Cyber Toufan is a threat actor group that has gained prominence for its cyberattacks targeting Israeli organizations. The group's tactics suggest potential nation-state backing, possibly from Iran. They have been involved in hack-and-leak operations, data breaches, and data destruction, impacting over 100 organizations. Cyber Toufan's activities align with geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and their attacks are characterized by a combination of technical breaches and psychological warfare.


Operate since at least 2011, from several locations in China, with  members in Korea and Japan as well. Possibly linked to Onion Dog. This threat actor targets government institutions, military contractors, maritime and shipbuilding groups, telecommunications operators, and others, primarily in Japan and South Korea.


Daixin is a threat actor group that has been active since at least June 2022. They primarily target the healthcare and public health sector with ransomware attacks, stealing sensitive data and threatening to release it if a ransom is not paid. They have successfully targeted various industries, including healthcare, aerospace, automotive, and packaged foods. Daixin gains initial access through VPN servers and exploits vulnerabilities or uses phishing attacks to obtain credentials. They have been responsible for cyberattacks on organizations such as the North Texas Municipal Water District and TransForm Shared Service Org, impacting their networks and stealing customer and patient information.


The group usually targets vulnerable servers to breach information including internal data from companies or encrypts files and demands money. Their targets of attack are usually Windows servers that are poorly managed or are not patched to the latest version. Besides these, there are also attack cases that targeted email servers or MS-SQL database servers.


Dancing Salome is the Kaspersky codename for an APT actor with a primary focus on ministries of foreign affairs, think tanks, and Ukraine. What makes Dancing Salome interesting and relevant is the attacker’s penchant for leveraging HackingTeam RCS implants compiled after the public breach.


Malicious campaign called DangerousSavanna has been targeting multiple major financial service groups in French-speaking Africa for the last two years. The threat actors behind this campaign use spear-phishing as a means of initial infection, sending emails with malicious attachments to the employees of financial institutions in at least five different French-speaking countries: Ivory Coast, Morocco, Cameroon, Senegal, and Togo.
DangerousSavanna tends to install relatively unsophisticated software tools in the infected environments. These tools are both self-written and based on open-source projects such as Metasploit, PoshC2, DWservice, and AsyncRAT. The threat actors’ creativity is on display in the initial infection stage, as they persistently pursue the employees of the targeted companies, constantly changing infection chains that utilize a wide range of malicious file types, from self-written executable loaders and malicious documents, to ISO, LNK, JAR and VBE files in various combinations. The evolving infection chains by the threat actor reflect the changes in the threat landscape seen over the past few years as infection vectors became more and more sophisticated and diverse.


DarkCasino is an economically motivated APT group that targets online trading platforms, including cryptocurrencies, online casinos, network banks, and online credit platforms. They are skilled at stealing passwords to access victims' online accounts and have been active for over a year. DarkCasino exploits vulnerabilities, such as the WinRAR vulnerability CVE-2023-38831, to launch phishing attacks and steal online property.


DarkGaboon is a financially motivated APT group that has been independently targeting Russian organizations since May 2023, primarily using phishing emails to deliver malware such as Revenge RAT and LockBit 3.0 ransomware. Their operations demonstrate advanced operational security practices, including the use of homoglyphs in file names and decoy documents sourced from legitimate Russian templates to evade detection. The group has shown a disciplined approach to updating their toolkit, with 369 unique files identified, and employs command-and-control infrastructure located outside Russia. DarkGaboon's linguistic proficiency in Russian suggests a deep understanding of the local context, enhancing the effectiveness of their phishing lures.


Kaspersky described DarkHotel in a 2014 report as: '... DarkHotel drives its campaigns by spear-phishing targets with highly advanced Flash zero-day exploits that effectively evade the latest Windows and Adobe defenses, and yet they also imprecisely spread among large numbers of vague targets with peer-to-peer spreading tactics. Moreover, this crews most unusual characteristic is that for several years the Darkhotel APT has maintained a capability to use hotel networks to follow and hit selected targets as they travel around the world.'


In July 2018, Unit 42 analyzed a targeted attack using a novel file type against at least one government agency in the Middle East. It was carried out by a previously unpublished threat group we track as DarkHydrus. Based on our telemetry, we were able to uncover additional artifacts leading us to believe this adversary group has been in operation with their current playbook since early 2016. This attack diverged from previous attacks we observed from this group as it involved spear-phishing emails sent to targeted organizations with password protected RAR archive attachments that contained malicious Excel Web Query files (.iqy).


DarkPink is an APT group that has been active since mid-2021, primarily targeting government, military, and non-profit organizations in Southeast Asia and Europe. The group employs spear phishing techniques, utilizing ISO images and malicious PDF files to deliver custom Trojan programs like TelePowerBot and KamiKakaBot for information theft. They have exploited vulnerabilities such as CVE-2023-38831 to enhance their attack processes and maintain persistence through DLL side-loading and scheduled tasks. DarkPink's operations are characterized by stealth and precision, making them a significant threat in the cyber landscape.


DarkRaaS is a threat actor specializing in selling unauthorized access to various organizations' systems and networks across multiple countries, with a recent focus on targets in Israel, UAE, Turkey, and South America 4 9 20. The group has been operating for at least six years and typically offers access to sensitive data, internal systems, and infrastructure, with prices ranging up to $25,000 for VPN access 4 9. Their targets span various sectors including government institutions, educational facilities, oil and gas companies, and IT organizations, often claiming to have access to multiple terabytes of sensitive data 7 19.


Dubbed DarkVishnya, the attacks targeted at least eight banks using readily-available gear such as netbooks or inexpensive laptops, Raspberry Pi mini-computers, or a Bash Bunny - a USB-sized piece hardware for penetration testing purposes that can pose as a keyboard, flash storage, network adapter, or as any serial device.


Dark Basin is a hack-for-hire group that has targeted thousands of individuals and hundreds of institutions on six continents. Targets include advocacy groups and journalists, elected and senior government officials, hedge funds, and multiple industries.
Dark Basin extensively targeted American nonprofits, including organisations working on a campaign called #ExxonKnew, which asserted that ExxonMobil hid information about climate change for decades.
We also identify Dark Basin as the group behind the phishing of organizations working on net neutrality advocacy, previously reported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
We link Dark Basin with high confidence to an Indian company, BellTroX InfoTech Services, and related entitie


Lookout and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have discovered Dark Caracal, a persistent and prolific actor, who at the time of writing is believed to be administered out of a building belonging to the Lebanese General Security Directorate in Beirut. At present, we have knowledge of hundreds of gigabytes of exfiltrated data, in 21+ countries, across thousands of victims. Stolen data includes enterprise intellectual property and personally identifiable information.


The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) is a group of computer hackers which first surfaced online in 2011 to support the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Using spamming, website defacement, malware, phishing, and denial of service attacks, it has targeted political opposition groups, western news organizations, human rights groups and websites that are seemingly neutral to the Syrian conflict. It has also hacked government websites in the Middle East and Europe, as well as US defense contractors. As of 2011 the SEA has been *the first Arab country to have a public Internet Army hosted on its national networks to openly launch cyber attacks on its enemies*. The precise nature of SEA's relationship with the Syrian government has changed over time and is unclear


DefrayX is a threat actor group known for their RansomExx ransomware operations. They primarily target Linux operating systems, but also release versions for Windows. The group has been active since 2018 and has targeted various sectors, including healthcare and manufacturing. They have also developed other malware strains such as PyXie RAT, Vatet loader, and Defray ransomware.


Denim Tsunami is a threat actor group that has been involved in targeted attacks against European and Central American customers. They have been observed using multiple Windows and Adobe 0-day exploits, including one for CVE-2022-22047, which is a privilege escalation vulnerability. Denim Tsunami developed a custom malware called Subzero, which has capabilities such as keylogging, capturing screenshots, data exfiltration, and running remote shells. They have also been associated with the Austrian spyware distributor DSIRF.


Desorden (Disorder in Spanish, previously known as ChaosCC), is a financially motivated hacker group. The group first emerged under the new name Desorden in September 2021, on Raidforums. Today the group maintains users under that name on several popular English-speaking hacking forums, where they share their attacks and ransom demands, and offer databases for sale. The group gained an excellent reputation among the cybercriminal communities due to their successful operations and the unique data that they share and offer for sale.


DEV-0147 is a China-based cyber espionage actor was observed compromising diplomatic targets in South America, a notable expansion of the group's data exfiltration operations that traditionally targeted gov't agencies and think tanks in Asia and Europe. DEV-0147 is known to use tools like ShadowPad, a remote access trojan associated with other China-based actors, to maintain persistent access, and QuasarLoader, a webpack loader, to deploy additional malware. DEV-0147's attacks in South America included post-exploitation activity involving the abuse of on-premises identity infrastructure for recon and lateral movement, and the use of Cobalt Strike for command and control and data exfiltration.


Microsoft threat intelligence teams have been tracking multiple ransomware campaigns and have tied these attacks to DEV-0270, also known as Nemesis Kitten, a sub-group of Iranian actor PHOSPHORUS. Microsoft assesses with moderate confidence that DEV-0270 conducts malicious network operations, including widespread vulnerability scanning, on behalf of the government of Iran.


DEV-0569, also known as Storm-0569, is a threat actor group that has been observed deploying the Royal ransomware. They utilize malicious ads and phishing techniques to distribute malware and gain initial access to networks. The group has been linked to the distribution of payloads such as Batloader and has forged relationships with other threat actors. DEV-0569 has targeted various sectors, including healthcare, communications, manufacturing, and education in the United States and Brazil.


MSTIC has not found any notable associations between this observed activity, tracked as DEV-0586, and other known activity groups. MSTIC assesses that the malware (WhisperGate), which is designed to look like ransomware but lacking a ransom recovery mechanism, is intended to be destructive and designed to render targeted devices inoperable rather than to obtain a ransom.


