Skip to content

T1566.001 Spearphishing Attachment

Adversaries may send spearphishing emails with a malicious attachment in an attempt to gain access to victim systems. Spearphishing attachment is a specific variant of spearphishing. Spearphishing attachment is different from other forms of spearphishing in that it employs the use of malware attached to an email. All forms of spearphishing are electronically delivered social engineering targeted at a specific individual, company, or industry. In this scenario, adversaries attach a file to the spearphishing email and usually rely upon User Execution to gain execution. Spearphishing may also involve social engineering techniques, such as posing as a trusted source.

There are many options for the attachment such as Microsoft Office documents, executables, PDFs, or archived files. Upon opening the attachment (and potentially clicking past protections), the adversary’s payload exploits a vulnerability or directly executes on the user’s system. The text of the spearphishing email usually tries to give a plausible reason why the file should be opened, and may explain how to bypass system protections in order to do so. The email may also contain instructions on how to decrypt an attachment, such as a zip file password, in order to evade email boundary defenses. Adversaries frequently manipulate file extensions and icons in order to make attached executables appear to be document files, or files exploiting one application appear to be a file for a different one.

Item Value
ID T1566.001
Sub-techniques T1566.001, T1566.002, T1566.003
Tactics TA0001
Platforms Linux, Windows, macOS
Version 2.2
Created 02 March 2020
Last Modified 30 March 2023

