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GoldenJackal is a cyberespionage APT active since at least 2019 that targets government and diplomatic entities in Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia. Known activity includes compromises of a South Asian embassy in Belarus and a European Union government organization. Its primary objective is theft of confidential information, including diplomatic correspondence, documents, encryption material, certificates, images, and archives, particularly from high-value air-gapped environments. GoldenJackal is also tracked as goldenjackal_apt. GoldenJackal has deployed two distinct bespoke toolsets to bridge air gaps through removable media. Its earlier toolset used GoldenDealer to transfer payloads between internet-connected and isolated systems via USB devices, GoldenHowl as a modular backdoor, and GoldenRobo for file collection and staged exfiltration. A later, largely Go-based modular toolset used USB collection and propagation utilities, email-processing components, and separate mechanisms to exfiltrate data through email and cloud storage. The actor has established persistence through scheduled tasks and services, conducted host and network discovery and port scanning, used USB-based propagation to move payloads and collected data, and used Impacket for lateral movement. Reported initial-access methods include trojanized software and malicious documents, although the initial-access vector for the air-gapped campaigns has not been confirmed. No specific nation-state attribution has been established.
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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.
20 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
15 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
10 additional families tracked in Mallory.
1 CVE this actor has used in observed campaigns. 1 of them exploited in the wild.
29 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
11 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
The air-gap risk is described as also illustrated by reports on GoldenJackal air-gap attacks.
Referenced as conducting attacks against air-gapped systems (likely espionage-oriented operations), per ESET lab research mentioned in the October 2024 roundup.
Compromises air-gapped government and diplomatic systems using bespoke toolsets to penetrate and maintain persistence, collect/process data, and exfiltrate information; also provides configurations/commands to other systems.
Cyber-espionage activity cluster active since at least 2019, repeatedly compromising government and diplomatic targets including air-gapped systems via USB-based tooling. Uses custom multi-stage toolsets (C# earlier; Go later) for USB propagation, modular backdoors, file theft, email collection, and exfiltration to attacker-controlled email accounts and Google Drive. Initial access observed via fake Skype installers, malicious Word documents, and remote template injection leading to Follina exploitation.
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.