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Transparent Tribe, also known as APT36, Mythic Leopard, COPPER FIELDSTONE, Earth Karkaddan, ProjectM, and Storm-0156, is a Pakistan-aligned cyberespionage group active since at least 2013. Its principal targets include Indian government, military, diplomatic, and academic organizations. Its operations emphasize persistent access, surveillance, credential harvesting, and theft of sensitive documents. The group commonly gains access through spear-phishing emails carrying malicious links or archives. Delivery chains use Windows shortcuts disguised as documents, malicious Office macros and add-ins, decoy PDFs, and multistage script loaders. Windows operations employ native scripting utilities, encoded or encrypted payloads, and in-memory .NET execution to evade detection. Its remote-access payloads support arbitrary command execution, screenshot capture, clipboard access and manipulation, stored-password harvesting, file management, and document exfiltration. Persistence mechanisms include startup shortcuts and registry autorun entries, with some malware adapting its installation behavior to the security products present on the host. Transparent Tribe also targets Indian government environments running BOSS Linux. These campaigns use document-disguised desktop launchers to deliver Go-based ELF malware or Python implants packaged with PyInstaller while displaying benign documents. Linux persistence includes user-level systemd services and reboot-triggered cron jobs. Its cross-platform tooling supports host reconnaissance, remote command execution, screenshot collection, file transfer, and archiving for bulk exfiltration. Additional defensive-evasion measures include payload obfuscation, encrypted communications, security-software discovery, process termination, and removal of execution artifacts.
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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.
41 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
54 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
49 additional families tracked in Mallory.
7 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 7 of them exploited in the wild.
the attachment was a weaponized RTF document utilizing CVE-2012-0158 to drop an embedded, encoded portable executable (PE)... In multiple lure documents, Type: Exploit, CVE-2012-0158, Embedded Payload.
...has exploited CVE-2012-0158 and CVE-2010-3333 for execution against targeted systems.
in one case, we saw attackers making use of template injection attack and equation editor vulnerability (CVE-2017-11882) as the initial infection vector.
CVE-2023-38831 is a vulnerability that enables malicious actors to execute arbitrary code when a user tries to access a harmless file contained within a ZIP archive.
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.
2 more CVEs tied to this actor tracked in Mallory.
1,410 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.
A Pakistan-linked, state-funded threat actor described as shifting from off-the-shelf malware to disposable AI-generated malicious files. This approach enabled deployment of numerous implants, but examples included a Go-based stealer unable to exfiltrate data and a malfunctioning bot management system.
A Pakistani state-aligned cyber-espionage group reportedly active since approximately 2013, focused on intelligence collection supporting Pakistan’s strategic interests, particularly against strategic, military, and diplomatic targets. Its attribution to the analyzed scareware intrusion is unconfirmed.
Pakistan-origin espionage actor historically targeting Indian defense forces and government officials; the observed campaign expands targeting to Indian academic institutions and deploys a remote-access trojan for data collection, remote command execution, persistence, and exfiltration.
Conducting strategic espionage-oriented spear-phishing campaigns against Indian academic, government, and defense targets. The group delivers ReverseRAT through malicious ZIP/LNK/HTA infection chains, using mshta.exe, layered obfuscation, reflective DLL loading, and Registry Run Key persistence.
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.