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XDSpy is a long-running cyber-espionage threat actor active since at least 2011 that primarily targets government institutions in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the CIS, with repeated victimology in Belarus and additional activity affecting Russia, Moldova, Serbia, and Ukraine. The group has also been referred to as Silent Werewolf. Its targeting has included government agencies, ministries of foreign affairs, military-related entities, and selected private-sector organizations. XDSpy is known for spearphishing-led initial access using malicious attachments or links to archive files, and for selective payload delivery after validating the victim. Across campaigns, it has used Windows shortcut abuse, archive-based delivery chains, downloader malware, DLL sideloading, and staged espionage implants. In 2020 it was observed using a patched Internet Explorer vulnerability, CVE-2020-0968, in addition to phishing lures. In 2025, XDSpy was linked to exploitation of Windows LNK handling and display weaknesses, including CVE-2025-9491 and related parsing confusion, to conceal malicious execution within crafted shortcut files delivered in compressed archives. Its malware ecosystem has included XDDown, a downloader that establishes persistence and retrieves additional modules, and XDigo, a Go-based espionage implant associated with 2025 operations. Reported XDSpy tooling supports host reconnaissance, file and directory discovery, screenshot capture, clipboard collection, removable-media monitoring, password theft, geolocation via nearby Wi-Fi data, and encrypted exfiltration of collected documents. Recent XDigo activity has also used signed or encrypted tasking and HTTPS-based command-and-control, reflecting a mature espionage workflow focused on stealth and data theft rather than disruption. Observed tradecraft includes persistence through user logon mechanisms, defense evasion through obfuscation and deceptive shortcut presentation, and post-compromise collection of documents from targeted systems. Public reporting has described the actor as unusually stealthy and underdocumented for many years, with no high-confidence public linkage to another known APT based on malware code or infrastructure overlap. The dominant motivation is espionage.
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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.
31 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
11 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
6 additional families tracked in Mallory.
2 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 2 of them exploited in the wild.
"...opening a bogus attachment that's designed to exploit ZDI-CAN-25373, a vulnerability that has been put to use by multiple threat actors... It's officially tracked as CVE-2025-9491 (CVSS score: 7.0)"
At the end of June 2020, the operators stepped up their game by using a vulnerability in Internet Explorer, CVE-2020-0968, which had been patched in April 2020. Instead of delivering an archive with a LNK file, the C&C server was delivering an RTF file that, once opened, downloaded an HTML file exploiting the aforementioned vulnerability.
47 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
12 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Espionage group targeting CIS government institutions, using the XDigo stealer and selectively delivering payloads after validating the victim.
Uses malicious .LNK files in ZIP archives to achieve execution and persistence, leveraging LNK parsing/UI confusion, extracting payloads, using DLL sideloading via DeviceMetadataWizard.exe, and establishing Startup-folder persistence for data exfiltration.
XDSpy is known for cyber espionage campaigns targeting Eastern European government organizations, exploiting Windows shortcut vulnerabilities for malware delivery.
XDSpy is known for cyber espionage campaigns targeting Eastern European governmental entities, distributing the XDigo malware via exploitation of CVE-2025-9491.
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.