DEV-0928 is a threat actor that has been tracked by Microsoft since September 2022. They are known for their involvement in high-volume phishing campaigns, using tools offered by DEV-1101. DEV-0928 sends phishing emails to targets and has been observed launching campaigns involving millions of emails. They also utilize evasion techniques, such as redirection to benign pages, to avoid detection.


Lace Tempest, also known as DEV-0950, is a threat actor that exploited vulnerabilities in software such as SysAid and PaperCut to gain unauthorized access to systems. Lace Tempest is known for deploying the Clop ransomware and exfiltrating data from compromised networks.


Microsoft reported on MCCrash, an IoT botnet operated by the DEV-1028 threat actor and used to launch DDoS attacks against private Minecraft servers.


DiceyF is an advanced persistent threat group that has been targeting online casinos and other victims in Southeast Asia for an extended period. They have exhibited overlapping activity with LuckyStar PlugX and Earth Berberoka/GamblingPuppet, as reported by various cybersecurity vendors. While their motivations remain unclear, previous incidents suggest a combination of espionage and intellectual property theft rather than immediate financial gain. DiceyF continuously evolves their codebase and adds encryption capabilities to enhance their stealthy cyberespionage activities.


DieNet is a hacktivist group that emerged in March 2025, known for conducting DDoS attacks targeting entities associated with political figures, such as Trump businesses. The group has claimed responsibility for disabling ten significant Iraqi websites, framing the action as support for their affiliates in the “Shiite Harvest.” Their operations suggest motivations rooted in sectarian dynamics, with a coordinated effort indicated by the use of hashtags like #DieNet and #Shiite_Harvest. This reflects the use of cyber offensives as tools for political and ideological expression, mirroring offline sectarian tensions.


Cisco Talos recently discovered a new campaign targeting Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) affecting .gov domains, as well as a private Lebanese airline company. Based on our research, it's clear that this adversary spent time understanding the victims' network infrastructure in order to remain under the radar and act as inconspicuous as possible during their attacks.
Based on this actor's infrastructure and TTPs, we haven't been able to connect them with any other campaign or actor that's been observed recently. This particular campaign utilizes two fake, malicious websites containing job postings that are used to compromise targets via malicious Microsoft Office documents with embedded macros. The malware utilized by this actor, which we are calling "DNSpionage," supports HTTP and DNS communication with the attackers.
In a separate campaign, the attackers used the same IP to redirect the DNS of legitimate .gov and private company domains. During each DNS compromise, the actor carefully generated Let's Encrypt certificates for the redirected domains. These certificates provide X.509 certificates for TLS free of charge to the user. We don't know at this time if the DNS redirections were successful.
In this post, we will break down the attackers' methods and show how they used malicious documents to attempt to trick users into opening malicious websites that are disguised as "help wanted" sites for job seekers. Additionally, we will describe the malicious DNS redirection and the timeline of the events.


An extensive surveillance operation targets specific groups of individuals with malicious mobile apps that collect sensitive information on the device along with surrounding voice recordings. Researchers with CheckPoint discovered the attack and named it Domestic Kitten. The targets are Kurdish and Turkish natives, and ISIS supporters, all Iranian citizens.


In June 2019, CrowdStrike Intelligence observed a source code fork of BitPaymer and began tracking the new ransomware strain as DoppelPaymer. Further technical analysis revealed an increasing divergence between two versions of Dridex, with the new version dubbed DoppelDridex. Based on this evidence, CrowdStrike Intelligence assessed with high confidence that a new group split off from INDRIK SPIDER to form the adversary DOPPEL SPIDER. Following DOPPEL SPIDER’s inception, CrowdStrike Intelligence observed multiple BGH incidents attributed to the group, with the largest known ransomware demand being 250 BTC. Other demands were not nearly as high, suggesting that the group conducts network reconnaissance to determine the value of the victim organization.


Golden Eye Dog targets Chinese-speaking users engaged in online gambling, employing techniques such as SERP poisoning, social engineering, and DDoS attacks. The group utilizes trojanized NSIS installers to deliver RONINGLOADER, which executes complex process-injection workflows and deploys a modified Gh0st RAT for espionage. Their operations have included DLL sideloading and the use of watering hole websites to implant Trojans. The group is noted for its high anti-detection capabilities and has been associated with various malware development languages.


DRAGONBRIDGE is a Chinese state-sponsored threat actor known for engaging in information operations to promote the political interests of the People's Republic of China. They have been observed using AI-generated images and videos to spread propaganda on social media platforms. The group has targeted various countries and regions, including the US, Taiwan, and Japan, with narratives promoting pro-PRC viewpoints. DRAGONBRIDGE has been linked to campaigns discrediting the US political system, sowing division between allies, and criticizing specific companies and individuals.


DragonForce is a hacktivist group based in Malaysia that has been involved in cyberattacks targeting government institutions and commercial organizations in India. They have also targeted websites affiliated with Israel and have shown support for pro-Palestinian causes. The group has been observed using defacement attacks, distributed denial-of-service attacks, and data leaks as part of their campaigns. DragonForce Malaysia has demonstrated an ability to adapt and evolve their tactics over time.


Threat group that has targeted Japanese organizations with phishing emails. Due to overlapping TTPs, including similar custom tools, DragonOK is thought to have a direct or indirect relationship with the threat group Moafee. 2223 It is known to use a variety of malware, including Sysget/HelloBridge, PlugX, PoisonIvy, FormerFirstRat, NFlog, and NewCT.


DragonRank is a threat actor primarily targeting web application services in Asia and Europe, utilizing TTPs associated with Simplified Chinese-speaking hacking groups. They exploit vulnerabilities in platforms like phpMyAdmin and WordPress to deploy web shells, enabling the installation of PlugX and BadIIS malware for black hat SEO practices. Their operations involve lateral movement within compromised networks to maintain control and elevate privileges, while also engaging in unethical online marketing strategies. DragonRank's activities include manipulating search engine rankings and distributing scam websites through compromised Windows IIS servers.


DragonSpark is a threat actor that has been conducting attacks primarily targeting organizations in East Asia. They utilize the open-source tool SparkRAT, which is a multi-platform and frequently updated remote access Trojan. The threat actor is believed to be Chinese-speaking based on their use of Chinese language support and compromised infrastructure located in China and Taiwan. They employ various techniques to evade detection, including Golang source code interpretation and the use of the China Chopper webshell.


DriftingCloud is a persistent threat actor known for targeting various industries and locations. They are skilled at developing or acquiring zero-day exploits to gain unauthorized access to target networks. Compromising gateway devices is a common tactic used by DriftingCloud, making network monitoring solutions crucial for detecting their attacks.


DUNGEON SPIDER is a criminal group operating the ransomware most commonly known as Locky, which has been active since February 2016 and was last observed in late 2017. Locky is a ransomware tool that encrypts files using a combination of cryptographic algorithms: RSA with a key size of 2,048 bits, and AES with a key size of 128 bits. Locky targets a large number of file extensions and is able to encrypt data on shared network drives. In an attempt to further impact victims and prevent file recovery, Locky deletes all of the Shadow Volume Copies on the machine.
DUNGEON SPIDER primarily relies on broad spam campaigns with malicious attachments for distribution. Locky is the community/industry name associated with this actor.


Prodaft researchers have published a report on Paperbug, a cyber-espionage campaign carried out by suspected Russian-speaking group Nomadic Octopus and which targeted entities in Tajikistan. According to Prodaft, known compromised victims included high-ranking government officials, telcos, and public service infrastructures. Compromised devices also included OT devices, besides your typical computers, servers, and mobile devices. In typical Prodaft fashion, the company also gained access to one of the group's C&C server backend panels.


Threat actors behind the Operation Dust Storm have been active since at least 2010, the hackers targeted several organizations in Japan, South Korea, the US, Europe, and other Asian countries.


Earth Alux is a China-linked APT group known for conducting cyberespionage attacks across various sectors, including government, technology, and telecommunications. They primarily exploit vulnerable services in exposed servers to gain initial access, implanting web shells like GODZILLA and deploying backdoors such as VARGEIT and COBEACON. The group employs tools like RSBINJECT and MASQLOADER for lateral movement and network discovery, while also utilizing RAILSETTER for persistence through mspaint injection. Their operations have predominantly targeted the APAC region and have extended to Latin America, with a focus on exfiltrating sensitive information to attacker-controlled cloud storage.


Earth Baxia is a threat actor opearting out of China, targeting government organizations in Taiwan and potentially across the APAC region, using spear-phishing emails and exploiting the GeoServer vulnerability CVE-2024-36401 for remote code execution, deploying customized Cobalt Strike components with altered signatures, leveraging GrimResource and AppDomainManager injection techniques to deliver additional payloads, and utilizing a new backdoor named EAGLEDOOR for multi-protocol communication and payload delivery.


According to TrendMicro, Earth Berberoka is a threat group originating from China that mainly focuses on targeting gambling websites. This group's campaign uses multiple malware families that target the Windows, Linux, and macOS platforms that have been attributed to Chinese-speaking actors. Aside from using tried-and-tested malware families that have been upgraded, such as PlugX and Gh0st RAT, Earth Berberoka has also developed a brand-new complex, multistage malware family, which has been dubbed PuppetLoader.


Trend Micro found that Earth Estries relies heavily on DLL sideloading to load various tools within its arsenal. Aside from the backdoors previously mentioned, this intrusion set also utilizes commonly used remote control tools like Cobalt Strike, PlugX, or Meterpreter stagers interchangeably in various attack stages. These tools come as encrypted payloads loaded by custom loader DLLs.