Procedure Examples

ID Name Description
G0018 admin@338 admin@338 has sent emails with malicious Microsoft Office documents attached.183
S0331 Agent Tesla The primary delivered mechanism for Agent Tesla is through email phishing messages.40
G0130 Ajax Security Team Ajax Security Team has used personalized spearphishing attachments.106
G0138 Andariel Andariel has conducted spearphishing campaigns that included malicious Word or Excel attachments.112113
S0622 AppleSeed AppleSeed has been distributed to victims through malicious e-mail attachments.32
G0099 APT-C-36 APT-C-36 has used spearphishing emails with password protected RAR attachment to avoid being detected by the email gateway.222
G0006 APT1 APT1 has sent spearphishing emails containing malicious attachments.105
G0005 APT12 APT12 has sent emails with malicious Microsoft Office documents and PDFs attached.110111
G0073 APT19 APT19 sent spearphishing emails with malicious attachments in RTF and XLSM formats to deliver initial exploits.170
G0007 APT28 APT28 sent spearphishing emails containing malicious Microsoft Office and RAR attachments.141142143144145146147148
G0016 APT29 APT29 has used spearphishing emails with an attachment to deliver files with exploits to initial victims.189190188191
G0013 APT30 APT30 has used spearphishing emails with malicious DOC attachments.204
G0050 APT32 APT32 has sent spearphishing emails with a malicious executable disguised as a document or spreadsheet.909192939473
G0064 APT33 APT33 has sent spearphishing e-mails with archive attachments.198
G0067 APT37 APT37 delivers malware using spearphishing emails with malicious HWP attachments.107108109
G0082 APT38 APT38 has conducted spearphishing campaigns using malicious email attachments.176
G0087 APT39 APT39 leveraged spearphishing emails with malicious attachments to initially compromise victims.192193194
G0096 APT41 APT41 sent spearphishing emails with attachments such as compiled HTML (.chm) files to initially compromise their victims.236
S0642 BADFLICK BADFLICK has been distributed via spearphishing campaigns containing malicious Microsoft Word documents.10
S0234 Bandook Bandook is delivered via a malicious Word document inside a zip file.69
S0268 Bisonal Bisonal has been delivered as malicious email attachments.13
G1002 BITTER BITTER has sent spearphishing emails with a malicious RTF document or Excel spreadsheet.12203
G0098 BlackTech BlackTech has used spearphishing e-mails with malicious password-protected archived files (ZIP or RAR) to deliver malware.16653
S0520 BLINDINGCAN BLINDINGCAN has been delivered by phishing emails containing malicious Microsoft Office documents.55
G0060 BRONZE BUTLER BRONZE BUTLER used spearphishing emails with malicious Microsoft Word attachments to infect victims.7677
S1039 Bumblebee Bumblebee has gained execution through luring users into opening malicious attachments.37363538
C0011 C0011 During C0011, Transparent Tribe sent malicious attachments via email to student targets in India.246
C0015 C0015 For C0015, security researchers assessed the threat actors likely used a phishing campaign to distribute a weaponized attachment to victims.241
S0631 Chaes Chaes has been delivered by sending victims a phishing email containing a malicious .docx file.65
S0660 Clambling Clambling has been delivered to victim’s machines through malicious e-mail attachments.34
G0080 Cobalt Group Cobalt Group has sent spearphishing emails with various attachment types to corporate and personal email accounts of victim organizations. Attachment types have included .rtf, .doc, .xls, archives containing LNK files, and password protected archives containing .exe and .scr executables.120119118116117115121114
G0142 Confucius Confucius has crafted and sent victims malicious attachments to gain initial access.29
S1014 DanBot DanBot has been distributed within a malicious Excel attachment via spearphishing emails.11
G0012 Darkhotel Darkhotel has sent spearphishing emails with malicious RAR and .LNK attachments.131132
G0079 DarkHydrus DarkHydrus has sent spearphishing emails with password-protected RAR archives containing malicious Excel Web Query files (.iqy). The group has also sent spearphishing emails that contained malicious Microsoft Office documents that use the “attachedTemplate” technique to load a template from a remote server.223224225
S1066 DarkTortilla DarkTortilla has been distributed via spearphishing emails containing archive attachments, with file types such as .iso, .zip, .img, .dmg, and .tar, as well as through malicious documents.27
S0673 DarkWatchman DarkWatchman has been delivered via spearphishing emails that contain a malicious zip file.41
G0035 Dragonfly Dragonfly has sent emails with malicious attachments to gain initial access.140
G0066 Elderwood Elderwood has delivered zero-day exploits and malware to victims via targeted emails containing malicious attachments.230231
G1003 Ember Bear Ember Bear has sent spearphishing emails containing malicious attachments in the form of PDFs, Word documents, JavaScript files, and Control Panel File (CPL) executables.51
S0367 Emotet Emotet has been delivered by phishing emails containing attachments. 141516171819202122
S0634 EnvyScout EnvyScout has been distributed via spearphishing as an email attachment.33
G1011 EXOTIC LILY EXOTIC LILY conducted an e-mail thread-hijacking campaign with malicious ISO attachments.22137
G0137 Ferocious Kitten Ferocious Kitten has conducted spearphishing campaigns containing malicious documents to lure victims to open the attachments.197
G0085 FIN4 FIN4 has used spearphishing emails containing attachments (which are often stolen, legitimate documents sent from compromised accounts) with embedded malicious macros.8988
G0037 FIN6 FIN6 has targeted victims with e-mails containing malicious attachments.205
G0046 FIN7 FIN7 sent spearphishing emails with either malicious Microsoft Documents or RTF files attached.17217317423175
G0061 FIN8 FIN8 has distributed targeted emails containing Word documents with embedded malicious macros.177179178
S0696 Flagpro Flagpro has been distributed via spearphishing as an email attachment.53
C0001 Frankenstein During Frankenstein, the threat actors likely used spearphishing emails to send malicious Microsoft Word documents.245
G0084 Gallmaker Gallmaker sent emails with malicious Microsoft Office documents attached.75
G0047 Gamaredon Group Gamaredon Group has delivered spearphishing emails with malicious attachments to targets.206207208209210211
G0078 Gorgon Group Gorgon Group sent emails to victims with malicious Microsoft Office documents attached.78
S0499 Hancitor Hancitor has been delivered via phishing emails with malicious attachments.64
G0126 Higaisa Higaisa has sent spearphishing emails containing malicious attachments.195196
S0483 IcedID IcedID has been delivered via phishing e-mails with malicious attachments.70
G0100 Inception Inception has used weaponized documents attached to spearphishing emails for reconnaissance and initial compromise.184185186187
G0136 IndigoZebra IndigoZebra sent spearphishing emails containing malicious password-protected RAR attachments.237238
S0528 Javali Javali has been delivered as malicious e-mail attachments.50
S0648 JSS Loader JSS Loader has been delivered by phishing emails containing malicious Microsoft Excel attachments.23
S0585 Kerrdown Kerrdown has been distributed through malicious e-mail attachments.73
G0094 Kimsuky Kimsuky has used emails containing Word, Excel and/or HWP (Hangul Word Processor) documents in their spearphishing campaigns.8185868382328084
S0669 KOCTOPUS KOCTOPUS has been distributed via spearphishing emails with malicious attachments.31
S0356 KONNI KONNI has been delivered via spearphishing campaigns through a malicious Word document.72
G0032 Lazarus Group Lazarus Group has targeted victims with spearphishing emails containing malicious Microsoft Word documents.23425233232
G0140 LazyScripter LazyScripter has used spam emails weaponized with archive or document files as its initial infection vector.31
G0065 Leviathan Leviathan has sent spearphishing emails with malicious attachments, including .rtf, .doc, and .xls files.138139
S0447 Lokibot Lokibot is delivered via a malicious XLS attachment contained within a spearhpishing email.39
G0095 Machete Machete has delivered spearphishing emails that contain a zipped file with malicious contents.167168169
G0045 menuPass menuPass has sent malicious Office documents via email as part of spearphishing campaigns as well as executables disguised as documents.214212213215
S0455 Metamorfo Metamorfo has been delivered to victims via emails with malicious HTML attachments.5758
G0103 Mofang Mofang delivered spearphishing emails with malicious documents, PDFs, or Excel files attached.239
G0021 Molerats Molerats has sent phishing emails with malicious Microsoft Word and PDF attachments.135136137
G0069 MuddyWater MuddyWater has compromised third parties and used compromised accounts to send spearphishing emails with targeted attachments to recipients.127130126124128129 125
G0129 Mustang Panda Mustang Panda has used spearphishing attachments to deliver initial access payloads.180181182
G0019 Naikon Naikon has used malicious e-mail attachments to deliver malware.79
S0198 NETWIRE NETWIRE has been spread via e-mail campaigns utilizing malicious attachments.67
G0133 Nomadic Octopus Nomadic Octopus has targeted victims with spearphishing emails containing malicious attachments.23571
S0346 OceanSalt OceanSalt has been delivered via spearphishing emails with Microsoft Office attachments.4
S0340 Octopus Octopus has been delivered via spearsphishing emails.71
G0049 OilRig OilRig has sent spearphising emails with malicious attachments to potential victims using compromised and/or spoofed email accounts.163164165
C0022 Operation Dream Job During Operation Dream Job, Lazarus Group sent emails with malicious attachments to gain unauthorized access to targets’ computers.243242
C0016 Operation Dust Storm During Operation Dust Storm, the threat actors sent spearphishing emails that contained a malicious Microsoft Word document.244
C0005 Operation Spalax During Operation Spalax, the threat actors sent phishing emails that included a PDF document that in some cases led to the download and execution of malware.247
S1017 OutSteel OutSteel has been distributed as a malicious attachment within a spearphishing email.51
G0040 Patchwork Patchwork has used spearphishing with an attachment to deliver files with exploits to initial victims.149150151152
G0068 PLATINUM PLATINUM has sent spearphishing emails with attachments to victims as its primary initial access vector.226
S0428 PoetRAT PoetRAT was distributed via malicious Word documents.56
S0453 Pony Pony has been delivered via spearphishing attachments.66
S0650 QakBot QakBot has spread through emails with malicious attachments.4547484246444349
S0458 Ramsay Ramsay has been distributed through spearphishing emails with malicious attachments.54
G0075 Rancor Rancor has attached a malicious document to an email to gain initial access.171
S0496 REvil REvil has been distributed via malicious e-mail attachments including MS Word Documents.5960616263
S0433 Rifdoor Rifdoor has been distributed in e-mails with malicious Excel or Word documents.9
S0240 ROKRAT ROKRAT has been delivered via spearphishing emails that contain a malicious Hangul Office or Microsoft Word document.68
S0148 RTM RTM has been delivered via spearphishing attachments disguised as PDF documents.30
G0048 RTM RTM has used spearphishing attachments to distribute its malware.240
S1018 Saint Bot Saint Bot has been distributed as malicious attachments within spearphishing emails.7451
G0034 Sandworm Team Sandworm Team has delivered malicious Microsoft Office attachments via spearphishing emails.199200201202
G1008 SideCopy SideCopy has sent spearphishing emails with malicious hta file attachments.134
G0121 Sidewinder Sidewinder has sent e-mails with malicious attachments often crafted for specific targets.96
G0091 Silence Silence has sent emails with malicious DOCX, CHM, LNK and ZIP attachments. 979899
S1030 Squirrelwaffle Squirrelwaffle has been distributed via malicious Microsoft Office documents within spam emails.67
S1064 SVCReady SVCReady has been distributed via spearphishing campaigns containing malicious Mircrosoft Word documents.8
G0062 TA459 TA459 has targeted victims using spearphishing emails with malicious Microsoft Word attachments.95
G0092 TA505 TA505 has used spearphishing emails with malicious attachments to initially compromise victims.153154155156157158159160161
G0127 TA551 TA551 has sent spearphishing attachments with password protected ZIP files.24227228
S0011 Taidoor Taidoor has been delivered through spearphishing emails.52
G0089 The White Company The White Company has sent phishing emails with malicious Microsoft Word attachments to victims.229
G0027 Threat Group-3390 Threat Group-3390 has used e-mail to deliver malicious attachments to victims.34
S0665 ThreatNeedle ThreatNeedle has been distributed via a malicious Word document within a spearphishing email.25
G0131 Tonto Team Tonto Team has delivered payloads via spearphishing attachments.162
G0134 Transparent Tribe Transparent Tribe has sent spearphishing e-mails with attachments to deliver malicious payloads.216217218219220
S0266 TrickBot TrickBot has used an email with an Excel sheet containing a malicious macro to deploy the malware26
G0081 Tropic Trooper Tropic Trooper sent spearphishing emails that contained malicious Microsoft Office and fake installer file attachments.104101100103102
S0476 Valak Valak has been delivered via spearphishing e-mails with password protected ZIP files.24
S0670 WarzoneRAT WarzoneRAT has been distributed as a malicious attachment within an email.2829
G0112 Windshift Windshift has sent spearphishing emails with attachment to harvest credentials and deliver malware.133
G0090 WIRTE WIRTE has sent emails to intended victims with malicious MS Word and Excel attachments.87
G0102 Wizard Spider Wizard Spider has used spearphishing attachments to deliver Microsoft documents containing macros or PDFs containing malicious links to download either Emotet, Bokbot, TrickBot, or Bazar.123122
S1065 Woody RAT Woody RAT has been delivered via malicious Word documents and archive files.5
S1013 ZxxZ ZxxZ has been distributed via spearphishing emails, usually containing a malicious RTF or Excel attachment.12

