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Wizard Spider is a Russia-based financially motivated cybercriminal threat actor best known for operating and developing the TrickBot malware ecosystem and for ransomware operations associated with Ryuk and Conti. The group is widely tracked under numerous aliases including TrickBot Gang, Grim Spider, FIN12, ITG23, Gold Ulrick, Gold Blackburn, UNC1878, UNC2053, DEV-0193, DEV-0237, Storm-0230, Periwinkle Tempest, Pistachio Tempest, Temp.MixMaster, and WizardSpider (Conti/Ryuk). Some reporting also links former Conti personnel and infrastructure to later criminal activity after the Conti brand fragmented. Wizard Spider has historically targeted enterprises, healthcare organizations, government entities, and other large organizations for financial extortion, often causing major operational disruption. The group is notably associated with the 2021 attack on Ireland’s Health Service Executive using Conti ransomware. Its operations have commonly involved initial compromise through malware delivery and exploitation of known vulnerabilities, followed by broad post-compromise reconnaissance, credential theft, lateral movement, persistence, and ransomware deployment. The actor’s tradecraft includes extensive use of Windows-native tooling and common offensive techniques. Reported behaviors include security software discovery via WMI, system and Active Directory reconnaissance using utilities such as Systeminfo and PowerShell cmdlets, process injection, PowerShell execution, registry modification, and persistence through Registry Run keys and Startup folder mechanisms. Wizard Spider has also been observed modifying WDigest settings to force credentials to be stored in cleartext in memory, supporting credential access and privilege escalation objectives. Wizard Spider is closely tied to the TrickBot and Conti ecosystems and has been associated with use of supporting malware and access tooling such as SystemBC and Domino in broader criminal intrusion chains. The group’s activity overlaps with the wider Russian-language eCrime environment, including post-Conti collaborations and splinter operations. Akira has been described in some reporting as closely related to Conti-derived code and is sometimes considered linked to or descended from Wizard Spider, though subgroup relationships are not uniformly established across the industry. Overall, Wizard Spider is regarded as one of the most significant financially motivated ransomware and cybercrime actors of the late 2010s and early 2020s, distinguished by its mature malware development capability, large-scale intrusion operations, and repeated impact on high-value enterprise and public-sector victims.
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56 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
39 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
34 additional families tracked in Mallory.
17 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 17 of them exploited in the wild.
Afin de se latéraliser, les opérateurs du MOA ont tenté, sans succès, d’exploiter les vulnérabilités PrintNightmare (CVE-2021-34527), BlueKeep (CVE-2019-0708), puis ZeroLogon (CVE-2020-1472) via l’outil Mimikatz.
DEV-0193 infrastructure has also been implicated in attacks deploying novel techniques, including exploitation of CVE-2021-40444.
De plus, grâce à des liens d’infrastructure, l’ANSSI a pu rattacher au même MOA plusieurs exploitations de la vulnérabilité ProxyNotShell (CVE-2022-41080 et CVE-2022-41082) ayant mené au déploiement de Play.
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.
Ember Bear has used exploits for vulnerabilities such as MS17-010, also known as Eternal Blue, during operations.
12 more CVEs tied to this actor tracked in Mallory.
405 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.
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.
Mentioned only as an annotation/tag associated with the ATT&CK technique Process Injection (T1055); no campaign or activity by this group is described in the content.
Mentioned only in an annotation/list associated with the detection content; no actor-specific activity is described in this reference.
Mentioned only in the detection annotation metadata; no campaign activity or actor-specific behavior is described in this content.
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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.