Earth Freybug, identified as a subset of APT41, is a cyberthreat group active since at least 2012, engaging in espionage and financially motivated activities across various sectors worldwide. The tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used in this campaign are similar to the ones from a campaign (Operation CuckooBees) described in an article published by Cybereason. They employ a diverse toolkit, including LOLBins and custom malware, to execute sophisticated cyberespionage attacks. The group's recent tactics involve DLL hijacking and API unhooking through a newly discovered malware named UNAPIMON, which prevents child processes from being monitored. This technique was observed in a vmtoolsd.exe process creating remote tasks to deploy malicious batch files for reconnaissance and backdoor access. UNAPIMON's simplicity and use of Microsoft Detours for defense evasion highlight the group's evolving methods and the need for vigilant security measures, such as restricting admin privileges and adhering to the principle of least privilege. Earth Freybug's persistence and creativity in refining their techniques underscore the ongoing threat they pose and the importance of proactive cybersecurity practices.


Earth Kapre is an APT group specializing in cyberespionage. They target organizations in various countries through phishing campaigns using malicious attachments to infect machines. Earth Kapre employs techniques like abusing PowerShell, curl, and Program Compatibility Assistant to execute malicious commands and evade detection within targeted networks. The group has been active since at least 2018 and has been linked to multiple incidents involving data theft and espionage.


Earth Kitsune is an advanced persistent threat actor that has been active since at least 2019. They primarily target individuals interested in North Korea and use various tactics, such as compromising websites and employing social engineering, to distribute self-developed backdoors. Earth Kitsune demonstrates technical proficiency and continuously evolves their tools, tactics, and procedures. They have been associated with malware such as WhiskerSpy and SLUB.


Earth Krahang is an APT group targeting government organizations worldwide. They use spear-phishing emails, weak internet-facing servers, and custom backdoors like Cobalt Strike, RESHELL, and XDealer to conduct cyber espionage. The group creates VPN servers on infected systems, employs brute force attacks on email accounts, and exploits compromised government infrastructure to attack other governments. Earth Krahang has been linked to another China-linked actor, Earth Lusca, and is believed to be part of a specialized task force for cyber espionage against government institutions.


Earth Kurma is an APT group targeting government and telecommunications sectors in Southeast Asia, with a primary focus on data exfiltration. They employ advanced custom malware, including rootkits like KRNRAT and MORIYA, and utilize cloud storage services for exfiltration. Their toolsets include TESDAT and SIMPOBOXSPY, and they demonstrate adaptive TTPs and complex evasion techniques. Attribution overlaps with other APT groups, but distinct attack patterns warrant their separate designation.


Earth Lamia is a China-nexus APT that targets organizations across multiple sectors, including finance, logistics, and government, primarily in Latin America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. The actor exploits web application vulnerabilities, such as CVE-2025-55182, and employs techniques like SQL injection, DLL sideloading, and the deployment of custom backdoors like PULSEPACK and BypassBoss. Earth Lamia conducts reconnaissance, file operations, and credential theft, often utilizing tools like Cobalt Strike and VShell.


Earth Longzhi is a subgroup of APT41 targeting organizations based in Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, and Fiji, and using “stack rumbling” via Image File Execution Options (IFEO), a new denial-of-service (DoS) technique to disable security software.


Earth Lusca is a threat actor from China that targets organizations of interest to the Chinese government, including academic institutions, telecommunication companies, religious organizations, and other civil society groups. Earth Lusca's tools closely resemble those used by Winnti Umbrella, but the group appears to operate separately from Winnti. Earth Lusca has also been observed targeting cryptocurrency payment platforms and cryptocurrency exchanges in what are likely financially motivated attacks.


Earth Wendigo is a threat actor from China that has been targeting several organizations — including government organizations, research institutions, and universities in Taiwan — since May 2019, aiming to exfiltrate emails from targeted organizations via the injection of JavaScript backdoors to a webmail system that is widely used in Taiwan. The threat actor also sent spear-phishing emails embedded with malicious links to multiple individuals, including politicians and activists, who support movements in Tibet, the Uyghur region, or Hong Kong.


Earth Yako is a threat actor that has been actively targeting researchers in academic organizations and think tanks in Japan. They use spearphishing emails with malicious attachments to gain initial access to their targets' systems. Earth Yako's objectives and patterns suggest a possible connection to a Chinese APT group, but conclusive proof of their nationality is lacking. They have been observed using various malware delivery methods and techniques, such as the use of Winword.exe for DLL Hijacking.


EC2 Grouper is a prolific threat actor known for leveraging AWS tools for PowerShell to conduct automated attacks in cloud environments. They typically utilize the CreateSecurityGroup API to establish remote access and exhibit a consistent security group naming convention. Credential acquisition is believed to stem from compromised cloud access keys, often sourced from public code repositories. Notably, their activities do not include calls to AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress, suggesting a selective approach to escalation.


Edalat-e Ali is a hacktivist group known for disrupting Iranian state-run TV and radio transmissions during significant events, such as the Revolution Day ceremonies. They have also targeted government facilities, releasing security camera footage to expose abuses and draw attention to human rights violations. The group has used their hacks to call for protests against the Iranian regime and have displayed anti-government messages during their disruptions. Edalat-e Ali has been active in releasing sensitive information and footage to embarrass Iranian officials and highlight injustices within the country.


Educated Manticore is an Iranian APT group aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, primarily engaged in espionage targeting government, military, and academic sectors. The group employs spear-phishing tactics, utilizing custom backdoors like POWERLESS and phishing kits designed as SPAs to harvest credentials. Their operations have included impersonating credible figures to lure victims and using ISO images to initiate infection chains. Educated Manticore's activities are characterized by rapid domain setup and aggressive spear-phishing campaigns, particularly against Israeli individuals.


ELUSIVE COMET is a threat actor responsible for significant cryptocurrency theft through sophisticated social engineering attacks, particularly leveraging Zoom's remote control feature. Their attack methodology involves manipulating legitimate workflows and exploiting human-centric vulnerabilities rather than technical flaws. The actor employs tactics such as social proof, time pressure, and interface manipulation to deceive targets. Organizations can mitigate risks by implementing technical controls to disable the remote control feature and deploying email boundary protections like DMARC, SPF, and DKIM.


El Machete is one of these threats that was first publicly disclosed and named by Kaspersky here. We’ve found that this group has continued to operate successfully, predominantly in Latin America, since 2014. All attackers simply moved to new C2 infrastructure, based largely around dynamic DNS domains, in addition to making minimal changes to the malware in order to evade signature-based detection.


A Russian group that collects intelligence on the energy industry.


The Equation Group is a highly sophisticated threat actor described by its discoverers at Kaspersky Labs as one of the most sophisticated cyber attack groups in the world, operating alongside but always from a position of superiority with the creators of Stuxnet and Flame


Evasive Panda is an APT group that has been active since at least 2012, conducting cyberespionage targeting individuals, government institutions and organizations.


EvilByte is a hacktivist group that has conducted several high-profile cyber attacks in 2024, including breaching MyFatoorah's banking system in retaliation against Saudi media 1 and targeting Radio 10 Rosario in Argentina 2. The group has also claimed responsibility for breaching Israeli government websites and leaking data of government employees and intelligence agencies 4.


ESET has analyzed the operations of Evilnum, the APT group behind the Evilnum malware previously seen in attacks against financial technology companies. While said malware has been seen in the wild since at least 2018 and documented previously, little has been published about the group behind it and how it operates. The group’s targets remain fintech companies, but its toolset and infrastructure have evolved and now consist of a mix of custom, homemade malware combined with tools purchased from Golden Chickens, a Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) provider whose infamous customers include FIN6 and Cobalt Group.


Malware experts at CSE Cybsec uncovered a massive malvertising campaign dubbed EvilTraffic leveraging tens of thousands compromised websites. Crooks exploited some CMS vulnerabilities to upload and execute arbitrary PHP pages used to generate revenues via advertising.


EvilWeb is a pro-Russian hacktivist group created in March 2024 that targets American and European entities using a hack-and-leak method alongside DDoS attacks. The group claims to have obtained data from various high-profile American organizations. EvilWeb announced its participation in the #FreeDurov operation on August 25, 2024, and began executing DDoS and hacking attacks. As of September 3, 2024, their Telegram channel has 1,146 members.


Evil Corp is an internaltional cybercrime network. In December of 2019 the US Federal Government offered a $5M bounty for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Maksim V. Yakubets for allegedly orchestrating Evil Corp operations.  Responsible for stealing over $100M from businesses and consumers.  The Evil Corp organization is known for utilizing custom strains of malware such as JabberZeus, Bugat and Dridex to steal banking credentials.


ExCobalt is an APT group that has been active since at least 2016 and is believed to be linked to the notorious Cobalt Gang. The group primarily targets Russian organizations across sectors—including metallurgy, telecommunications, mining, information technology, government, and software development by exploiting supply chain weaknesses and compromised contractors for initial access. ExCobalt’s toolkit features a custom Golang‑based backdoor, GoRed, which enables remote command execution, credential harvesting, and detailed system reconnaissance, while the group also employs established tools such as Spark RAT, Mimikatz, and multiple Linux privilege escalation exploits. Researchers note that ExCobalt continually evolves its tactics and even modifies standard utilities to bypass security controls and maintain persistent access, underscoring its commitment to sophisticated cyberespionage and data theft operations.


EXOTIC LILY is a resourceful, financially motivated group whose activities appear to be closely linked with data exfiltration and deployment of human-operated ransomware such as Conti and Diavol. In early September 2021, the group has been obeserved exploiting a 0day in Microsoft MSHTML (CVE-2021-40444). Investigation lead researchers to believe that they are an Initial Access Broker (IAB) who appear to be working with the Russian cyber crime gang known as FIN12 (Mandiant, FireEye) / WIZARD SPIDER (CrowdStrike). This threat actor deploys tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) that are traditionally associated with more targeted attacks, like spoofing companies and employees as a means of gaining trust of a targeted organization through email campaigns that are believed to be sent by real human operators using little-to-no automation. Additionally and rather uniquely, they leverage legitimate file-sharing services like WeTransfer, TransferNow and OneDrive to deliver the payload, namely BUMBLEEBEE and BAZARLOADER, further evading detection mechanisms. This level of human-interaction is rather unusual for cyber crime groups focused on mass scale operations.