Mitigations

ID Mitigation Description
M1049 Antivirus/Antimalware Anti-virus can also automatically quarantine suspicious files.
M1031 Network Intrusion Prevention Network intrusion prevention systems and systems designed to scan and remove malicious email attachments can be used to block activity.
M1021 Restrict Web-Based Content Block unknown or unused attachments by default that should not be transmitted over email as a best practice to prevent some vectors, such as .scr, .exe, .pif, .cpl, etc. Some email scanning devices can open and analyze compressed and encrypted formats, such as zip and rar that may be used to conceal malicious attachments.
M1054 Software Configuration Use anti-spoofing and email authentication mechanisms to filter messages based on validity checks of the sender domain (using SPF) and integrity of messages (using DKIM). Enabling these mechanisms within an organization (through policies such as DMARC) may enable recipients (intra-org and cross domain) to perform similar message filtering and validation.12
M1017 User Training Users can be trained to identify social engineering techniques and spearphishing emails.

Detection

ID Data Source Data Component
DS0015 Application Log Application Log Content
DS0022 File File Creation
DS0029 Network Traffic Network Traffic Content

References

  1. Microsoft. (2020, October 13). Anti-spoofing protection in EOP. Retrieved October 19, 2020. ↩

  2. Australian Cyber Security Centre. (2012, December). Mitigating Spoofed Emails Using Sender Policy Framework. Retrieved October 19, 2020. ↩

  3. Stepanic, D.. (2020, January 13). Embracing offensive tooling: Building detections against Koadic using EQL. Retrieved November 30, 2020. ↩

  4. Sherstobitoff, R., Malhotra, A. (2018, October 18). ‘Operation Oceansalt’ Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group. Retrieved November 30, 2018. ↩

  5. MalwareBytes Threat Intelligence Team. (2022, August 3). Woody RAT: A new feature-rich malware spotted in the wild. Retrieved December 6, 2022. ↩

  6. Duncan, B. (2020, April 3). GuLoader: Malspam Campaign Installing NetWire RAT. Retrieved January 7, 2021. ↩

  7. Proofpoint. (2020, December 2). Geofenced NetWire Campaigns. Retrieved January 7, 2021. ↩

  8. Schlapfer, Patrick. (2022, June 6). A New Loader Gets Ready. Retrieved December 13, 2022. ↩

  9. Knight, S.. (2020, April 16). VMware Carbon Black TAU Threat Analysis: The Evolution of Lazarus. Retrieved May 1, 2020. ↩

  10. Accenture iDefense Unit. (2019, March 5). Mudcarp’s Focus on Submarine Technologies. Retrieved August 24, 2021. ↩

  11. SecureWorks 2019, August 27 LYCEUM Takes Center Stage in Middle East Campaign Retrieved. 2019/11/19  ↩

  12. Raghuprasad, C . (2022, May 11). Bitter APT adds Bangladesh to their targets. Retrieved June 1, 2022. ↩↩

  13. Mercer, W., et al. (2020, March 5). Bisonal: 10 years of play. Retrieved January 26, 2022. ↩

  14. CIS. (2017, April 28). Emotet Changes TTPs and Arrives in United States. Retrieved January 17, 2019. ↩

  15. Smith, A.. (2017, December 22). Protect your network from Emotet Trojan with Malwarebytes Endpoint Security. Retrieved January 17, 2019. ↩

  16. Symantec. (2018, July 18). The Evolution of Emotet: From Banking Trojan to Threat Distributor. Retrieved March 25, 2019. ↩

  17. US-CERT. (2018, July 20). Alert (TA18-201A) Emotet Malware. Retrieved March 25, 2019. ↩

  18. Brumaghin, E.. (2019, January 15). Emotet re-emerges after the holidays. Retrieved March 25, 2019. ↩

  19. Trend Micro. (2019, January 16). Exploring Emotet’s Activities . Retrieved March 25, 2019. ↩

  20. Özarslan, S. (2018, December 21). The Christmas Card you never wanted - A new wave of Emotet is back to wreak havoc. Retrieved March 25, 2019. ↩

  21. Lee, S.. (2019, April 24). Emotet Using WMI to Launch PowerShell Encoded Code. Retrieved May 24, 2019. ↩

  22. Kessem, L., et al. (2017, November 13). New Banking Trojan IcedID Discovered by IBM X-Force Research. Retrieved July 14, 2020. ↩

  23. eSentire. (2021, July 21). Notorious Cybercrime Gang, FIN7, Lands Malware in Law Firm Using Fake Legal Complaint Against Jack Daniels’ Owner, Brown-Forman Inc.. Retrieved September 20, 2021. ↩↩

  24. Duncan, B. (2020, July 24). Evolution of Valak, from Its Beginnings to Mass Distribution. Retrieved August 31, 2020. ↩↩

  25. Vyacheslav Kopeytsev and Seongsu Park. (2021, February 25). Lazarus targets defense industry with ThreatNeedle. Retrieved October 27, 2021. ↩↩

  26. Llimos, N., Pascual, C.. (2019, February 12). Trickbot Adds Remote Application Credential-Grabbing Capabilities to Its Repertoire. Retrieved March 12, 2019. ↩

  27. Secureworks Counter Threat Unit Research Team. (2022, August 17). DarkTortilla Malware Analysis. Retrieved November 3, 2022. ↩

  28. Harakhavik, Y. (2020, February 3). Warzone: Behind the enemy lines. Retrieved December 17, 2021. ↩

  29. Uptycs Threat Research Team. (2021, January 12). Confucius APT deploys Warzone RAT. Retrieved December 17, 2021. ↩↩

  30. Duncan, B., Harbison, M. (2019, January 23). Russian Language Malspam Pushing Redaman Banking Malware. Retrieved June 16, 2020. ↩

  31. Jazi, H. (2021, February). LazyScripter: From Empire to double RAT. Retrieved November 24, 2021. ↩↩

  32. Jazi, H. (2021, June 1). Kimsuky APT continues to target South Korean government using AppleSeed backdoor. Retrieved June 10, 2021. ↩↩

