Unit 61398
Unit 61398 is identified in the provided content as a hacking unit of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The content states that in May 2014 the U.S. Department of Justice indicted five members of PLA Unit 61398, accusing them of stealing data from American firms to benefit state-owned Chinese companies and of stealing corporate secrets. The same unit is also described as having been accused of intrusions into U.S. government computer systems, including the office of the secretary of defense. The content further places Unit 61398 in the broader context of Chinese cyber operations discussed around the Office of Personnel Management intrusions, though officials in those incidents said attribution to a specific Chinese government entity was unclear. Tactics directly mentioned in the content include client-side attacks, cited as an example of Unit 61398 activity. No additional aliases or sub-groups beyond "unit_61398" are provided in the source content.
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Mallory correlates actor tradecraft and target patterns against your stack, your sector, and your geography. See overlap before they land.
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
- Military
- Technology Hardware & Equipment
- Academia & Research
Where they target
Geographies tied to known operations.
- 🇺🇸 United States
Where they're from
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
- CN
Tradecraft
7 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
Recent activity
4 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
PLA-attributed cyber-espionage unit implicated in theft of trade secrets and sensitive data from US companies (including power, metals, and solar industries) and in spear-phishing activity.
Identified as a Chinese PLA hacking unit accused by the U.S. DOJ of stealing data from American firms to benefit state-owned Chinese companies (economic espionage / IP theft).
Chinese military-linked cyber espionage group accused of stealing corporate secrets and conducting intrusions into U.S. government computer systems.
Unit 61398 is known for conducting client-side attacks, particularly social engineering and spear-phishing campaigns, to compromise targets and gain initial access to networks. They are associated with advanced persistent threat (APT) operations targeting large organizations.
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.