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FunnyDream is a China-linked cyber-espionage threat cluster or campaign active since at least 2018 and primarily focused on targets in Southeast Asia, including Vietnam and Malaysia. Reporting also associates the actor with targeting in Russia, including high-profile government and financial entities. The group is known for using the FunnyDream backdoor and Chinoxy, and has been observed leveraging Royal Road RTF weaponized documents, indicating use of exploit-based document delivery in targeted intrusion activity. FunnyDream exhibits reconnaissance and post-compromise discovery behavior, including use of native Windows utilities such as Systeminfo to collect host details and netstat to enumerate network connections. Operational tradecraft also includes registering multiple domains and likely establishing dedicated email accounts to support campaign infrastructure. The actor has been discussed alongside other China-linked intrusion clusters including TA428, with noted tooling overlaps involving Royal Road and possible relationships to malware families such as Smanager and PhantomNet, though those latter links are not firmly established and should be treated cautiously. Overall, FunnyDream is best characterized as a Chinese state-linked espionage actor conducting targeted intrusions for intelligence collection, with a concentration on Southeast Asian organizations and occasional broader geopolitical targeting.
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.
6 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
7 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
2 additional families tracked in Mallory.
3 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 3 of them exploited in the wild.
Royal Road is a tool that generates RTF files that exploit the Microsoft Office Equation Editor vulnerabilities (CVE-2017-11882, CVE-2018-0798, CVE-2018-0802).
Royal Road is a tool that generates RTF files that exploit the Microsoft Office Equation Editor vulnerabilities (CVE-2017-11882, CVE-2018-0798, CVE-2018-0802).
Royal Road is a tool that generates RTF files that exploit the Microsoft Office Equation Editor vulnerabilities (CVE-2017-11882, CVE-2018-0798, CVE-2018-0802).
12 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Campaign/activity cluster where operators used Systeminfo to collect host information.
Referenced only as a possible weak linkage/overlap point for attribution related to ToddyCat/Websiic; no standalone activity described in this text.
State-sponsored activity reportedly targeting Russian government and financial entities.
China-linked group targeting Southeast Asia and using Chinoxy and FunnyDream Backdoor; observed using Royal Road in 2020.
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.