GALLIUM
Granite Typhoon, formerly known as Gallium, is a China-based / China-aligned cyberespionage threat actor. Known aliases in the provided content are GALLIUM, Alloy Taurus, Phantom Panda, and Granite Typhoon. The group has been reported targeting telecommunications providers globally, including victims across Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East; additional reporting cited in the content states it expanded targeting to government and finance sectors. The content describes Granite Typhoon/GALLIUM as heavily focused on telecommunications intrusions and associated with activity overlapping Operation Soft Cell. SentinelLABS assessed with medium confidence that Gallium was involved in 2023 intrusions against Middle Eastern telecommunications providers, while noting the activity fell in the nexus of Gallium and APT41 and that exact grouping remained unclear. Another report attributed a RESHELL malware cluster to GALLIUM with moderate confidence. The content also notes possible connections to APT41 based on shared tooling and a common code-signing certificate, while explicitly acknowledging the possibility of tool sharing among Chinese state-sponsored actors or use of a shared vendor/digital quartermaster. Observed tradecraft in the provided content includes exploitation of unpatched Internet-exposed WildFly/JBoss servers and compromised Microsoft Exchange servers with webshell deployment for initial access; use of web shells including China Chopper and the IIS-based BlackMould for persistence, command execution, file operations, and payload delivery; credential theft using Mimikatz, Windows Credential Editor, and collection of password hashes from the SAM hive; reconnaissance using ipconfig /all, modified NBTscan, whoami, query user, ping, dsquery, net use, netstat, and LG; lateral movement and remote execution using compromised domain credentials, PsExec, WMI, PowerShell, and the Windows command shell; use of HTRAN as a connection bouncer/proxy; staging and exfiltration via WinRAR or multi-part archives placed in the Recycle Bin; and persistence via scheduled tasks, including for PoisonIvy. Microsoft also observed use of SoftEther VPN to maintain persistence and access internal systems as if operating from inside the victim network. The group is described as relying extensively on publicly available and low-cost tooling, often with small modifications to add functionality or evade antimalware detection. Reported malware and tooling associated with the actor in the content include modified PoisonIvy, customized Gh0st RAT variants including QuarkBandit, PingPull, HTRAN, BlackMould, China Chopper, Mimikatz, WCE, NBTscan, Netcat, PsExec, WinRAR, and SoftEther VPN. The content also states Microsoft observed GALLIUM using tools signed with stolen code-signing certificates, including certificates from Whizzimo LLC.
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Targeting
Who, where, and (when attributed) which flag flies behind the operation. Pulled from open-source reporting and Mallory's analyst review.
Who they target
Sectors the actor has been observed targeting.
- Telecommunication Services
Where they're from
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
- CN
Tradecraft
47 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
Associated malware families
22 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
17 additional families tracked in Mallory.
Associated vulnerabilities
9 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 9 of them exploited in the wild.
This detection identifies instances where Windows Explorer.exe spawns PowerShell or cmd.exe processes, particularly focusing on executions initiated by LNK files. This behavior is associated with the ZDI-CAN-25373 Windows shortcut zero-day vulnerability, where specially crafted LNK files are used to trigger malicious code execution through cmd.exe or powershell.exe. This technique has been actively exploited by multiple APT groups in targeted attacks through both HTTP and SMB delivery methods.
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.
4 more CVEs tied to this actor tracked in Mallory.
Observables
83 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
Recent activity
20 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Listed as an associated threat actor in the detection annotation for exploitation of the public-facing PTC Windchill vulnerability CVE-2026-4681.
Linked in the content to use of CDN-based traffic concealment techniques and SoftEther VPN to maintain persistence and evade detection.
Listed as a threat actor associated with PowerShell execution behavior relevant to this detection.
Listed as a threat actor associated with the PowerShell P/Invoke process injection API chain detection and related ATT&CK techniques.
The version that knows your environment.
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.