  33. MSTIC. (2021, May 28). Breaking down NOBELIUM’s latest early-stage toolset. Retrieved August 4, 2021. ↩

  34. Lunghi, D. et al. (2020, February). Uncovering DRBControl. Retrieved November 12, 2021. ↩↩

  35. Cybereason. (2022, August 17). Bumblebee Loader – The High Road to Enterprise Domain Control. Retrieved August 29, 2022. ↩

  36. Kamble, V. (2022, June 28). Bumblebee: New Loader Rapidly Assuming Central Position in Cyber-crime Ecosystem. Retrieved August 24, 2022. ↩

  37. Merriman, K. and Trouerbach, P. (2022, April 28). This isn’t Optimus Prime’s Bumblebee but it’s Still Transforming. Retrieved August 22, 2022. ↩↩

  38. Salem, A. (2022, April 27). The chronicles of Bumblebee: The Hook, the Bee, and the Trickbot connection. Retrieved September 2, 2022. ↩

  39. Muhammad, I., Unterbrink, H.. (2021, January 6). A Deep Dive into Lokibot Infection Chain. Retrieved August 31, 2021. ↩

  40. Arsene, L. (2020, April 21). Oil & Gas Spearphishing Campaigns Drop Agent Tesla Spyware in Advance of Historic OPEC+ Deal. Retrieved May 19, 2020. ↩

  41. Smith, S., Stafford, M. (2021, December 14). DarkWatchman: A new evolution in fileless techniques. Retrieved January 10, 2022. ↩

  42. Cyberint. (2021, May 25). Qakbot Banking Trojan. Retrieved September 27, 2021. ↩

  43. Group IB. (2020, September). LOCK LIKE A PRO. Retrieved September 27, 2021. ↩

  44. Kuzmenko, A. et al. (2021, September 2). QakBot technical analysis. Retrieved September 27, 2021. ↩

  45. Mendoza, E. et al. (2020, May 25). Qakbot Resurges, Spreads through VBS Files. Retrieved September 27, 2021. ↩

  46. Morrow, D. (2021, April 15). The rise of QakBot. Retrieved September 27, 2021. ↩

  47. Sette, N. et al. (2020, June 4). Qakbot Malware Now Exfiltrating Emails for Sophisticated Thread Hijacking Attacks. Retrieved September 27, 2021. ↩

  48. Trend Micro. (2020, December 17). QAKBOT: A decade-old malware still with new tricks. Retrieved September 27, 2021. ↩

  49. Vilkomir-Preisman, S. (2022, August 18). Beating Black Basta Ransomware. Retrieved March 8, 2023. ↩

  50. GReAT. (2020, July 14). The Tetrade: Brazilian banking malware goes global. Retrieved November 9, 2020. ↩

  51. Unit 42. (2022, February 25). Spear Phishing Attacks Target Organizations in Ukraine, Payloads Include the Document Stealer OutSteel and the Downloader SaintBot. Retrieved June 9, 2022. ↩↩↩

  52. Trend Micro. (2012). The Taidoor Campaign. Retrieved November 12, 2014. ↩

  53. Hada, H. (2021, December 28). Flagpro The new malware used by BlackTech. Retrieved March 25, 2022. ↩↩

  54. Antiy CERT. (2020, April 20). Analysis of Ramsay components of Darkhotel’s infiltration and isolation network. Retrieved March 24, 2021. ↩

  55. US-CERT. (2020, August 19). MAR-10295134-1.v1 – North Korean Remote Access Trojan: BLINDINGCAN. Retrieved August 19, 2020. ↩

  56. Mercer, W, et al. (2020, April 16). PoetRAT: Python RAT uses COVID-19 lures to target Azerbaijan public and private sectors. Retrieved April 27, 2020. ↩

  57. Sierra, E., Iglesias, G.. (2018, April 24). Metamorfo Campaigns Targeting Brazilian Users. Retrieved July 30, 2020. ↩

  58. ESET Research. (2019, October 3). Casbaneiro: peculiarities of this banking Trojan that affects Brazil and Mexico. Retrieved September 23, 2021. ↩

  59. Han, Karsten. (2019, June 4). Strange Bits: Sodinokibi Spam, CinaRAT, and Fake G DATA. Retrieved August 4, 2020. ↩

  60. Cylance. (2019, July 3). hreat Spotlight: Sodinokibi Ransomware. Retrieved August 4, 2020. ↩

  61. Counter Threat Unit Research Team. (2019, September 24). REvil/Sodinokibi Ransomware. Retrieved August 4, 2020. ↩

  62. McAfee. (2019, October 2). McAfee ATR Analyzes Sodinokibi aka REvil Ransomware-as-a-Service – What The Code Tells Us. Retrieved August 4, 2020. ↩

  63. Ozarslan, S. (2020, January 15). A Brief History of Sodinokibi. Retrieved August 5, 2020. ↩

  64. Anubhav, A., Jallepalli, D. (2016, September 23). Hancitor (AKA Chanitor) observed using multiple attack approaches. Retrieved August 13, 2020. ↩

  65. Salem, E. (2020, November 17). CHAES: Novel Malware Targeting Latin American E-Commerce. Retrieved June 30, 2021. ↩

  66. hasherezade. (2016, April 11). No money, but Pony! From a mail to a trojan horse. Retrieved May 21, 2020. ↩

  67. Palazolo, G. (2021, October 7). SquirrelWaffle: New Malware Loader Delivering Cobalt Strike and QakBot. Retrieved August 9, 2022. ↩

  68. Jazi, Hossein. (2021, January 6). Retrohunting APT37: North Korean APT used VBA self decode technique to inject RokRat. Retrieved March 22, 2022. ↩

  69. Check Point. (2020, November 26). Bandook: Signed & Delivered. Retrieved May 31, 2021. ↩

  70. Kimayong, P. (2020, June 18). COVID-19 and FMLA Campaigns used to install new IcedID banking malware. Retrieved July 14, 2020. ↩

  71. Cherepanov, A. (2018, October 4). Nomadic Octopus Cyber espionage in Central Asia. Retrieved October 13, 2021. ↩↩

  72. Threat Intelligence Team. (2021, August 23). New variant of Konni malware used in campaign targetting Russia. Retrieved January 5, 2022. ↩

  73. Amnesty International. (2021, February 24). Vietnamese activists targeted by notorious hacking group. Retrieved March 1, 2021. ↩↩

  74. Hasherezade. (2021, April 6). A deep dive into Saint Bot, a new downloader. Retrieved June 9, 2022. ↩

  75. Symantec Security Response. (2018, October 10). Gallmaker: New Attack Group Eschews Malware to Live off the Land. Retrieved November 27, 2018. ↩

  76. DiMaggio, J. (2016, April 28). Tick cyberespionage group zeros in on Japan. Retrieved July 16, 2018. ↩

  77. Chen, J. et al. (2019, November). Operation ENDTRADE: TICK’s Multi-Stage Backdoors for Attacking Industries and Stealing Classified Data. Retrieved June 9, 2020. ↩

