizations in carrying out their cyber espionage activities.


PerSwaysion is a threat actor known for conducting phishing campaigns targeting high-level executives. They have been active since at least August 2019 and are believed to be based in Vietnam. PerSwaysion has recently updated their techniques, using more direct phishing methods and leveraging Microsoft 365 to steal credentials.


PhantomControl is a sophisticated threat actor that emerged in November 2023. They utilize phishing emails as their initial infection vector and employ a ScreenConnect client to establish a connection for their malicious activities. Their arsenal includes a VBS script that hides its true intentions and reveals a complex mechanism involving PowerShell scripts and image-based data retrieval. PhantomControl has been associated with the Blind Eagle threat actors, showcasing their versatility and reach.


Phlox Tempest is a threat actor responsible for a large-scale click fraud campaign targeting users through YouTube comments and malicious ads. They use ChromeLoader to infect victims' computers with malware, often delivered as ISO image files that victims are tricked into downloading. The attackers aim to profit from clicks generated by malicious browser extensions or node-WebKit installed on the victim's device. Microsoft and other cybersecurity organizations have issued warnings about this ongoing and prevalent campaign.


Prying Libra, also known as Pickaxe, is a threat actor active since at least August 2017, and continues to remain active to this day. The adversary's goal is to install and maintain a popular cryptocurrency miner on the victim's machine. The miner in question is an open-source tool named XMRig that generates the Monero cryptocurrency. Malware is delivered via downloads through the popular Adfly advertisement platform. Users are often mislead into clicking on a malicious advertisement that results in the payload being delivered to the victim. Once installed, the malware leverages VBS scripts and redirection services, such as bitly, to ultimately download and execute XMRig. Over 15 million confirmed victims have been discovered to be infected in recent campaigns, with actual numbers likely to be between 30-45 million victims. The victims are found across the globe, with high concentrations in Thailand, Vietnam, Egypt, Indonesia, and Turkey.


First observed in January 2018, GandCrab ransomware quickly began to proliferate and receive regular updates from its developer, PINCHY SPIDER, which over the course of the year established a RaaS operation with a dedicated set of affiliates.
CrowdStrike Intelligence has recently observed PINCHY SPIDER affiliates deploying GandCrab ransomware in enterprise environments, using lateral movement techniques and tooling commonly associated with nation-state adversary groups and penetration testing teams. This change in tactics makes PINCHY SPIDER and its affiliates the latest eCrime adversaries to join the growing trend of targeted, low-volume/high-return ransomware deployments known as “big game hunting.”
 PINCHY SPIDER is the criminal group behind the development of the ransomware most commonly known as GandCrab, which has been active since January 2018. PINCHY SPIDER sells access to use GandCrab ransomware under a partnership program with a limited number of accounts. The program is operated with a 60-40 split in profits (60 percent to the customer), as is common among eCrime actors, but PINCHY SPIDER is also willing to negotiate up to a 70-30 split for “sophisticated” customers.


Agonizing Serpens is an Iranian-linked APT group that has been active since 2020. They are known for their destructive wiper and fake-ransomware attacks, primarily targeting Israeli organizations in the education and technology sectors. The group has strong connections to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security and has been observed using various tools and techniques to bypass security measures. They aim to steal sensitive information, including PII and intellectual property, and inflict damage by wiping endpoints.


PLATINUM has been targeting its victims since at least as early as 2009, and may have been active for several years prior. Its activities are distinctly different not only from those typically seen in untargeted attacks, but from many targeted attacks as well. A large share of targeted attacks can be characterized as opportunistic: the activity group changes its target profiles and attack geographies based on geopolitical seasons, and may attack institutions all over the world. Like many such groups, PLATINUM seeks to steal sensitive intellectual property related to government interests, but its range of preferred targets is consistently limited to specific governmental organizations, defense institutes, intelligence agencies, diplomatic institutions, and telecommunication providers in South and Southeast Asia. The group’s persistent use of spear phishing tactics (phishing attempts aimed at specific individuals) and access to previously undiscovered zero-day exploits have made it a highly resilient threat.


PlushDaemon is a China-aligned APT group that has conducted cyberespionage operations against targets in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, the United States, and New Zealand. They executed a supply chain attack on the South Korean VPN provider IPany, compromising its installer to deploy the SlowStepper backdoor, which features a toolkit of over 30 components. PlushDaemon primarily gains initial access by hijacking legitimate updates of Chinese applications and has also exploited vulnerabilities in legitimate web servers. Additionally, they have utilized the Visual Studio command line utility regcap.exe to side-load a malicious DLL named lregdll.dll.