Fail0verflow is a hacking group known for exploiting vulnerabilities in gaming consoles, notably the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3. They utilized techniques such as RAM shorting, buffer overflow, and a signing bug to achieve code execution and develop the Homebrew Channel for the Wii. In 2010, they compromised an ECDSA key for the PS3, and later announced the retrieval of PS5 symmetric root keys, enabling the potential for custom firmware and homebrew software. Their exploits often involve kernel access and have raised concerns about the implications for piracy and litigation in the gaming community.


Treasury has identified a sophisticated cyber-enabled ATM cash out campaign we are calling FASTCash. FASTCash has been active since late 2016 targeting banks in Africa and Asia to remotely compromise payment switch application servers within banks to facilitate fraudulent transactions, primarily involving ATMs, to steal cash equivalent to tens of millions of dollars. FBI has attributed malware used in this campaign to the North Korean government. We expect FASTCash to continue targeting retail payment systems vulnerable to remote exploitation.


Femwar02 is a previously unknown pro-Russian ransomware threat actor that emerged in early 2026, linked to a major cyberattack on Italy's Sapienza University of Rome in February 2026, which caused a full network shutdown and operational disruptions. The group deploys Bablock (also known as Rorschach), a next-generation ransomware strain first identified in 2023 that features fast hybrid encryption (curve25519 and hc-128), partial file encryption for speed, direct system calls to evade detection, and domain-wide propagation via Group Policy on Windows Domain Controllers. Bablock shares code similarities with LockBit 2.0 but incorporates elements from other families like Babuk and DarkSide, often delivered via encrypted payloads, DLL sideloading with tools like DarkLoader, and exploits such as those in Zimbra or phishing. Notably, the malware skips encrypting files written in Russian, reinforcing its pro-Russian alignment, with no prior attributions or campaigns documented before the Sapienza incident.


Ferocious Kitten is an APT group that has been active against Persian-speaking individuals since 2015 and appears to be based in Iran. Although it has been active over a large timespan, the group has mostly operated under the radar until a lure document was uploaded to VirusTotal and was brought to public knowledge by researchers on Twitter. Subsequently, one of its implants was analyzed by a Chinese intelligence firm. Kaspersky then expanded some of the findings on the group and provided insights on additional variants. The malware dropped from the aforementioned document is dubbed MarkiRAT and is used to record keystrokes and clipboard content, provide file download and upload capabilities as well as the ability to execute arbitrary commands on the victims machine. Kaspersky were able to trace the implant back to at least 2015, along with variants intended to hijack the execution of the Telegram and Chrome applications as a persistence method. Interestingly, some of the TTPs used by this threat actor are reminiscent of other groups operating in the domain of dissident surveillance. For example, it used the same C2 domains across its implants for years, which was witnessed in the activity of Domestic Kitten. In the same vein, the Telegram execution hijacking technique observed in this campaign by Ferocious Kitten was also observed being used by Rampant Kitten, as covered by Check Point.


FireEye first identified this activity during a recent investigation at an organization in the financial industry. They identified the presence of a financially motivated threat group that they track as FIN1, whose activity at the organization dated back several years. The threat group deployed numerous malicious files and utilities, all of which were part of a malware ecosystem referred to as ‘Nemesis’ by the malware developer(s), and used this malware to access the victim environment and steal cardholder data. FIN1, which may be located in Russia or a Russian-speaking country based on language settings in many of their custom tools, is known for stealing data that is easily monetized from financial services organizations such as banks, credit unions, ATM operations, and financial transaction processing and financial business services companies.


FireEye has observed multiple targeted intrusions occurring in North America — predominately in Canada — dating back to at least 2013 and continuing through at least 2016, in which the attacker(s) have compromised organizations’ networks and sought to monetize this illicit access by exfiltrating sensitive data and extorting victim organizations. In some cases, when the extortion demand was not met, the attacker(s) destroyed production Windows systems by deleting critical operating system files and then shutting down the impacted systems. Based on near parallel TTPs used by the attacker(s) across these targeted intrusions, we believe these clusters of activity are linked to a single, previously unobserved actor or group that we have dubbed FIN10.


FIN11 is a well-established financial crime group that has recently focused its operations on ransomware and extortion. The group has been active since 2017 and has been tracked under UNC902 and later on as TEMP.Warlok. In some ways, FIN11 is reminiscent of APT1; they are notable not for their sophistication, but for their sheer volume of activity.(FireEye) Mandiant has also responded to numerous FIN11 intrusions, but we’ve only observed the group successfully monetize access in few instances. This could suggest that the actors cast a wide net during their phishing operations, then choose which victims to further exploit based on characteristics such as sector, geolocation or perceived security posture. Recently, FIN11 has deployed CLOP ransomware and threatened to publish exfiltrated data to pressure victims into paying ransom demands. The group’s shifting monetization methods—from point-of-sale (POS) malware in 2018, to ransomware in 2019, and hybrid extortion in 2020—is part of a larger trend in which criminal actors have increasingly focused on post-compromise ransomware deployment and data theft extortion. Notably, FIN11 includes a subset of the activity security researchers call TA505, Graceful Spider, Gold Evergreen, but we do not attribute TA505’s early operations to FIN11 and caution against using the names interchangeably. Attribution of both historic TA505 activity and more recent FIN11 activity is complicated by the actors’ use of criminal service providers. Like most financially motivated actors, FIN11 doesn’t operate in a vacuum. We believe that the group has used services that provide anonymous domain registration, bulletproof hosting, code signing certificates, and private or semi-private malware. Outsourcing work to these criminal service providers likely enables FIN11 to increase the scale and sophistication of their operations.


Since 2017, Mandiant has been tracking FIN13, an industrious and versatile financially motivated threat actor conducting long-term intrusions in Mexico with an activity timeframe stretching back as early as 2016. Although their operations continue through the present day, in many ways FIN13's intrusions are like a time capsule of traditional financial cybercrime from days past. Instead of today's prevalent smash-and-grab ransomware groups, FIN13 takes their time to gather information to perform fraudulent money transfers. Rather than relying heavily on attack frameworks such as Cobalt Strike, the majority of FIN13 intrusions involve heavy use of custom passive backdoors and tools to lurk in environments for the long haul.


FIN5 is a financially motivated threat group that has targeted personally identifiable information and payment card information. The group has been active since at least 2008 and has targeted the restaurant, gaming, and hotel industries. The group is made up of actors who likely speak Russian.


FIN is a group targeting financial assets including assets able to do financial transaction including PoS.


Groups targeting financial organizations or people with significant financial assets.


FIN8 is a financially motivated group targeting the retail, hospitality and entertainment industries. The actor had previously conducted several tailored spearphishing campaigns using the downloader PUNCHBUGGY and POS malware PUNCHTRACK.


Fishing Elephant is a threat actor that primarily targets victims in Bangladesh and Pakistan. They rely on consistent TTPs, including payload and communication patterns, while occasionally incorporating new techniques such as geo-fencing and hiding executables within certificate files. Their tool of choice is AresRAT, which they deliver through platforms like Heroku and Dropbox. Recently, they have shifted their focus to government and diplomatic entities in Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ukraine, and China.


Verticals targeted during Operation FishMedley include governments, NGOs, and think tanks, across Asia, Europe, and the United States. ; Operators used implants – such as ShadowPad, SodaMaster, and Spyder – that are common or exclusive to China-aligned threat actors. ; We assess with high confidence that Operation FishMedley was conducted by the FishMonger APT group.


This suspected Iran-based adversary conducted long-running SWC campaigns from December 2016 until public disclosure in July 2018. Like other Iran-based actors, the target scope for FLASH KITTEN appears to be focused on the MENA region.


Flax Typhoon is a Chinese state-sponsored threat actor that primarily targets organizations in Taiwan. They conduct espionage campaigns and focus on gaining and maintaining long-term access to networks using minimal malware. Flax Typhoon relies on tools built into the operating system and legitimate software to remain undetected. They exploit vulnerabilities in public-facing servers, use living-off-the-land techniques, and deploy a VPN connection to maintain persistence and move laterally within compromised networks.


FlyingYeti is a Russia-aligned threat actor targeting Ukrainian military entities. They conduct reconnaissance activities and launch phishing campaigns using malware like COOKBOX. FlyingYeti exploits the WinRAR vulnerability CVE-2023-38831 to infect targets with malicious payloads. Cloudforce One has successfully disrupted their operations and provided recommendations for defense against their phishing campaigns.


Activity: defense and aerospace sectors, also interested in targeting entities in the oil/gas industry.


Adversary group targeting telecommunication and technology organizations.


PIONEER KITTEN is an Iran-based adversary that has been active since at least 2017 and has a suspected nexus to the Iranian government. This adversary appears to be primarily focused on gaining and maintaining access to entities possessing sensitive information of likely intelligence interest to the Iranian government. According to DRAGOS, they also targeted ICS-related entities using known VPN vulnerabilities. They are widely known to use open source penetration testing tools for reconnaissance and to establish encrypted communications.


FrostyNeighbor is a Belarus-aligned APT group known for conducting influence and disinformation campaigns, particularly targeting Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania. They have compromised various governmental and private sector entities, including the Polish Anti-Doping Agency, through hack-and-leak operations. The group is believed to collaborate with initial access brokers to exploit high-value targets, utilizing techniques such as zero-day vulnerabilities. Their operations are linked to cyber-enabled disinformation campaigns critical of the North Atlantic Alliance.


