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APT5 is a long-running China-linked espionage threat actor associated with cyber-espionage and intellectual property theft operations. Reported aliases include Keyhole Panda, UNC2630, Mulberry Typhoon, TG-2754, Bronze Fleetwood, Manganese, Red Naga, Red Horus, Auriga, ATG48, Bottle, Covenant, CYSERVICE, Backdoor DPD, Tabcteng, and APT5 (suspected linkage). Public reporting also links Keyhole Panda with UNC2630 and APT5 naming. APT5 has targeted technology, government, and defense organizations, including U.S. defense industrial base entities. The group has been associated with exploitation of internet-facing systems for initial access, including Pulse Secure VPN zero-day CVE-2021-22893 and other Pulse Secure vulnerabilities. Reporting attributes exploitation of this vulnerability to the actor and notes follow-on activity that enabled credential logging, authentication bypass including MFA bypass, persistence, web shell deployment, and file modification on compromised appliances. The actor has used a broad toolset for remote access, proxying, persistence, surveillance, and data theft. Malware and utilities associated with activity attributed to APT5 or its linked clusters include BeepService, ONHAT proxy, LinseningSvr, SimpleFileMover, SvcInstaller, DD Keylogger, jspRAT, Ziyang RAT, BLOODMINE, and THINBLOOD. Observed behaviors include reverse shells, SOCKS proxying, keylogging, command execution, process injection, service-based persistence, file discovery, staging of collected data prior to exfiltration, and anti-forensic log clearing. APT5 has been observed staging data on compromised systems before exfiltration and using utilities to discover files of interest in VPN logs. ATT&CK-mapped behaviors directly associated with the actor include exploitation of public-facing applications, PowerShell execution, DNS-based command and control, multi-hop proxying, and process injection. Reporting also indicates use of operational relay box infrastructure patterns overlapping with other China-nexus actors, consistent with mature operational security and layered command-and-control practices. APT5 is widely assessed as operating on behalf of Chinese state interests and is best characterized as a state-linked espionage actor rather than a financially motivated or ransomware-focused group.
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.
51 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
17 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
12 additional families tracked in Mallory.
12 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 12 of them exploited in the wild.
Recent zero-day vulnerability in Pulse Secure VPN (CVE-2021-22893) ... FireEye published a blog detailing how the vulnerability (CVE-2021-22893) was being exploited by a China-linked APT group it tracks as UNC2630.
On Tuesday, December 13, a joint announcement from the United States NSA and Citrix announced a zero-day vulnerability in Citrix ADC. The vulnerability (CVE-2022-27518) is a critical unauthenticated Remote Code Execution (RCE) issue currently rated as CVSS 9.8. Patches are already available from Citrix. The NSA attributes the zero-day to APT5, a Chinese hacking collective.
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.
"By exploiting multiple Pulse Secure VPN weaknesses (CVE-2019-11510, CVE-2020-8260, CVE-2020-8243, and CVE-2021-22893), UNC2630 is said to have harvested login credentials..." ... "...advisory, warning businesses of active exploitation of five publicly known vulnerabilities by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), including CVE-2019-11510..."
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.
7 more CVEs tied to this actor tracked in Mallory.
98 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 one of many threat actors associated with the detection's ATT&CK-style annotations for PowerShell and DNS TXT command-and-control behavior; no specific campaign or activity is described in this reference.
Named as one of the adversaries associated with ORB network usage in Project ORBITAL; also described as a long-running cyber-espionage and IP theft operator under its aliases.
Mentioned only in a list of actors tied to ATT&CK T1190 within detection annotations.
Mentioned only as an annotated threat actor associated with the ATT&CK technique Process Injection (T1055) in a Splunk detection entry; no campaign or activity is described.
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.