PoisonSeed is a threat actor employing an MFA-resistant phishing kit to acquire credentials from individuals and organizations, primarily targeting email infrastructure for cryptocurrency-related spam. They utilize spear-phishing emails with malicious links, automate bulk downloading of email lists, and capture authentication cookies to bypass MFA. PoisonSeed has been linked to campaigns that exploit cross-device sign-in features and employ tactics such as cryptocurrency seed phrase poisoning. Their infrastructure includes domains registered through NICENIC and hosted on Cloudflare, with a focus on phishing CRM and bulk email provider credentials.


Between November 2018 and May 2019, senior members of Tibetan groups received malicious links in individually tailored WhatsApp text exchanges with operators posing as NGO workers, journalists, and other fake personas. The links led to code designed to exploit web browser vulnerabilities to install spyware on iOS and Android devices, and in some cases to OAuth phishing pages. This campaign was carried out by what appears to be a single operator that we call POISON CARP.


Microsoft successfully detected and disabled attack activity abusing OneDrive by a previously undocumented Lebanon-based activity group Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) tracks as POLONIUM.


Poseidon Group is a Portuguese-speaking threat group that has been active since at least 2005. The group has a history of using information exfiltrated from victims to blackmail victim companies into contracting the Poseidon Group as a security firm.


Malware developers have started to use the zero-day exploit for Task Scheduler component in Windows, two days after proof-of-concept code for the vulnerability appeared online.

A security researcher who uses the online name SandboxEscaper on August 27 released the source code for exploiting a security bug in the Advanced Local Procedure Call (ALPC) interface used by Windows Task Scheduler.

More specifically, the problem is with the SchRpcSetSecurity API function, which fails to properly check user's permissions, allowing write privileges on files in C:\Windows\Task.

The vulnerability affects Windows versions 7 through 10 and can be used by an attacker to escalate their privileges to all-access SYSTEM account level.

A couple of days after the exploit code became available (source and binary), malware researchers at ESET noticed its use in active malicious campaigns from a threat actor they call PowerPool, because of their tendency to use tools mostly written in PowerShell for lateral movement.

The group appears to have a small number of victims in the following countries: Chile, Germany, India, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Ukraine.

The researchers say that PowerPool developers did not use the binary version of the exploit, deciding instead to make some subtle changes to the source code before recompiling it.


A self-proclaimed hacktivist group that carried out attacks against Iranian railway systems and against Iranian steel plants.


ProCC is a threat actor targeting the hospitality sector with remote access Trojan malware. They use email attachments to exploit vulnerabilities like CVE-2017-0199 and deploy customized versions of RATs such as RevengeRAT, NjRAT, NanoCoreRAT, and 888 RAT. ProCC's malware is capable of collecting data from the clipboard and printer spooler, as well as capturing screenshots on infected machines.


ProjectSauron is the name for a top level modular cyber-espionage platform, designed to enable and manage long-term campaigns through stealthy survival mechanisms coupled with multiple exfiltration methods.  Technical details show how attackers learned from other extremely advanced actors in order to avoid repeating their mistakes. As such, all artifacts are customized per given target, reducing their value as indicators of compromise for any other victim.  Usually APT campaigns have a geographical nexus, aimed at extracting information within a specific region or from a given industry. That usually results in several infections in countries within that region, or in the targeted industry around the world. Interestingly, ProjectSauron seems to be dedicated to just a couple of countries, focused on collecting high value intelligence by compromising almost all key entities it could possibly reach within the target area.  The name, ProjectSauron reflects the fact that the code authors refer to ‘Sauron’ in the Lua scripts.


Prolific Puma provides an underground link shortening service to criminals. Infoblox states that during analysis, no legitimate content was observed being served through their shortener. For operation they use a registered domain generation algorithm (RDGA), based upon which they registered between 35k-75k domain names.


PROMETHIUM is an activity group that has been active as early as 2012. The group primarily uses Truvasys, a first-stage malware that has been in circulation for several years. Truvasys has been involved in several attack campaigns, where it has masqueraded as one of server common computer utilities, including WinUtils, TrueCrypt, WinRAR, or SanDisk. In each of the campaigns, Truvasys malware evolved with additional features—this shows a close relationship between the activity groups behind the campaigns and the developers of the malware.