  78. Falcone, R., et al. (2018, August 02). The Gorgon Group: Slithering Between Nation State and Cybercrime. Retrieved August 7, 2018. ↩

  79. CheckPoint. (2020, May 7). Naikon APT: Cyber Espionage Reloaded. Retrieved May 26, 2020. ↩

  80. An, J and Malhotra, A. (2021, November 10). North Korean attackers use malicious blogs to deliver malware to high-profile South Korean targets. Retrieved December 29, 2021. ↩

  81. Cimpanu, C.. (2018, December 5). Cyber-espionage group uses Chrome extension to infect victims. Retrieved August 26, 2019. ↩

  82. Dahan, A. et al. (2020, November 2). Back to the Future: Inside the Kimsuky KGH Spyware Suite. Retrieved November 6, 2020. ↩

  83. Kim, J. et al. (2019, October). KIMSUKY GROUP: TRACKING THE KING OF THE SPEAR PHISHING. Retrieved November 2, 2020. ↩

  84. KISA. (n.d.). Phishing Target Reconnaissance and Attack Resource Analysis Operation Muzabi. Retrieved March 7, 2022. ↩

  85. Tarakanov , D.. (2013, September 11). The “Kimsuky” Operation: A North Korean APT?. Retrieved August 13, 2019. ↩

  86. ThreatConnect. (2020, September 28). Kimsuky Phishing Operations Putting In Work. Retrieved October 30, 2020. ↩

  87. Yamout, M. (2021, November 29). WIRTE’s campaign in the Middle East ‘living off the land’ since at least 2019. Retrieved February 1, 2022. ↩

  88. Vengerik, B. & Dennesen, K.. (2014, December 5). Hacking the Street? FIN4 Likely Playing the Market. Retrieved January 15, 2019. ↩

  89. Vengerik, B. et al.. (2014, December 5). Hacking the Street? FIN4 Likely Playing the Market. Retrieved December 17, 2018. ↩

  90. Foltýn, T. (2018, March 13). OceanLotus ships new backdoor using old tricks. Retrieved May 22, 2018. ↩

  91. Dahan, A. (2017, May 24). OPERATION COBALT KITTY: A LARGE-SCALE APT IN ASIA CARRIED OUT BY THE OCEANLOTUS GROUP. Retrieved November 5, 2018. ↩

  92. Dahan, A. (2017). Operation Cobalt Kitty. Retrieved December 27, 2018. ↩

  93. Dumont, R. (2019, March 20). Fake or Fake: Keeping up with OceanLotus decoys. Retrieved April 1, 2019. ↩

  94. Henderson, S., et al. (2020, April 22). Vietnamese Threat Actors APT32 Targeting Wuhan Government and Chinese Ministry of Emergency Management in Latest Example of COVID-19 Related Espionage. Retrieved April 28, 2020. ↩

  95. Axel F. (2017, April 27). APT Targets Financial Analysts with CVE-2017-0199. Retrieved February 15, 2018. ↩

  96. Hegel, T. (2021, January 13). A Global Perspective of the SideWinder APT. Retrieved January 27, 2021. ↩

  97. Skulkin, O.. (2019, January 20). Silence: Dissecting Malicious CHM Files and Performing Forensic Analysis. Retrieved May 24, 2019. ↩

  98. GReAT. (2017, November 1). Silence – a new Trojan attacking financial organizations. Retrieved May 24, 2019. ↩

  99. Group-IB. (2018, September). Silence: Moving Into the Darkside. Retrieved May 5, 2020. ↩

  100. Alexander, G., et al. (2018, August 8). Familiar Feeling: A Malware Campaign Targeting the Tibetan Diaspora Resurfaces. Retrieved June 17, 2019. ↩

  101. Alintanahin, K. (2015). Operation Tropic Trooper: Relying on Tried-and-Tested Flaws to Infiltrate Secret Keepers. Retrieved June 14, 2019. ↩

  102. Chen, J.. (2020, May 12). Tropic Trooper’s Back: USBferry Attack Targets Air gapped Environments. Retrieved May 20, 2020. ↩

  103. Moore, S. et al. (2020, April 30). Anomali Suspects that China-Backed APT Pirate Panda May Be Seeking Access to Vietnam Government Data Center. Retrieved May 19, 2020. ↩

  104. Ray, V. (2016, November 22). Tropic Trooper Targets Taiwanese Government and Fossil Fuel Provider With Poison Ivy. Retrieved November 9, 2018. ↩

  105. Mandiant. (n.d.). APT1 Exposing One of China’s Cyber Espionage Units. Retrieved July 18, 2016. ↩

  106. Check Point Software Technologies. (2015). ROCKET KITTEN: A CAMPAIGN WITH 9 LIVES. Retrieved March 16, 2018. ↩

  107. FireEye. (2018, February 20). APT37 (Reaper): The Overlooked North Korean Actor. Retrieved March 1, 2018. ↩

  108. Mercer, W., Rascagneres, P. (2018, January 16). Korea In The Crosshairs. Retrieved May 21, 2018. ↩

  109. GReAT. (2019, May 13). ScarCruft continues to evolve, introduces Bluetooth harvester. Retrieved June 4, 2019. ↩

  110. Moran, N., Oppenheim, M., Engle, S., & Wartell, R.. (2014, September 3). Darwin’s Favorite APT Group [Blog]. Retrieved November 12, 2014. ↩

  111. Sancho, D., et al. (2012, May 22). IXESHE An APT Campaign. Retrieved June 7, 2019. ↩

  112. AhnLab. (2018, June 23). Targeted attacks by Andariel Threat Group, a subgroup of the Lazarus. Retrieved September 29, 2021. ↩

  113. Jazi, H. (2021, April 19). Lazarus APT conceals malicious code within BMP image to drop its RAT . Retrieved September 29, 2021. ↩

  114. Giagone, R., Bermejo, L., and Yarochkin, F. (2017, November 20). Cobalt Strikes Again: Spam Runs Use Macros and CVE-2017-8759 Exploit Against Russian Banks. Retrieved March 7, 2019. ↩

  115. Klijnsma, Y.. (2017, November 28). Gaffe Reveals Full List of Targets in Spear Phishing Attack Using Cobalt Strike Against Financial Institutions. Retrieved October 10, 2018. ↩

  116. Matveeva, V. (2017, August 15). Secrets of Cobalt. Retrieved October 10, 2018. ↩

  117. Mesa, M, et al. (2017, June 1). Microsoft Word Intruder Integrates CVE-2017-0199, Utilized by Cobalt Group to Target Financial Institutions. Retrieved October 10, 2018. ↩

  118. Positive Technologies. (2016, December 16). Cobalt Snatch. Retrieved October 9, 2018. ↩

  119. Positive Technologies. (2017, August 16). Cobalt Strikes Back: An Evolving Multinational Threat to Finance. Retrieved September 5, 2018. ↩

