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SideCopy is a Pakistan-linked cyber espionage threat cluster widely associated with the Transparent Tribe (APT36) umbrella and assessed by multiple researchers as aligned with Pakistani state interests. Active since at least 2019, the group has primarily targeted government, military, diplomatic, and related public-sector entities across South Asia, with repeated focus on India and more recent operations against Afghan government institutions, including the Ministry of Finance and provincial finance bodies. SideCopy is known for spear-phishing-led intrusions that rely heavily on social engineering and localized lures. Observed delivery chains include malicious archives, shortcut files, HTA payloads, and phishing attachments crafted to match the language and context of intended victims. The group has used legitimate Windows utilities such as mshta for fileless or low-artifact execution, staged payloads on compromised infrastructure, and disguised malware components with benign or legitimate-looking names. Reported tradecraft also includes use of compromised domains for payload hosting, registry- and scheduled-task-based persistence, and typosquatted or masqueraded persistence artifacts intended to evade detection. The cluster has deployed multiple remote access tools and stealers, including customized use of the open-source Xeno RAT as well as other malware associated with operations against Indian targets. In documented campaigns, SideCopy malware has profiled victim systems by collecting operating system details, IP addressing, and country or locale information, indicating deliberate victim validation and environment-aware targeting. Reported post-compromise capabilities include persistent remote access, command execution, keylogging, screenshot capture, data theft, and broader espionage-oriented collection. SideCopy has been described as a subgroup or closely related cluster within Transparent Tribe/APT36, and is also tracked under the alias TAG-140. Its operations are characterized by sustained targeting of South Asian state institutions, tailored phishing lures, use of compromised regional infrastructure to blend malicious traffic with legitimate activity, and iterative adaptation of payloads and loaders to reduce detection.
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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.
49 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
18 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
13 additional families tracked in Mallory.
1 CVE this actor has used in observed campaigns. 1 of them exploited in the wild.
59 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.
Espionage campaign targeting Afghanistan's government finance apparatus, including the Ministry of Finance and provincial government employees, using spear-phishing and Xeno RAT.
Conducting a targeted cyber espionage campaign against Afghan government networks, specifically the Afghan Ministry of Finance, using spear-phishing with localized Pashto-language lures to deliver a fileless XenoRAT infection chain and establish persistent remote access.
Conducting a spear-phishing campaign against Afghanistan government finance entities and Pashto-speaking officials using Xeno RAT for remote access, persistence, monitoring, and data exfiltration.
Conducting a spear-phishing campaign dubbed Operation XENOFISCAL targeting Afghanistan's Ministry of Finance, provincial revenue and finance directorates, Pashto-speaking government officials, and provincial-level government employees; also previously attributed to attacks targeting sectors in India.
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.