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APT31 is a Chinese state-sponsored cyberespionage actor also tracked as Zirconium, Violet Typhoon, Bronze Vinewood, Judgment Panda or Judgement Panda, Red Keres, TA412, Chameleon, and WebFans. It targets government and political interests, former government and military personnel, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, higher education, media, financial services, healthcare, mining companies, and commodity traders. Confirmed targeting includes the United States, France, and Finland, with broader operations across Europe and East Asia. Its activities include credential phishing against presidential campaign staff and an intrusion against the Finnish parliament attributed to the group in 2021. APT31 obtains access through spearphishing links, credential phishing, password guessing and spraying, compromised accounts, SQL injection, and exploitation of internet-facing applications. Documented exploitation includes Microsoft Exchange ProxyLogon vulnerabilities, Fortinet VPN vulnerability CVE-2018-13379, and Microsoft SharePoint vulnerabilities associated with ToolShell. It scans exposed infrastructure and deploys web shells to maintain access. Its phishing operations use legitimate-looking applications and conference invitations, alongside web beacons that track recipient activity. Post-compromise activity includes browser credential dumping, LSASS memory dumping, local privilege escalation, remote command execution, internal discovery, lateral movement, and collection of emails, user databases, and sensitive business information. The group uses Cobalt Strike, Metasploit, custom malware, and native Windows utilities. Persistence mechanisms include Registry autostart entries, scheduled tasks, services, web shells, and newly created accounts resembling legitimate users or services. Defense-evasion techniques include masquerading, altered file extensions, encrypted payloads, DLL sideloading, process injection, security-product exclusions, and removal of tools and temporary artifacts. Collected data has been exfiltrated through DNS and SMB. A distinguishing operational feature is its use of compromised small-office and home-office routers as an anonymizing proxy mesh. APT31 has used the Pakdoor backdoor to manage router infrastructure and the FLORAHOX operational relay box network to route traffic through compromised routers and Tor. These networks support reconnaissance and command-and-control communications while concealing their origin. In 2026, TA412 used the BlueMoon Exploit Kit in fake-conference phishing campaigns against US nonprofit organizations, mining companies, and commodity traders. The exploitation chain delivered GemStone, a malicious browser extension masquerading as a Gemini browsing companion, with capabilities to collect keystrokes, cookies, browser storage, and screenshots. APT31 has also used generative AI to automate vulnerability analysis.
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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.
63 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
41 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
36 additional families tracked in Mallory.
14 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 14 of them exploited in the wild.
The first exploit targets CVE-2026-85046 in V8's optimizing compilers. When an array's element type changes during sorting, the optimized code can treat a value as the wrong type.
That DLL checks the Windows build again, then tries CVE-2026-85880. The exploit uses the ALPC communication and WNF notification mechanisms to gain kernel read/write access.
The next exploit, CVE-2026-87491, escapes the V8 sandbox. BlueMoon corrupts WebAssembly metadata and replaces compiled function code with the p1 shellcode.
Warlock exploits Microsoft SharePoint vulnerabilities as a way to gain initial access to its targets. Its earliest attacks utilized the exploit chain known as "ToolShell."
CVE-2025-49704 (a code injection/remote code execution, or RCE, vulnerability). When chained together, these vulnerabilities allowed authorized attackers to gain remote code execution and access or alter sensitive information.
9 more CVEs tied to this actor tracked in Mallory.
403 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.
Conducted an espionage-focused campaign using conference-themed spearphishing and the BlueMoon exploit chain to install GemStone, a malicious browser extension that collects keystrokes, cookies, browser storage, and screenshots.
A Chinese state-sponsored group mentioned as having exploited ToolShell zero-days before public disclosure; it is background context rather than the focus of this report.
Established China-linked state-espionage group used as a comparison with Warlock. It was identified among actors exploiting the ToolShell chain against on-premises SharePoint in July 2025.
Listed in the detection's technique annotations; the content does not attribute ShieldCrash exploitation to this group.
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.