  120. Svajcer, V. (2018, July 31). Multiple Cobalt Personality Disorder. Retrieved September 5, 2018. ↩

  121. Unit 42. (2018, October 25). New Techniques to Uncover and Attribute Financial actors Commodity Builders and Infrastructure Revealed. Retrieved December 11, 2018. ↩

  122. Brian Donohue, Katie Nickels, Paul Michaud, Adina Bodkins, Taylor Chapman, Tony Lambert, Jeff Felling, Kyle Rainey, Mike Haag, Matt Graeber, Aaron Didier.. (2020, October 29). A Bazar start: How one hospital thwarted a Ryuk ransomware outbreak. Retrieved October 30, 2020. ↩

  123. John, E. and Carvey, H. (2019, May 30). Unraveling the Spiderweb: Timelining ATT&CK Artifacts Used by GRIM SPIDER. Retrieved May 12, 2020. ↩

  124. ClearSky. (2019, June). Iranian APT group ‘MuddyWater’ Adds Exploits to Their Arsenal. Retrieved May 14, 2020. ↩

  125. FBI, CISA, CNMF, NCSC-UK. (2022, February 24). Iranian Government-Sponsored Actors Conduct Cyber Operations Against Global Government and Commercial Networks. Retrieved September 27, 2022. ↩

  126. Kaspersky Lab’s Global Research & Analysis Team. (2018, October 10). MuddyWater expands operations. Retrieved November 2, 2018. ↩

  127. Lancaster, T.. (2017, November 14). Muddying the Water: Targeted Attacks in the Middle East. Retrieved March 15, 2018. ↩

  128. Mele, G. et al. (2021, February 10). Probable Iranian Cyber Actors, Static Kitten, Conducting Cyberespionage Campaign Targeting UAE and Kuwait Government Agencies. Retrieved March 17, 2021. ↩

  129. Peretz, A. and Theck, E. (2021, March 5). Earth Vetala – MuddyWater Continues to Target Organizations in the Middle East. Retrieved March 18, 2021. ↩

  130. Singh, S. et al.. (2018, March 13). Iranian Threat Group Updates Tactics, Techniques and Procedures in Spear Phishing Campaign. Retrieved April 11, 2018. ↩

  131. Kaspersky Lab’s Global Research & Analysis Team. (2015, August 10). Darkhotel’s attacks in 2015. Retrieved November 2, 2018. ↩

  132. Microsoft. (2016, July 14). Reverse engineering DUBNIUM – Stage 2 payload analysis . Retrieved March 31, 2021. ↩

  133. Karim, T. (2018, August). TRAILS OF WINDSHIFT. Retrieved June 25, 2020. ↩

  134. Threat Intelligence Team. (2021, December 2). SideCopy APT: Connecting lures victims, payloads to infrastructure. Retrieved June 13, 2022. ↩

  135. GReAT. (2019, April 10). Gaza Cybergang Group1, operation SneakyPastes. Retrieved May 13, 2020. ↩

  136. Falcone, R., et al. (2020, March 3). Molerats Delivers Spark Backdoor to Government and Telecommunications Organizations. Retrieved December 14, 2020. ↩

  137. Cybereason Nocturnus Team. (2020, December 9). MOLERATS IN THE CLOUD: New Malware Arsenal Abuses Cloud Platforms in Middle East Espionage Campaign. Retrieved December 22, 2020. ↩

  138. Axel F, Pierre T. (2017, October 16). Leviathan: Espionage actor spearphishes maritime and defense targets. Retrieved February 15, 2018. ↩

  139. CISA. (2021, July 19). (AA21-200A) Joint Cybersecurity Advisory – Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures of Indicted APT40 Actors Associated with China’s MSS Hainan State Security Department. Retrieved August 12, 2021. ↩

  140. Slowik, J. (2021, October). THE BAFFLING BERSERK BEAR: A DECADE’S ACTIVITY TARGETING CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE. Retrieved December 6, 2021. ↩

  141. Lee, B, et al. (2018, February 28). Sofacy Attacks Multiple Government Entities. Retrieved March 15, 2018. ↩

  142. Falcone, R. (2018, March 15). Sofacy Uses DealersChoice to Target European Government Agency. Retrieved June 4, 2018. ↩

  143. Lee, B., Falcone, R. (2018, June 06). Sofacy Group’s Parallel Attacks. Retrieved June 18, 2018. ↩

  144. Mueller, R. (2018, July 13). Indictment - United States of America vs. VIKTOR BORISOVICH NETYKSHO, et al. Retrieved September 13, 2018. ↩

  145. Kaspersky Lab’s Global Research & Analysis Team. (2018, February 20). A Slice of 2017 Sofacy Activity. Retrieved November 27, 2018. ↩

  146. Accenture Security. (2018, November 29). SNAKEMACKEREL. Retrieved April 15, 2019. ↩

  147. Hacquebord, F., Remorin, L. (2020, December 17). Pawn Storm’s Lack of Sophistication as a Strategy. Retrieved January 13, 2021. ↩

  148. Secureworks CTU. (2017, March 30). IRON TWILIGHT Supports Active Measures. Retrieved February 28, 2022. ↩

  149. Cymmetria. (2016). Unveiling Patchwork - The Copy-Paste APT. Retrieved August 3, 2016. ↩

  150. Kaspersky Lab’s Global Research & Analysis Team. (2016, July 8). The Dropping Elephant – aggressive cyber-espionage in the Asian region. Retrieved August 3, 2016. ↩

  151. Lunghi, D., et al. (2017, December). Untangling the Patchwork Cyberespionage Group. Retrieved July 10, 2018. ↩

  152. Meltzer, M, et al. (2018, June 07). Patchwork APT Group Targets US Think Tanks. Retrieved July 16, 2018. ↩

  153. Proofpoint Staff. (2017, September 27). Threat Actor Profile: TA505, From Dridex to GlobeImposter. Retrieved May 28, 2019. ↩

  154. Proofpoint Staff. (2018, June 8). TA505 shifts with the times. Retrieved May 28, 2019. ↩

  155. Schwarz, D. and Proofpoint Staff. (2019, January 9). ServHelper and FlawedGrace - New malware introduced by TA505. Retrieved May 28, 2019. ↩

  156. Salem, E. (2019, April 25). Threat Actor TA505 Targets Financial Enterprises Using LOLBins and a New Backdoor Malware. Retrieved May 28, 2019. ↩

  157. Proofpoint Staff. (2018, July 19). TA505 Abusing SettingContent-ms within PDF files to Distribute FlawedAmmyy RAT. Retrieved April 19, 2019. ↩

  158. Proofpoint Staff. (2018, March 7). Leaked Ammyy Admin Source Code Turned into Malware. Retrieved May 28, 2019. ↩

  159. Hiroaki, H. and Lu, L. (2019, June 12). Shifting Tactics: Breaking Down TA505 Group’s Use of HTML, RATs and Other Techniques in Latest Campaigns. Retrieved May 29, 2020. ↩

