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Higaisa is a threat actor associated with spearphishing-led intrusions that rely on malicious email attachments, including LNK files, to trigger execution on victim systems. The actor has used script-based and living-off-the-land tradecraft, including JavaScript, VBScript, cmd.exe, and certutil, and has employed DLL side-loading through a legitimate Microsoft Office component to load a malicious library. Observed persistence mechanisms include scheduled tasks and startup-folder abuse using spoofed binaries. Post-compromise activity attributed to Higaisa includes host and environment discovery such as collecting the computer name, volume serial number, GUID, current time, and local network configuration via ipconfig, as well as process-related checks through shellcode that attempts to identify the current process ID. Higaisa has used native operating system APIs, hidden-window execution for defense evasion, Base64 decoding and XOR-based decryption at runtime, AES-128 encryption for command-and-control traffic, and HTTP/HTTPS channels for command and control and data exfiltration. Higaisa has been discussed in connection with tradecraft overlaps involving LNK-based delivery and, in some reporting, similarities to activity associated with Korean threat operations. However, the strongest directly supported characterization here is as a malware-enabled intrusion set using phishing, scripting, DLL side-loading, persistence, reconnaissance, encrypted C2, and exfiltration.
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.
Sectors the actor has been observed targeting.
Geographies tied to known operations.
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
42 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
5 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
4 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 4 of them exploited in the wild.
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).
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.
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).
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).
57 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.
Listed as an associated threat actor in detection annotations for Ghostscript exploitation; no specific campaign activity is described in this reference.
Listed as a threat actor associated with the MMC/GrimResource detection analytic.
Listed as a threat actor associated with Windows Command Shell execution behavior relevant to this detection.
Listed in the detection annotations as a threat actor associated with EFI volume mounting / installation-related behavior.
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.