Funksec is a newly identified extortion group that has claimed 11 victims across various sectors, including media, IT, and education, operating a Tor-based DLS to centralize its ransomware activities. The group advertises a free DDoS tool and may develop its own ransomware binary, indicating significant technical capability. The DLS was likely created in late November to early December 2024, with the first advertisement titled “Funksec Ransomware” posted on 3 December 2024. Currently, there is limited publicly available information on Funksec's TTPs, and it is not known to be associated with any other threat groups.


The CYFIRMA research team has identified a new up-and-coming European threat actor group known as FusionCore. Running Malware-as-a-service, along with the hacker-for- hire operation, they have a wide variety of tools and services that are being offered on their website, making it a one-stop-shop for threat actors looking to purchase cost- effective yet customizable malware. The operators have started a ransomware affiliate program that equips the attackers with the ransomware and affiliate software to manage victims. FusionCore typically provides sellers with a detailed set of instructions for any service or product being sold, enabling individuals with minimal experience to carry out complex attacks.


Throughout 2017 and 2018, Fxmsp established a network of trusted proxy resellers to promote their breaches on the criminal underground. Some of the known Fxmsp TTPs included accessing network environments via externally available remote desktop protocol (RDP) servers and exposed active directory.
Most recently, the actor claimed to have developed a credential-stealing botnet capable of infecting high-profile targets in order to exfiltrate sensitive usernames and passwords. Fxmsp has claimed that developing this botnet and improving its capabilities for stealing information from secured systems is their main goal.


GALLIUM, is a threat actor believed to be targeting telecommunication providers over the world, mostly South-East Asia, Europe and Africa. To compromise targeted networks, GALLIUM target unpatched internet-facing services using publicly available exploits and have been known to target vulnerabilities in WildFly/JBoss.


Symantec researchers have uncovered a previously unknown attack group that is targeting government and military targets, including several overseas embassies of an Eastern European country, and military and defense targets in the Middle East. This group eschews custom malware and uses living off the land (LotL) tactics and publicly available hack tools to carry out activities that bear all the hallmarks of a cyber espionage campaign.
The group, which we have given the name Gallmaker, has been operating since at least December 2017, with its most recent activity observed in June 2018.


GamaCopy is a threat actor first discovered in June 2023, known for launching cyberattacks against Russia’s defense and critical infrastructure sectors by mimicking the TTPs of Gamaredon. The organization has been active since at least August 2021 and primarily uses Russian-language bait documents related to military facilities. Analysis of attack samples shows considerable overlap in code structure and tactics, including the use of 7z-SFX documentation to install UltraVNC and connecting via port 443. GamaCopy employs open-source tools to obfuscate its activities while targeting sensitive information in the context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.


Unit 42 threat researchers have recently observed a threat group distributing new, custom developed malware. We have labelled this threat group the Gamaredon Group and our research shows that the Gamaredon Group has been active since at least 2013.  In the past, the Gamaredon Group has relied heavily on off-the-shelf tools. Our new research shows the Gamaredon Group have made a shift to custom-developed malware. We believe this shift indicates the Gamaredon Group have improved their technical capabilities.


GambleForce is a threat actor specializing in SQL injection attacks. They have targeted over 20 websites in various sectors across multiple countries, compromising six companies. GambleForce utilizes publicly available pentesting tools and has been active since mid-September 2023.


From November 2017 to October 2018, we attributed 14 campaigns to the GC threat actors that used a specific MaaS provider (hereinafter “the Provider”) offered by a known individual (hereinafter “the Provider Operator”).


GCMAN is a threat group that focuses on targeting banks for the purpose of transferring money to e-currency services.


The Gelsemium group has been active since at least 2014 and was described in the past by a few security companies. Gelsemium’s name comes from one possible translation ESET found while reading a report from VenusTech who dubbed the group 狼毒草 for the first time. It’s the name of a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Gelsemiaceae, Gelsemium elegans is the species that contains toxic compounds like Gelsemine, Gelsenicine and Gelsevirine, which ESET choses as names for the three components of this malware family.


GhostEmperor is a Chinese-speaking threat actor that targets government entities and telecom companies in Southeast Asia. They employ a Windows kernel-mode rootkit called Demodex to gain remote control over their targeted servers. The actor demonstrates a high level of sophistication and uses various anti-forensic and anti-analysis techniques to evade detection. They have been active for a significant period of time and continue to pose a threat to their targets.


Cyber espionage is an issue whose time has come. In this second report from the Information Warfare Monitor, we lay out the findings of a 10-month investigation of alleged Chinese cyber spying against Tibetan institutions. The investigation, consisting of fieldwork, technical scouting, and laboratory analysis, discovered a lot more. The investigation ultimately uncovered a network of over 1,295 infected hosts in 103 countries. Up to 30% of the infected hosts are considered high-value targets and include computers located at ministries of foreign affairs, embassies, international organizations, news media, and NGOs. The Tibetan computer systems we manually investigated, and from which our investigations began, were conclusively compromised by multiple infections that gave attackers unprecedented access to potentially sensitive information.
Attacks on the Dalai Lama’s Private Office The OHHDL started to suspect it was under surveillance while setting up meetings be-tween His Holiness and foreign dignitaries. They sent an email invitation on behalf of His Holiness to a foreign diplomat, but before they could follow it up with a courtesy telephone call, the diplomat’s office was contacted by the Chinese government and warned not to go ahead with the meeting. The Tibetans wondered whether a computer compromise might be the explanation; they called ONI Asia who called us. (Until May 2008, the first author was employed on a studentship funded by the OpenNet Initiative and the second author was a principal investigator for ONI.)


Ghostr is a financially motivated threat actor known for stealing a confidential database containing 5.3 million records from the World-Check and leaking about 186GB of data from a stock trading platform. They have been active on Breachforums.is, revealing massive data breaches involving comprehensive details of Thai users, including full names, phone numbers, email addresses, and ID card numbers.


GhostRedirector is a China-aligned threat actor that has compromised at least 65 Windows servers across various sectors, primarily in Brazil, Thailand, and Vietnam. It employs a passive C++ backdoor named Rungan and a malicious IIS module called Gamshen to maintain persistent access and manipulate search engine results for SEO fraud. The actor utilizes public exploits like EfsPotato and BadPotato for privilege escalation and abuses code-signing certificates to evade detection. GhostRedirector's operations involve installing remote access tools, creating rogue administrator accounts, and leveraging SQL injection vulnerabilities to execute PowerShell for downloading malicious payloads.


GhostSec is a hacktivist group that emerged as an offshoot of Anonymous. They primarily focused on counterterrorism efforts and monitoring online activities associated with terrorism. They gained prominence following the 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris and the rise of ISIS.


Ghostwriter is referred as an 'activity set', with various incidents tied together by overlapping behavioral characteristics and personas, rather than as an actor or group in itself.


Gitloker is a threat actor group targeting GitHub repositories, wiping their contents, and extorting victims for their data. They use stolen credentials to compromise accounts, claim to have created a backup, and instruct victims to contact them on Telegram. The attackers leave a ransom note in the form of a README file, urging victims to negotiate the return of their data. GitHub is working to combat these evolving attacks and the vulnerabilities they exploit.


The hacker said that he put up the data for sale mainly because these companies had failed to protect passwords with strong encryption algorithms like bcrypt.
Most of the hashed passwords the hacker put up for sale today can cracked with various levels of difficulty --but they can be cracked.
"I got upset because I feel no one is learning," the hacker told ZDNet in an online chat earlier today. "I just felt upset at this particular moment, because seeing this lack of security in 2019 is making me angry."
In a conversation with ZDNet last month, the hacker told us he wanted to hack and put up for sale more than one billion records and then retire and disappear with the money.
But in a conversation today, the hacker says this is not his target anymore, as he learned that other hackers have already achieved the same goal before him.
 Gnosticplayers also revealed that not all the data he obtained from hacked companies had been put up for sale. Some companies gave into extortion demands and paid fees so breaches would remain private.
"I came to an agreement with some companies, but the concerned startups won't see their data for sale," he said. "I did it that's why I can't publish the rest of my databases or even name them."


Goblin Panda is one of a handful of elite Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT) groups. Most Chinese APTs target the United States and NATO, but Goblin Panda focuses primarily on Southeast Asia.


GOFFEE is a threat actor that has targeted entities in the Russian Federation since early 2022, employing spear phishing emails with malicious attachments, including modified Owowa and patched explorer.exe. They have utilized PowerTaskel, a non-public Mythic agent in PowerShell, and introduced a new implant called "PowerModul" for attacks against sectors such as media, telecommunications, and government. GOFFEE has increasingly shifted to a binary Mythic agent for lateral movement and has incorporated Word documents with malicious VBA scripts in their infection chains. The group has demonstrated a consistent evolution in their TTPs while maintaining identifiable characteristics that attribute their campaigns with high confidence.


GoldenJackal activity is characterized by the use of compromised WordPress websites as a method to host C2-related logic. Kaspersky believes the attackers upload a malicious PHP file that is used as a relay to forward web requests to another backbone C2 server. They developed a collection of .NET malware tools known as Jackal.


GoldFactory is a threat actor group attributed to developing sophisticated mobile banking malware targeting victims primarily in the Asia-Pacific region, specifically Vietnam and Thailand. They utilize social engineering to deliver malware to victims' devices and have close connections to the Gigabud malware family. GoldFactory's Trojans, such as GoldPickaxe and GoldDigger, employ tactics like smishing, phishing, and fake login screens to compromise victims' phones and steal sensitive information. Their evolving malware suite demonstrates a high level of operational maturity and ingenuity, requiring a proactive and multi-faceted cybersecurity approach to detect and mitigate their threats.


GOLD BURLAP is a group of financially motivated criminals responsible for the development of the Pysa ransomware, also referred to as Mespinoza. Pysa is a cross-platform ransomware with known versions written in C++ and Python. As of December 2020, approximately 50 organizations had reportedly been targeted in Pysa ransomware attacks. The operators leverage 'name and shame' tactics to apply additional pressure to victims. As of January 2021, CTU researchers had found no Pysa advertisements on underground forums, which likely indicates that it is not operated as ransomware as a service (RaaS).