PROPHET SPIDER is an eCrime actor, active since at least May 2017, that primarily gains access to victims by compromising vulnerable web servers, which commonly involves leveraging a variety of publicly disclosed vulnerabilities. The adversary has likely functioned as an access broker — handing off access to a third party to deploy ransomware — in multiple instances.


puNK-003 is a North Korean APT group known for deploying the Lilith RAT, a sophisticated C++ remote access trojan, and its AutoIt variant, CURKON, which functions as a downloader. The group primarily distributes malware through targeted phishing attacks using malicious LNK files. Analysis indicates that puNK-003 shares similarities with the KONNI group, particularly in the use of AutoIt scripts and specific coding functions. Key indicators of infection include unusual network activity and system slowdowns, with removal methods involving specialized antivirus software and manual techniques.


PurpleHaze is a China-nexus threat actor tracked by SentinelLABS, linked to APT15, known for targeting critical infrastructure sectors such as telecommunications and government organizations. The actor has been associated with reconnaissance attempts against SentinelOne and has utilized ShadowPad, a modular backdoor platform, for cyberespionage and potential ransomware deployment. Investigations are ongoing to determine overlaps between ShadowPad intrusions and PurpleHaze activity, highlighting the extensive sharing of malware and operational practices among Chinese threat groups. The targeting of third-party service providers has raised significant concerns regarding operational security and supply chain monitoring.


Dropping Elephant (also known as “Chinastrats” and “Patchwork“) is a relatively new threat actor that is targeting a variety of high profile diplomatic and economic targets using a custom set of attack tools. Its victims are all involved with China’s foreign relations in some way, and are generally caught through spear-phishing or watering hole attacks.


R00TK1T is a hacking group known for sophisticated cyber attacks targeting governmental agencies in Malaysia, including data exfiltration from the National Population and Family Development Board. The group has publicized their successful attacks on social media, showcasing stolen data. R00TK1T has also targeted Malaysian telecom providers, defacing portals and potentially breaching user data.


RaHDit is a pro-Kremlin hacktivist group known for orchestrating hack-and-leak operations, including the publication of personal information about Ukrainian military intelligence personnel and their associates. The group has been linked to Russian intelligence and has claimed to provide actionable intelligence to the Russian army. RaHDit operates a website called NemeZida, where they disclose sensitive data, and has been involved in disinformation campaigns supporting Russian narratives. Their activities include collaboration with other hacktivist groups and targeting Ukrainian cyberdefense efforts.


The Rancor group’s attacks use two primary malware families which are naming DDKONG and PLAINTEE. DDKONG is used throughout the campaign and PLAINTEE appears to be new addition to these attackers’ toolkit.  Countries Unit 42 has identified as targeted by Rancor with these malware families include, but are not limited to Singapore and Cambodia.


This group started operating during the first quarter of 2022. They published samples of alleged stolen data from companies on their site on Tor. It is unclear if they conducted the attacks themselves, or if they bought leaked databases from third parties.


RansomHub is a rapidly growing ransomware group believed to be an updated version of the older Knight ransomware. They have been linked to attacks exploiting the Zerologon vulnerability to gain initial access. RansomHub has attracted former affiliates of the ALPHV ransomware group and operates as a Ransomware-as-a-Service with a unique affiliate prepayment model. The group has been active in extorting victims and leaking sensitive data to pressure for ransom payments.


Ransomed.VC burst onto the scene with a well-orchestrated PR campaign, encompassing a clearnet site and multiple communication channels including Telegram and Twitter/X profiles. Their operations are heavily inclined towards exploiting GDPR penalties as a method of extortion, threatening victims with potential legal repercussions in case of data leaks.


