UNG0002
UNG0002, also referred to as Unknown Group 0002, is a South Asian cyber espionage actor. Reporting attributes the group to campaigns targeting strategic sectors across China, Hong Kong, and Pakistan, including defense, aviation, government, academia, electrical engineering, energy infrastructure, healthcare, universities, IT enterprises, and the video game sector. Seqrite Labs documented campaigns including Operation Cobalt Whisper, Operation AmberMist, and Operation Dragon Whistle. The group commonly uses phishing emails and socially engineered lures, including fake résumés and institutional notices, to deliver malicious ZIP archives containing LNK shortcut files and VBScript payloads. In Operation Dragon Whistle, the actor targeted the Chinese educational sector, specifically students and faculty at Changzhou University, using a lure about mandatory 2026 physical fitness testing. That campaign used a double-extension LNK disguised as a PDF, explorer.exe to launch hidden VBScript, a decoy document for distraction, and DLL side-loading via a legitimate Bandizip executable with a malicious ark.x64.dll. Reported anti-analysis and defense-evasion behavior included checks for tools such as Wireshark and Process Monitor, and tampering with AMSI and ETW. The final payload in that campaign was an in-memory Cobalt Strike Beacon communicating with infrastructure resolving to lysander.asia. Across reported activity, UNG0002 has shown preference for LNK and VBScript-based infection chains and has used post-exploitation tooling including Cobalt Strike and Metasploit. Operation Cobalt Whisper, active from May to September 2024, targeted defense and aviation entities in China and Hong Kong and deployed Cobalt Strike for command and control. Operation AmberMist, active from January to May 2025, targeted government and academia entities in China and Pakistan and culminated in deployment of INET RAT, assessed as a customized Shadow RAT variant, along with the Blister DLL trojan acting as a shellcode loader. Shadow RAT usage has been attributed to UNG0002 by Malpedia and Seqrite Labs.
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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.
- Academia & Research
Where they target
Geographies tied to known operations.
- 🇨🇳 China
Where they're from
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
- CN
Tradecraft
17 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
6 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
1 additional family tracked in Mallory.
Observables
12 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
Recent activity
3 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Conducting the Operation Dragon Whistle phishing campaign targeting the Chinese educational sector, using highly tailored social engineering against university students and faculty, followed by a multi-stage malware infection chain that culminates in in-memory Cobalt Strike Beacon deployment.
South Asian espionage actor linked to Shadow RAT and conducting campaigns against defense, aviation, government, and academia targets. Reported operations include Operation Cobalt Whisper and Operation AmberMist, using spearphishing, ClickFix social engineering, LNK delivery, DLL sideloading, and fake government pages.
Conducting large-scale cyber-espionage campaigns across strategic sectors in China, Hong Kong, and Pakistan using phishing emails (often with fake résumés) that deliver ZIP/LNK/VBScript-based infection chains, followed by post-exploitation frameworks and RAT deployment for persistent remote access.
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.