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Velvet Ant is a China-linked cyber espionage threat group known for exceptionally long-term, stealth-focused intrusions against Linux-centric and network infrastructure environments. The group has been associated with Operation Highland, a campaign in which it maintained access inside a victim organization for nearly a decade while moving from internet-facing systems through internal IT networks into a segregated critical infrastructure segment. Velvet Ant is notable for compromising the authentication layer itself, including backdoored PAM modules and trojanized OpenSSH components, enabling persistent access, credential capture, authentication bypass, command logging, and resilience against password resets and routine containment actions. Velvet Ant has demonstrated strong tradecraft in persistence, defense evasion, lateral movement, and post-exploitation. Observed techniques include replacing legitimate PAM authentication modules with malicious variants, modifying SSH components, adding attacker-controlled SSH keys for passwordless access, disguising malware as benign or kernel-like processes, using modified reverse shells and SOCKS proxies, and abusing web server components to bridge access into protected environments. The group has also used systemd units and SysVinit scripts for persistence on Linux hosts, process masquerading, network sniffing-related behaviors, and process injection. Reporting also links Velvet Ant to abuse of cloud services, OAuth tokens, and legitimate services as part of broader espionage operations. Velvet Ant has used DLL search order hijacking and DLL sideloading to launch follow-on payloads such as PlugX, and has exploited trusted infrastructure devices as part of its operations. The group has been tied to exploitation of CVE-2024-20399 in Cisco NX-OS to deploy malware on network switches, including a backdoor referred to as VELVETSHELL, and has also been linked to prior abuse of F5 BIG-IP appliances. Its operational pattern emphasizes stealth, persistence in core administrative pathways, and use of modified legitimate components rather than noisy initial access methods such as phishing or brute force. Available reporting characterizes Velvet Ant as a well-resourced Chinese espionage actor focused on durable access to sensitive environments, including critical infrastructure and government-related targets. Known aliases in the supplied material are limited to Velvet Ant, including a deprecated naming variant.
Mallory correlates actor tradecraft and target patterns against your stack, your sector, and your geography. See overlap before they land.
Who, where, and (when attributed) which flag flies behind the operation. Pulled from open-source reporting and Mallory's analyst review.
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
49 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
9 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
4 additional families tracked in Mallory.
8 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 8 of them exploited in the wild.
CVE-2024-20399 (CVSS skóre 6.0) Zero-day zraniteľnosť operačného systému NX-OS spočíva v nedostatočnom overovaní argumentov v rámci príkazového riadka CLI. Lokálny autentifikovaný útočník s administrátorským prístupom by ju prostredníctvom injekcie príkazov mohol zneužiť na vykonanie škodlivého kódu s oprávneniami používateľa root. Zraniteľnosť je aktívne zneužívaná čínskou skupinou VELVET ANT na inštaláciu bližšie nešpecifikovaného malvéru.
This analytic identifies potential exploitation attempts of ProxyShell (CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, CVE-2021-31207) and ProxyNotShell (CVE-2022-41040, CVE-2022-41082) vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server.
This analytic identifies potential exploitation attempts of ProxyShell (CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, CVE-2021-31207) and ProxyNotShell (CVE-2022-41040, CVE-2022-41082) vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server.
This analytic identifies potential exploitation attempts of ProxyShell (CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, CVE-2021-31207) and ProxyNotShell (CVE-2022-41040, CVE-2022-41082) vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server.
The following analytic detects attempts to exploit CVE-2022-26134, an unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability in Confluence... This activity is significant as it allows attackers to execute arbitrary code on the Confluence server without authentication, potentially leading to full system compromise.
3 more CVEs tied to this actor tracked in Mallory.
20 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Mentioned as a threat actor associated with the network sniffing technique (T1040) in the detection annotation.
Associated with exploiting cloud environments, OAuth tokens, and legitimate services.
Mentioned as an annotated threat actor associated with Unix shell execution / Linux post-exploitation tradecraft in the detection metadata.
Listed only in passing among threat actors associated with similar ATT&CK techniques.
Match sector + geo + tech-stack targeting against your real footprint.
Every observed MITRE ATT&CK technique, grouped by tactic.
Families this actor is known to deploy, with IOCs and behavior.
CVEs this actor has used in known campaigns.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Domains, IPs, and hashes tied to this actor, refreshed continuously.