Inception
Cloud Atlas, also referred to as Inception and Inception Framework, is an advanced persistent threat group active since at least 2014. The content attributes activity to Cloud Atlas with a high degree of confidence and describes it as targeting government agencies and diplomatic organizations, particularly in Russia and Belarus, with phishing as a primary initial access vector. Reported lures include spearphishing emails with weaponized documents, ZIP archives containing malicious LNK shortcut files, and malicious Office documents exploiting CVE-2018-0802. The group’s tooling and behavior described in the content include VBCloud, PowerShower, and PowerCloud. VBCloud is described as a backdoor and file stealer targeting documents such as DOC, PDF, and XLS. PowerShower is described as a reconnaissance and propagation tool that can collect information about running processes, administrator groups, domain controllers, the operating system, and hardware, and can download and execute PowerShell scripts. PowerCloud is described as an obfuscated PowerShell-based tool that collected administrator-user information and wrote Base64-encoded data to Google Sheets. The content states that Inception/Cloud Atlas used a browser plugin to steal passwords and sessions from Internet Explorer, Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Torch, and Yandex, and obtained and used the open-source tool LaZagne. It also used a file-hunting plugin to collect .txt, .pdf, .xls, and .doc files from infected hosts. Additional credential theft activity included copying the SAM and SECURITY hives via a shadow copy and using fodhelper.exe for UAC bypass. Persistence and access mechanisms directly mentioned include modifying the Registry Run key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run, including a Run value named YandexBrowser_setup; scheduled tasks; VBS scripts; reverse SSH tunnels; RevSocks; and Tor hidden services. The content also describes use of a PowerShell script, rdp_new.ps1, to modify termsrv.dll on Windows 10, add a firewall rule for RDP, weaken remote access security settings, and enable multiple simultaneous RDP sessions so operators could maintain access without disconnecting the legitimate user. For command and control and traffic concealment, the group used HTTP, HTTPS, and WebDAV, as well as chains of compromised routers to proxy communications between operators and cloud service providers. The content also notes use of reverse SSH tunnels initiated outbound from victim hosts to attacker-controlled servers, and Tor-routed access through .onion addresses. Malware payloads dropped on victim machines were described as encrypted with AES and RC4.
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Targeting
Who, where, and (when attributed) which flag flies behind the operation. Pulled from open-source reporting and Mallory's analyst review.
Who they target
Sectors the actor has been observed targeting.
- Government & Administration
Where they target
Geographies tied to known operations.
- 🇷🇺 Russia
- 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan
- 🇧🇾 Belarus
- 🇮🇳 India
- 🇨🇿 Czechia
Tradecraft
54 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
Associated malware families
9 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
4 additional families tracked in Mallory.
Associated vulnerabilities
5 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 5 of them exploited in the wild.
Группа вернулась к рассылке архивов с вредоносными ярлыками, запускающими PowerShell-скрипты. Злоумышленники сочетают эту технику с распространением вредоносных документов, которые, как сообщалось ранее, эксплуатируют старую уязвимость в редакторе формул Microsoft Office Equation Editor (CVE-2018-0802) для загрузки и выполнения вредоносного кода.
In August 2014, some of our users observed targeted attacks with a variation of CVE-2012-0158 and an unusual set of malware.
Previously, Cloud Atlas dropped its “validator” implant named “PowerShower” directly, after exploiting the Microsoft Equation vulnerability (CVE-2017-11882) mixed with CVE-2018-0802.
Inception has exploited CVE-2012-0158, CVE-2014-1761, CVE-2017-11882 and CVE-2018-0802 for execution.
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.
Observables
128 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
Recent activity
20 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Espionage-focused intrusions against government agencies and diplomatic organizations, using phishing for initial access, custom malware, modified termsrv.dll to enable concurrent RDP sessions, and layered persistence via reverse SSH tunnels, Tor, and proxy tooling.
Conducting long-running espionage-focused intrusions in 2025–2026 against organizations in Russia and Belarus, using phishing, malicious LNK archives, weaponized Office documents, PowerShell loaders, VBCloud and PowerShower backdoors, credential theft, lateral movement, and resilient access via reverse SSH tunnels, RevSocks, and Tor.
Named threat actor or activity set referenced in retrospective threat reporting.
Listed as a threat actor associated with the PowerShell P/Invoke process injection API chain detection and related ATT&CK techniques.
The version that knows your environment.
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.