Loading threat actor…
APT15, also known as Ke3chang, GREF, Mirage, Vixen Panda, Playful Dragon, Royal APT, Flea, Nickel, and Nylon Typhoon, is a long-running China-linked cyberespionage cluster aligned with Chinese state interests. Its desktop espionage activity dates to at least 2010. Targets include government agencies, foreign ministries, diplomatic entities, government contractors, think tanks, and human-rights organizations. Its operations have affected Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean, including a UK government contractor from which information concerning government departments and military technology was stolen. Royal APT is an espionage alias, not the unrelated Royal/BlackSuit ransomware operation. APT15 uses spear-phishing, custom backdoors, stolen authentication material, and persistent remote access to collect sensitive information. Its documented tooling includes BS2005, RoyalCli, RoyalDNS, and Graphican. A 2013 campaign targeted European foreign ministries with Syria-crisis lures before the G20 summit. In a subsequent UK intrusion, operators regained access using a stolen VPN certificate after their malware had been removed. During January–March 2025, Vixen Panda used operational relay box infrastructure to route traffic through compromised systems and maintain access to networks supporting satellite operations. APT15-linked mobile surveillance includes BadBazaar, an Android and iOS malware family distributed through Uyghur-language channels. Operators associated with APT15-linked infrastructure have also used generative AI for open-source research, reconnaissance, script modification, Linux troubleshooting, software development, and infrastructure configuration. In December 2021, Microsoft seized 42 domains supporting Nickel operations against governments, diplomatic organizations, think tanks, and human-rights groups in 29 countries.
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.
61 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
46 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
41 additional families tracked in Mallory.
17 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 17 of them exploited in the wild.
GREF was particularly active in the 2010 then it used different 0-day exploits, including CVE-2010-0806, CVE-2010-1297 and CVE-2010-2884 in its attacks.
The weaponized document sent in phishing emails triggers the vulnerability outlined in CVE-2015-2545, which was first made public in September 2015... The TidePool malware is housed in an MHTML document which exploits CVE-2015-2545.
The intruders gained initial access by chaining two critical Ivanti bugs, CVE-2024-8963 and CVE-2024-8190, days before they were publicly disclosed.
The intruders gained initial access by chaining two critical Ivanti bugs, CVE-2024-8963 and CVE-2024-8190, days before they were publicly disclosed.
GREF was particularly active in the 2010 then it used different 0-day exploits, including CVE-2010-0806, CVE-2010-1297 and CVE-2010-2884 in its attacks.
12 more CVEs tied to this actor tracked in Mallory.
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.
Long-running China-based, state-aligned espionage cluster associated with desktop intrusions against diplomatic, government, contractor, think-tank, and human-rights targets, alongside mobile surveillance targeting Uyghur and Tibetan communities. Trojanized mobile applications collected communications, location, and other sensitive information. Attribution boundaries remain uncertain: the article notes disagreement over subgroup relationships and FireEye's reclassification of an older activity used to connect mobile and desktop operations. It reports Graphican activity in late 2022–early 2023 but does not establish current operational status. France, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are described only as possible mobile-campaign targets.
Used ChatGPT to support reconnaissance, development, infrastructure configuration, and research into authentication-bypass and authorization-token-capture methods.
Referenced only as an annotated actor associated with the detection technique.
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.