GOLD CABIN is a financially motivated cybercriminal threat group operating a malware distribution service on behalf of numerous customers since 2018. GOLD CABIN uses malicious documents, often contained in password-protected archives, delivered through email to download and execute payloads. The second-stage payloads are most frequently Gozi ISFB (Ursnif) or IcedID (Bokbot), sometimes using intermediary malware like Valak. GOLD CABIN infrastructure relies on artificial appearing and frequently changing URLs created with a domain generation algorithm (DGA). The URLs host a PHP object that returns the malware as a DLL file.


GOLD DUPONT is a financially motivated cybercriminal threat group that specializes in post-intrusion ransomware attacks using 777 (aka Defray777 or RansomExx) malware. Active since November 2018, GOLD DUPONT establishes initial access into victim networks using stolen credentials to remote access services like virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) or virtual private networks (VPN). From October 2019 to early 2020 the group used GOLD BLACKBURN's TrickBot malware as an initial access vector (IAV) during some intrusions. Since July 2020, the group has also used GOLD SWATHMORE's IcedID (Bokbot) malware as an IAV in some intrusions.


GOLD EVERGREEN was a financially motivated cybercriminal threat group that operated the Gameover Zeus (aka Mapp, P2P Zeus) botnet until June 2014. It encompasses an expansive and long running criminal conspiracy operated by a confederation of individuals calling themselves The Business Club from the mid 2000s until 2014. GOLD EVERGREEN's technical operation was facilitated primarily through botnets using the Zeus, JabberZeus, and eventually Gameover Zeus malware families. These malware families were designed and maintained by a Russian national Evgeniy Bogachev (aka 'slavik') who was indicted by the U.S. DOJ in 2014 and remains a fugitive.


GOLD FAIRFAX is a financially motivated cybercriminal threat group responsible for the creation, distribution, and operation of the Ramnit botnet. Ramnit, the phonetic spelling of RMNet, the internal name of the core module, began operation in April 2010 and became widespread in July 2010. A particularly virulent file-infecting component of early Ramnit variants that spreads by modifying executables and HTML files has resulted in the continued prevalence of those early variants. Currently, Ramnit remains an actively maintained and distributed threat. The intent of Ramnit is to intercept and manipulate online financial transactions through modification of web browser behavior ('man-in-the-browser').


GOLD FLANDERS is a financially motivated group responsible for distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks linked to extortion emails demanding between 5 and 30 bitcoins. The attacks consist mostly of fragmented UDP packets (DNS and NTP reflection) as well as other traffic that can vary per victim. The arrival of the extortion email is timed to coincide with a DDOS attack consisting of traffic between 20 Gbps and 200 Gbps and 12-15 million packets per second, lasting between 20 and 70 minutes targeted at a particular Autonomous System Number (ASN) or group of IP addresses. In some cases victim organisations have replied to these extortion emails and received personal replies from GOLD FLANDERS operators within 20 minutes.


GOLD GALLEON is a financially motivated cybercriminal threat group comprised of at least 20 criminal associates that collectively carry out business email compromise (BEC) and spoofing (BES) campaigns. The group appears to specifically target maritime organizations and their customers. CTU researchers have observed GOLD GALLEON targeting firms in South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Philippines, Norway, U.S., Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Colombia. The threat actors leverage tools, tactics, and procedures that are similar to those used by other BEC/BES groups CTU researchers have previously investigated, such as GOLD SKYLINE. The groups have used the same caliber of publicly available malware (inexpensive and commodity remote access trojans), crypters, and email lures.


GOLD GARDEN was a financially motivated cybercriminal threat group that authored and operated the GandCrab ransomware from January 2018 through May 2019. GandCrab was operated as a ransomware-as-a-service operation whereby numerous affiliates distributed the malware and split ransom payments with the core operators. GOLD GARDEN maintained exclusive control of the development of GandCrab and associated command and control (C2) infrastructure. Individual affiliates, of which there were frequently more than a dozen in operation simultaneously, coordinated the distribution of GandCrab through spam emails, web exploit kits, pay-per-install botnets, and scan-and-exploit style attacks. On May 31, 2019 the operators announced they have halted operations with no intent to resume for unknown reasons. In April 2019 the operators of GOLD GARDEN transferred the source code of GandCrab to GOLD SOUTHFIELD who used it as the foundation of the REvil ransomware operation. GOLD SOUTHFIELD operates a similar affiliate program comprised largely of former GandCrab users and other groups recruited from underground forums.


GOLD MANSARD is a financially motivated cybercriminal threat group that operated the Nemty ransomware from August 2019. The threat actor behind Nemty is known on Russian underground forums as 'jsworm'. Nemty was operated as a ransomware as a service (RaaS) affiliate program and featured a 'name and shame' website where exfiltrated victim data was leaked. In April 2020, jsworm appeared to acquire new partners and retired the Nemty ransomware. This was followed by the introduction of Nefilim ransomware, which does not operate as an affiliate model. Nefilim has been used in post-intrusion ransomware attacks against organizations in logistics, telecommunications, energy and other sectors.


Operational since at least October 2020, GOLD NORTHFIELD is a financially motivated cybercriminal threat group that leverages GOLD SOUTHFIELD's REvil ransomware in their attacks. To do this, the threat actors replace the configuration of the REvil ransomware binary with their own in an effort to repurpose the ransomware for their operations. GOLD NORTHFIELD has given this modified REvil ransomware variant the name 'LV ransomware'.


GOLD PRELUDE is a financially motivated cybercriminal threat group that operates the SocGholish (aka FAKEUPDATES) malware distribution network. GOLD PRELUDE operates a large global network of compromised websites, frequently running vulnerable content management systems (CMS), that redirect into a malicious traffic distribution system (TDS). The TDS, which researchers at Avast have named Parrot TDS, uses opaque criteria to select victims to serve a fake browser update page. These pages, which are customized to the specific visiting browser software, download the JavaScript-based SocGholish payload frequently embedded within a compressed archive.


GOLD REBELLION is a financially motivated cybercriminal threat group that operates the Black Basta name-and-shame ransomware. The group posted its first victim to its leak site in April 2022 and has continued to publish victim names at a rate of around 15 a month since then. GOLD REBELLION has not openly advertised or appeared to recruit for an affiliate program but the variety of tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) observed in Black Basta intrusions suggests that multiple individuals are engaged in the ransomware scheme.Several security vendors and independent researchers have suggested the distributors of Black Basta may be former affiliates of GOLD ULRICK's Conti operation. Technical artifacts analyzed by CTU researchers suggest that Black Basta has been under development since at least early February 2022, several weeks before extensive public leaks detailed GOLD ULRICK's Conti operation. In November 2022, researchers at SentinelOne linked custom tooling used by GOLD REBELLION to the GOLD NIAGARA (FIN7) threat group. CTU researchers have not made independent observations corroborating a relationship between these threat groups or any others.GOLD REBELLION appear to have been a key customer of GOLD LAGOON's Qakbot: CTU researchers observed multiple incidents where Black Basta was distributed through it as an initial access vector (IAV), leading to Cobalt Strike and further lateral movement into the victim network. Following the takedown of Qakbot in August 2023, GOLD REBELLION explored new methods of delivery, including DarkGate and Pikabot. In one incident, CTU researchers observed a threat actor gain access to a victim network through a managed security services provider (MSSP). In October 2024, GOLD REBELLION likely exploited a vulnerability in a Sonic Wall VPN device for access. Also in 2024, CTU researchers observed multiple instances of the group using social engineering to convince victims to download remote management and monitoring tools like AnyDesk and Quick Assist. After spamming inboxes with multiple emails, the threat actors approached the affected users via Teams, purporting to be IT Support or Help Desk employees offering assistance with email inbox issues.Other tools members of the group have used include the SystemBC back connect malware, PsExec for remote execution, RDP for lateral movement, batch files to delete their own tools and disable anti-virus programs for defense evasion, and both Rclone and MegaSync for data exfiltration.


GOLD RIVERVIEW was a financially motivated cybercriminal group that facilitated the distribution of malware- and scam-laden spam email on behalf of its customers. This threat group authored and sold the Necurs rootkit beginning in early 2014, including to GOLD EVERGREEN who integrated it into Gameover Zeus. GOLD RIVERVIEW also operated a global botnet that was colloquially known as Necurs (CraP2P) and was a major source of spam email from 2016 through 2018. Necurs distributed malware such as GOLD DRAKE's Dridex (Bugat v5), GOLD BLACKBURN's TrickBot, and other families like Locky and FlawedAmmy. Necurs also distributed a large volume of email pushing securities 'pump and dump' scams, rogue pharmacies, and fraudulent dating sites. On March 4, 2019 all three active segments of the Necurs botnet ceased operation and have not since resumed. On March 10, 2020 Microsoft took civil action against GOLD RIVERVIEW and made technical steps that would complicate the threat actors' ability to reconstitute the botnet.


GOLD SKYLINE is a financially motivated cybercriminal threat group operating from Nigeria engaged in high-value wire fraud facilitated by business email compromise (BEC) and spoofing (BES). Also known as Wire-Wire Group 1 (WWG1), GOLD SKYLINE has been active since at least 2016 and relies heavily on compromised email accounts, social engineering, and increasingly malware to divert inter-organization funds transfers.


GOLD SOUTHFIELD is a financially motivated cybercriminal threat group that authors and operates the REvil (aka Sodinokibi) ransomware on behalf of various affiliated threat groups. Operational since April 2019, the group obtained the GandCrab source code from GOLD GARDEN, the operators of GandCrab that voluntarily withdrew their ransomware from underground markets in May 2019. GOLD SOUTHFIELD is responsible for authoring REvil and operating the backend infrastructure used by affiliates (also called partners) to create malware builds and to collect ransom payments from victims. CTU researchers assess with high confidence that GOLD SOUTHFIELD is a former GandCrab affiliate and continues to work with other former GandCrab affiliates.