  160. Schwarz, D. et al. (2019, October 16). TA505 Distributes New SDBbot Remote Access Trojan with Get2 Downloader. Retrieved May 29, 2020. ↩

  161. Frydrych, M. (2020, April 14). TA505 Continues to Infect Networks With SDBbot RAT. Retrieved May 29, 2020. ↩

  162. Daniel Lughi, Jaromir Horejsi. (2020, October 2). Tonto Team - Exploring the TTPs of an advanced threat actor operating a large infrastructure. Retrieved October 17, 2021. ↩

  163. Lee, B., Falcone, R. (2018, February 23). OopsIE! OilRig Uses ThreeDollars to Deliver New Trojan. Retrieved July 16, 2018. ↩

  164. Lee, B., Falcone, R. (2018, July 25). OilRig Targets Technology Service Provider and Government Agency with QUADAGENT. Retrieved August 9, 2018. ↩

  165. Meyers, A. (2018, November 27). Meet CrowdStrike’s Adversary of the Month for November: HELIX KITTEN. Retrieved December 18, 2018. ↩

  166. Bermejo, L., et al. (2017, June 22). Following the Trail of BlackTech’s Cyber Espionage Campaigns. Retrieved May 5, 2020. ↩

  167. Kaspersky Global Research and Analysis Team. (2014, August 20). El Machete. Retrieved September 13, 2019. ↩

  168. ESET. (2019, July). MACHETE JUST GOT SHARPER Venezuelan government institutions under attack. Retrieved September 13, 2019. ↩

  169. kate. (2020, September 25). APT-C-43 steals Venezuelan military secrets to provide intelligence support for the reactionaries — HpReact campaign. Retrieved November 20, 2020. ↩

  170. Ahl, I. (2017, June 06). Privileges and Credentials: Phished at the Request of Counsel. Retrieved May 17, 2018. ↩

  171. Ash, B., et al. (2018, June 26). RANCOR: Targeted Attacks in South East Asia Using PLAINTEE and DDKONG Malware Families. Retrieved July 2, 2018. ↩

  172. Carr, N., et al. (2017, April 24). FIN7 Evolution and the Phishing LNK. Retrieved April 24, 2017. ↩

  173. Department of Justice. (2018, August 01). HOW FIN7 ATTACKED AND STOLE DATA. Retrieved August 24, 2018. ↩

  174. Platt, J. and Reeves, J.. (2019, March). FIN7 Revisited: Inside Astra Panel and SQLRat Malware. Retrieved June 18, 2019. ↩

  175. Loui, E. and Reynolds, J. (2021, August 30). CARBON SPIDER Embraces Big Game Hunting, Part 1. Retrieved September 20, 2021. ↩

  176. DHS/CISA. (2020, August 26). FASTCash 2.0: North Korea’s BeagleBoyz Robbing Banks. Retrieved September 29, 2021. ↩

  177. Bohannon, D. & Carr N. (2017, June 30). Obfuscation in the Wild: Targeted Attackers Lead the Way in Evasion Techniques. Retrieved February 12, 2018. ↩

  178. Elovitz, S. & Ahl, I. (2016, August 18). Know Your Enemy: New Financially-Motivated & Spear-Phishing Group. Retrieved February 26, 2018. ↩

  179. Kizhakkinan, D. et al.. (2016, May 11). Threat Actor Leverages Windows Zero-day Exploit in Payment Card Data Attacks. Retrieved February 12, 2018. ↩

  180. Insikt Group. (2020, July 28). CHINESE STATE-SPONSORED GROUP ‘REDDELTA’ TARGETS THE VATICAN AND CATHOLIC ORGANIZATIONS. Retrieved April 13, 2021. ↩

  181. Proofpoint Threat Research Team. (2020, November 23). TA416 Goes to Ground and Returns with a Golang PlugX Malware Loader. Retrieved April 13, 2021. ↩

  182. Huntley, S. (2022, March 7). An update on the threat landscape. Retrieved March 16, 2022. ↩

  183. FireEye Threat Intelligence. (2015, December 1). China-based Cyber Threat Group Uses Dropbox for Malware Communications and Targets Hong Kong Media Outlets. Retrieved December 4, 2015. ↩

  184. GReAT. (2014, December 10). Cloud Atlas: RedOctober APT is back in style. Retrieved May 8, 2020. ↩

  185. Symantec. (2018, March 14). Inception Framework: Alive and Well, and Hiding Behind Proxies. Retrieved May 8, 2020. ↩

  186. Lancaster, T. (2018, November 5). Inception Attackers Target Europe with Year-old Office Vulnerability. Retrieved May 8, 2020. ↩

  187. GReAT. (2019, August 12). Recent Cloud Atlas activity. Retrieved May 8, 2020. ↩

  188. ESET. (2022, February). THREAT REPORT T3 2021. Retrieved February 10, 2022. ↩

  189. F-Secure Labs. (2015, September 17). The Dukes: 7 years of Russian cyberespionage. Retrieved December 10, 2015. ↩

  190. Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC). (2021, May 27). New sophisticated email-based attack from NOBELIUM. Retrieved May 28, 2021. ↩

  191. Secureworks CTU. (n.d.). IRON HEMLOCK. Retrieved February 22, 2022. ↩

  192. Hawley et al. (2019, January 29). APT39: An Iranian Cyber Espionage Group Focused on Personal Information. Retrieved February 19, 2019. ↩

  193. Symantec. (2018, February 28). Chafer: Latest Attacks Reveal Heightened Ambitions. Retrieved May 22, 2020. ↩

  194. FBI. (2020, September 17). Indicators of Compromise Associated with Rana Intelligence Computing, also known as Advanced Persistent Threat 39, Chafer, Cadelspy, Remexi, and ITG07. Retrieved December 10, 2020. ↩

  195. Malwarebytes Threat Intelligence Team. (2020, June 4). New LNK attack tied to Higaisa APT discovered. Retrieved March 2, 2021. ↩

  196. Singh, S. Singh, A. (2020, June 11). The Return on the Higaisa APT. Retrieved March 2, 2021. ↩

  197. GReAT. (2021, June 16). Ferocious Kitten: 6 Years of Covert Surveillance in Iran. Retrieved September 22, 2021. ↩

  198. Microsoft Threat Protection Intelligence Team. (2020, June 18). Inside Microsoft Threat Protection: Mapping attack chains from cloud to endpoint. Retrieved June 22, 2020. ↩

  199. Ward, S.. (2014, October 14). iSIGHT discovers zero-day vulnerability CVE-2014-4114 used in Russian cyber-espionage campaign. Retrieved June 10, 2020. ↩

  200. US-CERT. (2016, February 25). ICS Alert (IR-ALERT-H-16-056-01) Cyber-Attack Against Ukrainian Critical Infrastructure. Retrieved June 10, 2020. ↩

  201. Cherepanov, A.. (2016, December 13). The rise of TeleBots: Analyzing disruptive KillDisk attacks. Retrieved June 10, 2020. ↩

