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Head Mare is a pro-Ukrainian, hacktivist-associated threat actor, subsequently assessed as an APT group because of its increasingly sophisticated tradecraft. Active since at least 2023, it has primarily targeted Russian and Belarusian organizations, including organizations in instrumentation, electronics, transportation, energy, information technology, software development, aerospace, aviation, and defense-adjacent fields. It is also known as Rainbow Hyena. Head Mare has used spearphishing sent through compromised mail infrastructure, access through contractors, exploitation of public-facing systems, and malicious archives for initial access. The group has deployed PhantomCore, PhantomGraph, PhantomRemote, and PhantomRAT. Its operations include exploitation of TrueConf Server vulnerabilities, web-shell deployment, SYSTEM-level command execution, theft of credentials through LSASS memory dumping, infrastructure reconnaissance, reverse SSH tunneling, and persistence through Windows services and COM hijacking. It has also compromised trusted software-distribution infrastructure by substituting legitimate TrueConf client installers with trojanized versions that deliver backdoors to meeting participants, including users from third-party organizations. Head Mare has used cloud services, including Microsoft OneDrive, for command-and-control and has deployed additional backdoors on Unix-like servers that use the TrueConf protocol or GitHub for communications. Observed defense-evasion activity includes tampering with application logs and deploying concealed server-side malware. Historical reporting associates the group with LockBit and Babuk ransomware in attacks against Russian and Belarusian targets, although later activity was assessed as lacking destructive behavior. Infrastructure and tooling overlaps with Toy Ghouls have been reported, but do not establish confirmed joint operations.
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.
44 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
15 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
10 additional families tracked in Mallory.
5 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 5 of them exploited in the wild.
This is the second TrueConf CVE in the same advisory — CVE-2026-72529 (missing authentication) and CVE-2026-72530 (code injection) both affect the same versions and port.
CVE-2026-72530 is a critical unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability in TrueConf Server versions 5.3.x–5.3.9, 5.4.x–5.4.9, 5.5.x–5.5.5, and earlier. The flaw, added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, allows an unauthenticated attacker with network access to port 4307/TCP to inject code and execute arbitrary commands on the server.
In one incident, they exploited the Microsoft Exchange server vulnerability CVE-2021-26855 (ProxyLogon). Although patched in 2021, this vulnerability is still exploitable due to organizations using outdated operating systems and software. The attackers used ProxyLogon to execute a command to download and launch CobInt on the server.
The group has also previously exploited the WinRAR vulnerability tracked as CVE-2023-3881.
The attackers also exploited software vulnerabilities, most commonly CVE-2023-38831 in WinRAR through phishing emails.
181 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.
Conducting active campaigns against Russian organizations by exploiting unpatched internet-facing TrueConf servers, implanting web shells, trojanizing client updates with backdoors, stealing credentials, conducting reconnaissance, and establishing reverse SSH tunnels.
Actively exploiting TrueConf Server vulnerabilities to gain remote code execution, replace client installers with malicious versions, deploy backdoor malware, and use web shells for infrastructure discovery and privileged database access.
Exploited two TrueConf server vulnerabilities to compromise self-hosted video conferencing servers, implant a web shell and backdoor, trojanize the Windows client installer, and distribute PhantomCore malware to meeting participants.
Pro-Ukrainian hacktivist group exploiting TrueConf vulnerabilities to compromise servers, plant web shells, move through victim infrastructure, gain privileged database access, and replace legitimate TrueConf client installers with trojanized versions carrying PhantomCore.
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.