GOLD SYMPHONY is a financially motivated cybercrime group, likely based in Russia, that is responsible for the development and sale on underground forums of the Buer Loader malware. First discovered around August 2019, Buer Loader is offered as a malware-as-a-service (MasS) and has been advertised by a threat actor using the handle 'memeos'. Customers include GOLD BLACKBURN, the operators of the TrickBot malware. In addition to TrickBot, Buer Loader has been reported to download Cobalt Strike and other tools for use in post-intrusion ransomware attacks.


GOLD WATERFALL is a group of financially motivated cybercriminals responsible for the creation, distribution, and operation of the Darkside ransomware. Active since August 2020, GOLD WATERFALL uses a variety of tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to infiltrate and move laterally within targeted organizations to deploy Darkside ransomware to its most valuable resources. Among these TTPs are using malicious documents delivered by email to establish a foothold and using stolen credentials to access victims' remote access services. In November 2020, the 'darksupp' persona was observed advertising an affiliate program on several semi-exclusive underground forums, marking GOLD WATERFALL's entry into the ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) landscape.


GOLD WINTER are a financially motivated group, likely based in Russia, who operate the Hades ransomware. Hades activity was first identified in December 2020 and its lack of presence on underground forums and marketplaces leads CTU researchers to conclude that it is not operated under a ransomware as a service affiliate model. GOLD WINTER do employ name-and-shame tactics, where data is stolen and used as additional leverage over victims, but rather than a single centralized leak site CTU researchers have observed the group using Tor sites customized for each victim that include a Tox chat ID for communication, which also appears to be unique for each victim.


Gorilla is a threat-actor operating a DoS-as-a-service service controlled on Telegram.


IBM X-Force Research uncovered a Trojan hybrid spawned from the Nymaim and Gozi ISFB malware. It appears that the operators of Nymaim have recompiled its source code with part of the Gozi ISFB source code, creating a combination that is being actively used in attacks against more than 24 U.S. and Canadian banks, stealing millions of dollars so far. X-Force named this new hybrid GozNym. The new GozNym hybrid takes the best of both the Nymaim and Gozi ISFB malware to create a powerful Trojan. From the Nymaim malware, it leverages the dropper’s stealth and persistence; the Gozi ISFB parts add the banking Trojan’s capabilities to facilitate fraud via infected Internet browsers. The end result is a new banking Trojan in the wild.


TAG-150, also known as GrayBravo, is a sophisticated threat actor responsible for developing multiple custom malware families, including CastleLoader and CastleRAT, and operates a large-scale, multi-layered infrastructure. The group employs the ClickFix technique to distribute malware through phishing attacks that impersonate legitimate services, leveraging deceptive domains and fake repositories. Insikt Group has identified four distinct activity clusters associated with TAG-150, each targeting different victim profiles and utilizing unique TTPs.


GrayCharlie is a threat actor that compromises WordPress sites to inject malicious JavaScript, redirecting visitors to NetSupport RAT payloads via fake browser update pages or ClickFix mechanisms. Insikt Group has identified extensive infrastructure linked to GrayCharlie, primarily associated with MivoCloud and HZ Hosting Ltd., including command-and-control servers and staging infrastructure. The group employs two primary attack chains to deliver the NetSupport RAT, utilizing both fake updates and ClickFix techniques. GrayCharlie targets organizations worldwide, with a particular focus on the US, and has shown persistent behavior in its operations since its emergence in 2023.


Grayling activity was first observed in early 2023, when a number of victims were identified with distinctive malicious DLL side-loading activity. Grayling appears to target organisations in Asia, however one unknown organisation in the United States was also targeted. Industries targeted include Biomedical, Government and Information Technology. Grayling use a variety of tools during their attacks, including well known tools such as Cobalt Strike and Havoc and also some others.


Gray Sandstorm is an Iran-linked threat actor that has been active since at least 2012. They have targeted defense technology companies, maritime transportation companies, and Persian Gulf ports of entry. Their primary method of attack is password spraying, and they have been observed using tools like o365spray. They have a specific focus on US and Israeli targets and are likely operating in support of Iranian interests.


GreedyBear is a sophisticated threat actor responsible for over $1 million in cryptocurrency theft through a campaign involving 150 malicious Firefox extensions, nearly 500 malicious executables, and numerous fraudulent websites. They employ techniques such as 'Extension Hollowing' to replace legitimate extensions with malicious versions that capture wallet credentials. The campaign is centralized, with most malicious domains resolving to a single IP address, and it has expanded to target other browsers while utilizing AI-generated code to enhance scalability and evade detection.


Greenbug was discovered targeting a range of organizations in the Middle East including companies in the aviation, energy, government, investment, and education sectors.


GreenSpot is an APT group believed to operate from Taiwan, active since at least 2007, primarily targeting government, academic, and military entities in China through phishing campaigns. The group frequently targets 163.com, aiming to steal login credentials using deceptive domains, manipulated TLS certificates, and counterfeit interfaces. Their tactics highlight the sophistication of modern credential theft operations, necessitating detection efforts focused on irregular domain registrations and certificate anomalies.


GREF is a China-aligned APT group that has been active since at least March 2017. They are known for using custom backdoors, loaders, and ancillary tools in their targeted attacks. Recently, they have been attributed to two active Android campaigns that distribute the BadBazaar malware through malicious apps on official and alternative app stores. GREF has targeted Android users, particularly Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic minorities outside of China, using trojanized versions of popular messaging apps like Signal and Telegram.


ESET research reveals a successor to the infamous BlackEnergy APT group targeting critical infrastructure, quite possibly in preparation for damaging attacks


GRIM SPIDER is a sophisticated eCrime group that has been operating the Ryuk ransomware since August 2018, targeting large organizations for a high-ransom return. This methodology, known as “big game hunting,” signals a shift in operations for WIZARD SPIDER, a criminal enterprise of which GRIM SPIDER appears to be a cell. The WIZARD SPIDER threat group, known as the Russia-based operator of the TrickBot banking malware, had focused primarily on wire fraud in the past.
Similar to Samas and BitPaymer, Ryuk is specifically used to target enterprise environments. Code comparison between versions of Ryuk and Hermes ransomware indicates that Ryuk was derived from the Hermes source code and has been under steady development since its release. Hermes is commodity ransomware that has been observed for sale on forums and used by multiple threat actors. However, Ryuk is only used by GRIM SPIDER and, unlike Hermes, Ryuk has only been used to target enterprise environments. Since Ryuk’s appearance in August, the threat actors operating it have netted over 705.80 BTC across 52 transactions for a total current value of $3,701,893.98 USD.
Grim Spider is reportedly associated with Lunar Spider and Wizard Spider.


Groundbait is a group targeting anti-government separatists in the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.


A threat actor using Iranian-language tools, Iranian hosting companies, operating from the Iranian IP space at times was observed targeting the Syrian opposition in an elaborately staged malware operation, Citizen Lab researchers reveal.
The operation was first noticed in late 2015, when a member of the Syrian opposition flagged a suspicious email containing a PowerPoint slideshow, which led researchers to a watering hole website with malicious programs, malicious PowerPoint files, and Android malware.
The threat actor was targeting Windows and Android devices of well-connected individuals in the Syrian opposition, researchers discovered. They called the actor Group5, because it targets Syrian opposition after regime-linked malware groups, the Syrian Electronic Army, ISIS (also known as the Islamic State or ISIL), and a group linked to Lebanon did the same in the past


GTFire is a threat actor that leverages Google Firebase for hosting phishing pages and Google Translate to disguise malicious URLs, effectively bypassing security filters. The campaign employs a multi-step redirect chain to obscure the final phishing destination and utilizes All-in-1 PHP phishing scripts for rapid deployment and credential harvesting. Credentials are exfiltrated via URL parameters in a standard HTTP GET request, with minimal operational overhead.


GTG-1002 is a Chinese state-sponsored APT that conducted a large-scale autonomous cyber espionage campaign targeting approximately 30 global organizations across various sectors, focusing on military and energy-related data. The operation utilized AI, specifically Anthropic’s Claude model, for reconnaissance, exploitation, and data exfiltration, significantly reducing human involvement. Attackers employed techniques such as automated task execution and evasion of safety protocols by masquerading as legal security testing. The campaign lasted 18 months and highlighted vulnerabilities in traditional incident response workflows.


Guacamaya has conducted multiple hack and leak campaigns against military and police agencies and mining companies across Latin America, which they believe have played a role in the region’s environmental degradation and repression of native populations.


Early in 2018, CrowdStrike Intelligence observed GURU SPIDER supporting the distribution of multiple crimeware families through its flagship malware loader, Quant Loader.


The many 0-days that had been collected by Hacking Team and which became publicly available during the breach of their organization in 2015, have been used by several APT groups since.
Since being founded in 2003, the Italian spyware vendor Hacking Team gained notoriety for selling surveillance tools to governments and their agencies across the world.
The capabilities of its flagship product, the Remote Control System (RCS), include extracting files from a targeted device, intercepting emails and instant messaging, as well as remotely activating a device’s webcam and microphone. The company has been criticized for selling these capabilities to authoritarian governments – an allegation it has consistently denied.
When the tables turned in July 2015, with Hacking Team itself suffering a damaging hack, the reported use of RCS by oppressive regimes was confirmed. With 400GB of internal data – including the once-secret list of customers, internal communications, and spyware source code – leaked online, Hacking Team was forced to request its customers to suspend all use of RCS, and was left facing an uncertain future.
Following the hack, the security community has been keeping a close eye on the company’s efforts to get back on its feet. The first reports suggesting Hacking Team’s resumed operations came six months later – a new sample of Hacking Team’s Mac spyware was apparently in the wild. A year after the breach, an investment by a company named Tablem Limited brought changes to Hacking Team’s shareholder structure, with Tablem Limited taking 20% of Hacking Team’s shareholding. Tablem Limited is officially based in Cyprus; however, recent news suggests it has ties to Saudi Arabia.