Microsoft has tracked Raspberry Typhoon (RADIUM) as the primary threat group targeting nations that ring the South China Sea. Raspberry Typhoon consistently targets government ministries, military entities, and corporate entities connected to critical infrastructure, particularly telecoms. Since January 2023, Raspberry Typhoon has been particularly persistent. When targeting government ministries or infrastructure, Raspberry Typhoon typically conducts intelligence collection and malware execution. In many countries, targets vary from defense and intelligence-related ministries to economic and trade-related ministries


Dragos has identified a new activity group targeting access operations in the electric utility sector. We call this activity group RASPITE.  Analysis of RASPITE tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) indicate the group has been active in some form since early- to mid-2017. RASPITE targeting includes entities in the US, Middle East, Europe, and East Asia. Operations against electric utility organizations appear limited to the US at this time.  RASPITE leverages strategic website compromise to gain initial access to target networks. RASPITE uses the same methodology as DYMALLOY and ALLANITE in embedding a link to a resource to prompt an SMB connection, from which it harvests Windows credentials. The group then deploys install scripts for a malicious service to beacon back to RASPITE-controlled infrastructure, allowing the adversary to remotely access the victim machine.


In July 2018, the source code of Pegasus, RATPAK SPIDER’s malware framework, was anonymously leaked. This malware has been linked to the targeting of Russia’s financial sector. Associated malware, Buhtrap, which has been leaked previously, was observed this year in connection with SWC campaigns that also targeted Russian users.


An actor mainly targeting Pakistan military targets, active since at least 2012. We have low confidence that this malware might be authored by an Indian company. To spread the malware, they use unique implementations to leverage the exploits of known vulnerabilities (such as CVE-2017-11882) and later deploy a Powershell payload in the final stages.


This is a pro-Islamist organization that generally conducts attacks motivated by real world events in which its members believe that members of the Muslim faith were wronged. Its attacks generally involve website defacements; however, the group did develop a RAT that it refers to as Fallaga RAT, but which appears to simply be a fork of the njRAT malware popular amongst hackers in the Middle East/North Africa region.


Reckless Rabbit lures victims into investment scams through malicious Facebook advertisements that lead to fake news articles with embedded web forms for personal information collection. They create domains using RDGA patterns, including random characters and English words, and configure wildcard DNS responses to obscure their active subdomains. The actor employs validation checks to filter out traffic from specific countries, enhancing their operational security. Their investment scam platforms often feature fake endorsements to increase credibility among potential victims.


RED-LILI is an active threat actor that has been identified by Checkmarx SCS research team. They have been publishing malicious packages on NPM and PyPi platforms, and have recently automated the process of creating NPM users for package publication. The Checkmarx team has detected around 1500 malicious packages associated with RED-LILI and has continuously disclosed their findings to the respective security teams.


Recorded Future’s Insikt Group has identified two new cyberespionage campaigns targeting the Tibetan Community over the past two years. The campaigns, which we are collectively naming RedAlpha, combine light reconnaissance, selective targeting, and diverse malicious tooling. We discovered this activity as the result of pivoting off of a new malware sample observed targeting the Tibetan community based in India.


Likely Chinese state-sponsored threat activity group RedDelta targeting organizations within Europe and Southeast Asia using a customized variant of the PlugX backdoor. Since at least 2019, RedDelta has been consistently active within Southeast Asia, particularly in Myanmar and Vietnam, but has also routinely adapted its targeting in response to global geopolitical events. This is historically evident through the group’s targeting of the Vatican and other Catholic organizations in the lead-up to 2021 talks between Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Vatican officials, as well as throughout 2022 through the group’s shift towards increased targeting of European government and diplomatic entities following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

During the 3-month period from September through November 2022, RedDelta has regularly used an infection chain employing malicious shortcut (LNK) files, which trigger a dynamic-link library (DLL) search-order-hijacking execution chain to load consistently updated PlugX versions. Throughout this period, the group repeatedly employed decoy documents specific to government and migration policy within Europe. Of note, we identified a European government department focused on trade communicating with RedDelta command-and-control (C2) infrastructure in early August 2022. This activity commenced on the same day that a RedDelta PlugX sample using this C2 infrastructure and featuring an EU trade-themed decoy document surfaced on public malware repositories. We also identified additional probable victim entities within Myanmar and Vietnam regularly communicating with RedDelta C2 infrastructure.

RedDelta closely overlaps with public industry reporting under the aliases BRONZE PRESIDENT, Mustang Panda, TA416, Red Lich, and HoneyMyte.


RedEcho: The group made heavy use of AXIOMATICASYMPTOTE — a term we use to track infrastructure that comprises ShadowPad C2s, which is shared between several Chinese threat activity groups


Redfly hacked a national electricity grid organization in Asia and maintained persistent access to the network for about six months. Researchers discovered evidence for this attack between 28 February and 3 August 2023 after noticing suspicious malware activity within the organization’s network.