nickel_alley
NICKEL ALLEY is a North Korean government-linked threat group that operates on behalf of the North Korean government. The group targets professionals in the technology sector, especially software developers and Web3-related personnel, including developers in finance and technology and individuals on freelance platforms such as Upwork and Fiverr. Its activity is publicly tracked as the Contagious Interview campaign. NICKEL ALLEY uses fake job opportunities, fraudulent recruiter outreach, fake LinkedIn company pages, fake company websites, and coordinating GitHub accounts to lure victims into a fake interview or skills assessment process that results in malware execution. Reported delivery methods include ClickFix-style lures that instruct victims to run local commands, malicious or typosquatted npm packages, compromised npm repositories, cloned or downloaded GitHub repositories that victims are told to execute with commands such as npm install and npm start, and malicious Visual Studio Code tasks. The group has used PyLangGhost RAT, a Python-based successor to GoLangGhost RAT, and has also delivered BeaverTail and OtterCookie payloads. Reported PyLangGhost capabilities include arbitrary command execution, file exfiltration, system profiling, browser credential theft, cookie theft, and theft of Chrome cryptocurrency wallet extension data. Sophos assessed that cryptocurrency theft appears to be a primary objective, while also warning that the group may use initial access for supply chain compromise or corporate espionage. Known aliases directly mentioned in the content are CL-STA-0240 (Palo Alto), Tenacious Pungsan (Datadog), and Storm-1877 (Microsoft).
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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.
- Software & Services
Where they're from
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
- KP
Tradecraft
21 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
4 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
Observables
32 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
Recent activity
4 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Targets software developers through fake job interview and recruitment lures to deliver malware and steal cryptocurrency, while also seeking initial access for supply chain compromise or corporate espionage.
Referenced as a named threat actor or activity cluster in a Sophos report title; no further operational details are provided in the content itself.
Conducts Contagious Interview campaigns targeting technology professionals with fake job opportunities, fake LinkedIn/company pages, GitHub repositories, ClickFix lures, and malicious npm/typosquatted packages to deliver malware for cryptocurrency theft, supply chain compromise, and possible corporate espionage.
Targets professionals in the technology sector using fake job opportunities and a fraudulent interview process to deliver malware as part of the Contagious Interview campaign.
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.