HAFNIUM primarily targets entities in the United States across a number of industry sectors, including infectious disease researchers, law firms, higher education institutions, defense contractors, policy think tanks, and NGOs. Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) attributes this campaign with high confidence to HAFNIUM, a group assessed to be state-sponsored and operating out of China, based on observed victimology, tactics and procedures. HAFNIUM has previously compromised victims by exploiting vulnerabilities in internet-facing servers, and has used legitimate open-source frameworks, like Covenant, for command and control. Once they’ve gained access to a victim network, HAFNIUM typically exfiltrates data to file sharing sites like MEGA.In campaigns unrelated to these vulnerabilities, Microsoft has observed HAFNIUM interacting with victim Office 365 tenants. While they are often unsuccessful in compromising customer accounts, this reconnaissance activity helps the adversary identify more details about their targets’ environments. HAFNIUM operates primarily from leased virtual private servers (VPS) in the United States.


Hagga is believed to have been using Agent Tesla, 2021’s sixth most prevalent malware, to steal sensitive information from his victims since the latter part of 2021.


Handala is a pro-Palestinian hacktivist group that targets Israeli organizations, employing tactics such as phishing, data theft, extortion, and destructive attacks using custom wiper malware. The group utilizes a multi-stage loading process, including a Delphi-coded second-stage loader and an AutoIT injector, to deliver wiper malware that specifically targets Windows and Linux environments. Their phishing campaigns often exploit major events and critical vulnerabilities, masquerading as legitimate organizations to gain initial access. Handala operates a data leak site to publicize stolen data, although claims of successful attacks are sometimes disputed by targeted organizations.


The Bitter threat group initially started using RAT tools in their campaigns, as the first Bitter versions, for Android released in 2014 were based on the AndroRAT framework. Over time, they switched to a custom version that has been known as BitterRAT ever since.


Head Mare is a hacktivism focussed threat actor group known for targeting Russia and Belarus sectors using a remote access malware called PhantomRAT. They have been observed executing malicious code through specially crafted RAR archives, different from previous attacks exploiting vulnerabilities. The attribution of their campaign to Ukraine is uncertain due to limited visibility inside Russian networks. PhantomCore's use of RAR archives in their attack chain has been previously observed in other threat actor groups like Forest Blizzard.


Hellhounds is an APT group targeting organizations in Russia, using a modified version of Pupy RAT called Decoy Dog. They gain initial access through vulnerable web services and trusted relationships, with a focus on the public sector and IT companies. The group has been active since at least 2019, maintaining covert presence inside compromised organizations by modifying open-source projects to evade detection. Hellhounds have successfully targeted at least 48 victims, including a telecom operator where they disrupted services.


This threat actor uses spear-phishing techniques to compromise diplomatic targets in Southeast Asia, India, and the United States. It also seems to have targeted the APT 30. Possibly uses the same infrastructure as Mirage


This threat actor targets Uighurs—a minority ethnic group located primarily in northwestern China—and devices from Chinese mobile phone manufacturer Xiaomi, for espionage purposes.


Hezb is a group deploying cryptominers when new exploit are available for public facing vulnerabilities. The name is after the miner process they deploy.


It was observed that a mobile network threat actor designated as ‘HiddenArt’ actively sustains a capacity to remotely access the personal devices of targeted individuals around the world on an ongoing basis. Since detecting this threat actor, periodic reconnaissance activities were observed in at least 7 target mobile networks around the world and given the wide geographic distribution of these targeted mobile operators, it is probable that the threat actor is active on a global scale.


The organization often uses important North Korean time nodes such as holidays and North Korea to conduct fishing activities. The bait includes New Year blessings, Lantern blessings, North Korean celebrations, and important news, overseas personnel contact lists and so on. In addition, the attack organization also has the attack capability of the mobile terminal. The targets of the attack also include diplomatic entities related to North Korea (such as embassy officials in various places), government officials, human rights organizations, North Korean residents abroad, and traders. The victim countries currently monitored include China, North Korea, Japan, Nepal, Singapore, Russia, Poland, Switzerland, etc.


Hikki-Chan has claimed responsibility for multiple significant data breaches, including the theft of data from 390.4 million users of VKontakte, which included sensitive personal information. The actor has also targeted Strong Current Enterprises and disclosed a breach involving the Israeli Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs, leaking over 457,000 records. Additionally, Hikki-Chan is attributed with a breach of the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, exposing tens of thousands of records across various industries.


Hive0145 is a financially motivated initial access broker that has been active since late 2022, primarily utilizing Strela Stealer malware to target email credentials. The group has evolved its tactics from generic phishing emails to using stolen legitimate emails with real invoice attachments, focusing on victims in Spain, Germany, and Ukraine. Strela Stealer is configured to extract data from Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird, and the group's operations have shown increased complexity and automation. Threat intelligence indicates that Hive0145's campaigns are characterized by credential theft and espionage-driven activities.


Hive0117 is a financially motivated cybercriminal group that conducts phishing campaigns to deliver the fileless malware DarkWatchman, which is capable of keylogging and collecting system information. The group targets individuals in the energy, finance, transport, and software security sectors across Russia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, and Estonia, often imitating official Russian government communications to induce urgency. Their operations leverage emergent policies related to conscription and utilize a UID string for identification, with malware capable of querying for smartcard readers, indicating a focus on higher security targets. The malware's fileless nature and ability to erase traces of its presence suggest moderate sophistication in their TTPs.


Being one of the most active malware distributors, Hive0137 demonstrates a willingness to explore new payloads and technologies such as GenAI. They have quickly moved onto the same level as other high-profile distributors such as TA577, and will likely be responsible for future phishing campaigns, facilitating initial access for ransomware affiliates. Hive0137’s combination of intent, capabilities and relationships with other groups presents a direct threat to organizations all over the world. As threat actors pick up the pace and increasingly adopt AI technologies for malicious purposes, it is important that organizations are aware of the most recent threats and their capabilities to maintain a strong security posture.


SEQRITE Labs APT-Team has been tracking and has uncovered a campaign targeting the Baltic State Technical University, a well-known institution for various defense, aerospace, and advanced engineering programs that contribute to Russia’s military-industrial complex. Tracked as Operation HollowQuill, the campaign leverages weaponized decoy documents masquerading as official research invitations to infiltrate academic, governmental, and defense-related networks. The threat entity delivers a malicious RAR file which contains a .NET malware dropper, which further drops other Golang based shellcode loader along with legitimate OneDrive application and a decoy-based PDF with a final Cobalt Strike payload.


HomeLand Justice is an Iranian state-sponsored cyber threat group that has been active since at least May 2021. They have targeted various organizations, including a well-known telecommunication company and the Albanian Parliament. The group engaged in information operations and messaging campaigns to amplify the impact of their attacks.


McAfee Advanced Threat Research analysts have discovered a new operation targeting humanitarian aid organizations and using North Korean political topics as bait to lure victims into opening malicious Microsoft Word documents. Our analysts have named this Operation Honeybee, based on the names of the malicious documents used in the attacks.
Advanced Threat Research analysts have also discovered malicious documents authored by the same actor that indicate a tactical shift. These documents do not contain the typical lures by this actor, instead using Word compatibility messages to entice victims into opening them.
The Advanced Threat Research team also observed a heavy concentration of the implant in Vietnam from January 15–17.


HookAds is a malvertising campaign that purchases cheap ad space on low quality ad networks commonly used by adult web sites, online games, or blackhat seo sites. These ads will include JavaScript that redirects a visitor through a serious of decoy sites that look like pages filled with native advertisements, online games, or other low quality pages. Under the right circumstances, a visitor will silently load the Fallout exploit kit, which will try and install its malware payload.


Houken is a Chinese state-sponsored threat actor that exploits zero-day vulnerabilities in Ivanti Cloud Services Appliance devices to gain initial access to critical infrastructure networks, particularly in France. The group employs a sophisticated rootkit alongside open-source tools, primarily developed by Chinese-speaking authors, to maintain persistence and control over compromised systems. Houken is suspected to operate as an initial access broker, selling footholds in targeted networks to other threat actors for further exploitation.


According to Crowdstrike, HOUND SPIDER affiliates arrested in Romania on December,2017


This group created a malware that takes over Android devices and generates $300,000 per month in fraudulent ad revenue.  The group effectively controls an arsenal of over 85 million mobile devices around the world. With the potential to sell access to these devices to the highest bidder


Hunt3r Kill3rs is a newly emerged threat group claiming expertise in cyber operations, including ICS breaches and web application vulnerabilities exploitation. They have discussed using Java fuzzing in their exploits and have made unverified claims of joint attacks with other threat actors.


We have investigated their intrusions since 2013 and have been battling them nonstop over the last year at several large telecommunications and technology companies. The determination of this China-based adversary is truly impressive: they are like a dog with a bone.
HURRICANE PANDA's preferred initial vector of compromise and persistence is a China Chopper webshell – a tiny and easily obfuscated 70 byte text file that consists of an ‘eval()’ command, which is then used to provide full command execution and file upload/download capabilities to the attackers. This script is typically uploaded to a web server via a SQL injection or WebDAV vulnerability, which is often trivial to uncover in a company with a large external web presence.
Once inside, the adversary immediately moves on to execution of a credential theft tool such as Mimikatz (repacked to avoid AV detection). If they are lucky to have caught an administrator who might be logged into that web server at the time, they will have gained domain administrator credentials and can now roam your network at will via ‘net use’ and ‘wmic’ commands executed through the webshell terminal.