  202. Scott W. Brady. (2020, October 15). United States vs. Yuriy Sergeyevich Andrienko et al.. Retrieved November 25, 2020. ↩

  203. Dela Paz, R. (2016, October 21). BITTER: a targeted attack against Pakistan. Retrieved June 1, 2022. ↩

  204. FireEye Labs. (2015, April). APT30 AND THE MECHANICS OF A LONG-RUNNING CYBER ESPIONAGE OPERATION. Retrieved May 1, 2015. ↩

  205. Visa Public. (2019, February). FIN6 Cybercrime Group Expands Threat to eCommerce Merchants. Retrieved September 16, 2019. ↩

  206. Kakara, H., Maruyama, E. (2020, April 17). Gamaredon APT Group Use Covid-19 Lure in Campaigns. Retrieved May 19, 2020. ↩

  207. Boutin, J. (2020, June 11). Gamaredon group grows its game. Retrieved June 16, 2020. ↩

  208. CERT-EE. (2021, January 27). Gamaredon Infection: From Dropper to Entry. Retrieved February 17, 2022. ↩

  209. Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center. (2022, February 4). ACTINIUM targets Ukrainian organizations. Retrieved February 18, 2022. ↩

  210. Unit 42. (2022, February 3). Russia’s Gamaredon aka Primitive Bear APT Group Actively Targeting Ukraine. Retrieved February 21, 2022. ↩

  211. Secureworks CTU. (n.d.). IRON TILDEN. Retrieved February 24, 2022. ↩

  212. FireEye iSIGHT Intelligence. (2017, April 6). APT10 (MenuPass Group): New Tools, Global Campaign Latest Manifestation of Longstanding Threat. Retrieved June 29, 2017. ↩

  213. Matsuda, A., Muhammad I. (2018, September 13). APT10 Targeting Japanese Corporations Using Updated TTPs. Retrieved September 17, 2018. ↩

  214. PwC and BAE Systems. (2017, April). Operation Cloud Hopper: Technical Annex. Retrieved April 13, 2017. ↩

  215. US District Court Southern District of New York. (2018, December 17). United States v. Zhu Hua Indictment. Retrieved December 17, 2020. ↩

  216. Huss, D. (2016, March 1). Operation Transparent Tribe. Retrieved June 8, 2016. ↩

  217. Dedola, G. (2020, August 20). Transparent Tribe: Evolution analysis, part 1. Retrieved September 2, 2021. ↩

  218. Malhotra, A. (2021, March 2). ObliqueRAT returns with new campaign using hijacked websites. Retrieved September 2, 2021. ↩

  219. Malhotra, A. et al. (2021, May 13). Transparent Tribe APT expands its Windows malware arsenal. Retrieved September 2, 2021. ↩

  220. Falcone, R. and Conant S. (2016, March 25). ProjectM: Link Found Between Pakistani Actor and Operation Transparent Tribe. Retrieved September 2, 2021. ↩

  221. Stolyarov, V. (2022, March 17). Exposing initial access broker with ties to Conti. Retrieved August 18, 2022. ↩

  222. QiAnXin Threat Intelligence Center. (2019, February 18). APT-C-36: Continuous Attacks Targeting Colombian Government Institutions and Corporations. Retrieved May 5, 2020. ↩

  223. Falcone, R., et al. (2018, July 27). New Threat Actor Group DarkHydrus Targets Middle East Government. Retrieved August 2, 2018. ↩

  224. Falcone, R. (2018, August 07). DarkHydrus Uses Phishery to Harvest Credentials in the Middle East. Retrieved August 10, 2018. ↩

  225. Unit 42. (2017, December 15). Unit 42 Playbook Viewer. Retrieved December 20, 2017. ↩

  226. Windows Defender Advanced Threat Hunting Team. (2016, April 29). PLATINUM: Targeted attacks in South and Southeast Asia. Retrieved February 15, 2018. ↩

  227. Duncan, B. (2021, January 7). TA551: Email Attack Campaign Switches from Valak to IcedID. Retrieved March 17, 2021. ↩

  228. Secureworks. (n.d.). GOLD CABIN Threat Profile. Retrieved March 17, 2021. ↩

  229. Livelli, K, et al. (2018, November 12). Operation Shaheen. Retrieved May 1, 2019. ↩

  230. O’Gorman, G., and McDonald, G.. (2012, September 6). The Elderwood Project. Retrieved February 15, 2018. ↩

  231. Clayton, M.. (2012, September 14). Stealing US business secrets: Experts ID two huge cyber ‘gangs’ in China. Retrieved February 15, 2018. ↩

  232. Pradhan, A. (2022, February 8). LolZarus: Lazarus Group Incorporating Lolbins into Campaigns. Retrieved March 22, 2022. ↩

  233. Saini, A. and Hossein, J. (2022, January 27). North Korea’s Lazarus APT leverages Windows Update client, GitHub in latest campaign. Retrieved January 27, 2022. ↩

  234. Sherstobitoff, R. (2018, March 08). Hidden Cobra Targets Turkish Financial Sector With New Bankshot Implant. Retrieved May 18, 2018. ↩

  235. Paganini, P. (2018, October 16). Russia-linked APT group DustSquad targets diplomatic entities in Central Asia. Retrieved August 24, 2021. ↩

  236. Fraser, N., et al. (2019, August 7). Double DragonAPT41, a dual espionage and cyber crime operation APT41. Retrieved September 23, 2019. ↩

  237. Lakshmanan, R.. (2021, July 1). IndigoZebra APT Hacking Campaign Targets the Afghan Government. Retrieved September 24, 2021. ↩

  238. CheckPoint Research. (2021, July 1). IndigoZebra APT continues to attack Central Asia with evolving tools. Retrieved September 24, 2021. ↩

  239. Yonathan Klijnsma. (2016, May 17). Mofang: A politically motivated information stealing adversary. Retrieved May 12, 2020. ↩

  240. Skulkin, O. (2019, August 5). Following the RTM Forensic examination of a computer infected with a banking trojan. Retrieved May 11, 2020. ↩

  241. DFIR Report. (2021, November 29). CONTInuing the Bazar Ransomware Story. Retrieved September 29, 2022. ↩

  242. Cashman, M. (2020, July 29). Operation North Star Campaign. Retrieved December 20, 2021. ↩

  243. ClearSky Research Team. (2020, August 13). Operation ‘Dream Job’ Widespread North Korean Espionage Campaign. Retrieved December 20, 2021. ↩

  244. Gross, J. (2016, February 23). Operation Dust Storm. Retrieved December 22, 2021. ↩

  245. Adamitis, D. et al. (2019, June 4). It’s alive: Threat actors cobble together open-source pieces into monstrous Frankenstein campaign. Retrieved May 11, 2020. ↩

  246. N. Baisini. (2022, July 13). Transparent Tribe begins targeting education sector in latest campaign. Retrieved September 22, 2022. ↩

  247. M. Porolli. (2021, January 21). Operation Spalax: Targeted malware attacks in Colombia. Retrieved September 16, 2022. ↩