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TA428 is a China-linked advanced persistent threat group associated with long-running cyberespionage operations primarily targeting East Asian government, political, defense, aviation, and related strategic organizations. The actor is widely linked with campaigns against Mongolia, Russia, and Japan, and has been described as focusing heavily on East Asian governmental entities and defense-related targets. TA428 has also been referred to in connection with LuckyMouse in some reporting, although that overlap is not always treated consistently across vendors. TA428 is known for spearphishing-led intrusions using Royal Road weaponized RTF documents exploiting Microsoft Office Equation Editor vulnerabilities, followed by deployment of malware such as Poison Ivy, Cotx RAT, Tmanger, nccTrojan, PhantomNet, SManager, Albaniiutas, and activity possibly involving EAGERBEE. A well-documented TA428 campaign, Operation LagTime IT, was active from at least 2019 and targeted East Asian government organizations. In that campaign, TA428 used Royal Road lures to install Poison Ivy and Cotx RAT, then expanded access through credential theft, network reconnaissance, and lateral movement. Observed post-compromise tooling included Outlook credential theft utilities, LSASS credential theft, NETBIOS scanning, MS17-010 scanning and exploitation, and follow-on deployment of Tmanger and nccTrojan. The group demonstrates mature post-exploitation tradecraft. Reported behaviors include remote execution via WMI, DLL side-loading, service-based persistence, Run-key persistence, process injection, keylogging, screen capture, file upload and download, remote shell access, host and network discovery, and encrypted command-and-control communications. Tmanger and related malware families used by TA428 show a modular architecture with setup, loader, and client stages, while PhantomNet and SManager exhibit closely related code lineage and similar export conventions. Albaniiutas is also assessed as closely related to Tmanger and has been linked to TA428 through both malware characteristics and Mongolian political targeting. Victimology and lure themes indicate a strong intelligence-collection mission aligned with Chinese state interests. Reported targets include government agencies, political bodies, research and defense organizations, aviation-related entities, and consulting organizations. TA428 has repeatedly targeted Mongolian institutions and individuals, including political organizations, and has also been observed against Russian government, defense, and research-related entities. Japanese organizations have likewise been targeted in more recent activity involving malware overlaps with PhantomNet, Albaniiutas, and EAGERBEE-linked tooling. Overall, TA428 is best characterized as a Chinese cyberespionage actor with a sustained focus on regional geopolitical and strategic intelligence collection, using a mix of shared Chinese intrusion tooling and its own established malware ecosystem.
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Who, where, and (when attributed) which flag flies behind the operation. Pulled from open-source reporting and Mallory's analyst review.
Sectors the actor has been observed targeting.
Geographies tied to known operations.
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
51 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
20 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
15 additional families tracked in Mallory.
4 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 4 of them exploited in the wild.
The lure document file is an RTF file generated by Royal Road RTF Weaponizer. Exploits CVE-2018-0798.
Used a tool to exploit MS17-010 for lateral movement. Scan Tool for MS17-010: ms17-010-m4ss-sc4nn3r v1.0. Exploit Tool for MS17-010: eternalblue.py.
RoyalRoad is a tool that generates weaponized RTF documents that exploit the following vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s Equation Editor: CVE-2017-11882, CVE-2018-0798 and CVE-2018-0802.
Royal Road is a tool that generates RTF files that exploit the Microsoft Office Equation Editor vulnerabilities (CVE-2017-11882, CVE-2018-0798, CVE-2018-0802).
170 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
20 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Referenced Chinese threat actor previously attributed with PhantomNet malware that overlaps with tooling seen in Cluster Alpha.
Chinese-linked espionage actor referenced due to attribution overlaps with Cluster Alpha malware including PhantomNet/DOWNTOWN and possible ties to Worok.
Referenced as a group previously associated with deploying ValleyRAT and targeting government, technology, defense, and critical infrastructure entities in China; not directly attributed as the actor behind this specific campaign.
Previously assessed as a possible user of EAGERBEE in attacks targeting Japanese organizations.
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.