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Andariel is a North Korean state-sponsored threat actor widely assessed as a subgroup or cluster within the broader Lazarus ecosystem and linked to the Reconnaissance General Bureau, including reporting that ties it to the RGB’s 3rd bureau. The group is also tracked under aliases including Onyx Sleet, Plutonium, Silent Chollima, Black Chollima, Stonefly, Jumpy Pisces, DarkSeoul, APT45, and TDrop2 campaign. Andariel has historically focused on South Korean targets, especially government, defense, nuclear-related, and other strategically significant organizations, while later reporting also places it in intrusions against public/legal sector entities in Europe and enterprise software targets in the Republic of Korea. The group is primarily associated with cyberespionage, though multiple reports also connect it to financially motivated activity and ransomware deployment. Victimology and operational objectives indicate sustained interest in South Korean institutions and sensitive policy, defense, and financial information. Reporting also describes Andariel targeting enterprise resource planning software and conducting operations against organizations tied to defense and nuclear sectors. Andariel commonly relies on spearphishing and other user-execution vectors for initial access, including malicious documents that prompt victims to enable macros. It has also been associated with compromised websites and multistage downloader chains. The actor has used both bespoke malware and publicly available remote access trojans. Malware and tooling linked to the group include TigerDownloader, TigerRAT, NukeSped-related tooling, StarshellRAT, JelusRAT, GopherRAT, Dtrack, and Maui ransomware, alongside legacy and newer Lazarus-associated tradecraft. Observed post-compromise behavior includes downloading additional tools and malware, process discovery using native utilities, collection of large volumes of files for later extraction, privilege escalation with tools such as PrintSpoofer and PetitPotato, and defense evasion through bring-your-own-vulnerable-driver techniques to disable antivirus and EDR products. Andariel-linked malware families have supported capabilities such as shell access, file management, keylogging, screen capture, SOCKS tunneling, port forwarding, system information gathering, and self-deletion. Reporting also notes anti-analysis and packing techniques, multistage loaders, and infrastructure reuse consistent with long-running Lazarus tradecraft. Andariel sits within the broader DPRK cyber apparatus that blends espionage, disruptive operations, and revenue generation. In public reporting, the group is best known for sustained operations against South Korean entities and for evolving from classic espionage activity into operations that also include financially motivated malware and ransomware deployment.
Mallory correlates actor tradecraft and target patterns against your stack, your sector, and your geography. See overlap before they land.
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.
62 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
61 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
56 additional families tracked in Mallory.
3 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 3 of them exploited in the wild.
Andariel 그룹은 취약한 버전의 VMware Horizon 제품을 사용하는 국내 기업을 대상으로 Log4Shell 취약점 공격을 수행해 TigerRat을 설치한 사례도 존재한다.
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.
"The other victim operated a vulnerable Weblogic server. According to our telemetry, the actor compromised this server via the CVE-2017-10271 exploit."
260 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.
North Korean-linked group described as targeting defense and nuclear-related organizations; mentioned as having been dismantled in 2024.
A destructive threat actor cluster linked in the report to the Sony Pictures intrusion and earlier destructive attacks dating back to at least 2009, and described as still active primarily targeting South Korean organizations across multiple sectors.
Mentioned for tradecraft similarity only, specifically abuse of South Korean ERP solutions to distribute malware. Not presented as the primary actor in this report.
Mentioned for comparison because Larva-26005 used an ERP software patching technique similar to methods previously attributed to Andariel.
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.