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SPIVY is a label for a Hong Kong-focused intrusion cluster observed in March and April 2016 using spear-phishing emails that delivered exploits for CVE-2015-2545. The activity is associated with a PoisonIvy variant, from which the cluster name is derived. Reported targeting centered on organizations in Hong Kong. The cluster used malicious Office documents containing embedded EPS content to achieve initial access via exploitation of CVE-2015-2545. This places SPIVY within a broader wave of Asia-focused operations that weaponized the Microsoft Office EPS parsing vulnerability after its disclosure and patching. Based on the available facts, SPIVY is characterized primarily by targeted phishing-based delivery and deployment of a PoisonIvy-family backdoor for post-compromise control. High-confidence details beyond the Hong Kong targeting, use of CVE-2015-2545, and association with PoisonIvy are limited. No reliable attribution to a specific state, country of origin, or broader umbrella group is established from the available information.
Who, where, and from where this actor operates. Pulled from open-source reporting and Mallory's analyst review.
Geographies tied to known operations.
1 malware family Mallory has associated with this actor across public reporting.
1 CVE Mallory has associated with this actor across public reporting. 1 of them is exploited in the wild (not necessarily by this actor).
1 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.