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Threat actor

APT38

Last fetched

APT38 is a threat actor tracked in WhisperGraph's MITRE ATT&CK corpus, observed using 119 techniques and also known as 6 other names.

Also known as

NICKEL GLADSTONE, BeagleBoyz, Bluenoroff, Stardust Chollima, Sapphire Sleet, COPERNICIUM

Description

[APT38](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0082) is a North Korean state-sponsored threat group that specializes in financial cyber operations; it has been attributed to the Reconnaissance General Bureau.(Citation: CISA AA20-239A BeagleBoyz August 2020) Active since at least 2014, [APT38](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0082) has targeted banks, financial institutions, casinos, cryptocurrency exchanges, SWIFT system endpoints, and ATMs in at least 38 countries worldwide. Significant operations include the 2016 Bank of Bangladesh heist, during which [APT38](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0082) stole $81 million, as well as attacks against Bancomext (Citation: FireEye APT38 Oct 2018) and Banco de Chile (Citation: FireEye APT38 Oct 2018); some of their attacks have been destructive.(Citation: CISA AA20-239A BeagleBoyz August 2020)(Citation: FireEye APT38 Oct 2018)(Citation: DOJ North Korea Indictment Feb 2021)(Citation: Kaspersky Lazarus Under The Hood Blog 2017) North Korean group definitions are known to have significant overlap, and some security researchers report all North Korean state-sponsored cyber activity under the name [Lazarus Group](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0032) instead of tracking clusters or subgroups.

Techniques by tactic

Collection

Command and Control

Credential Access

Defense Impairment

Discovery

Execution

Exfiltration

Impact

Initial Access

Lateral Movement

Persistence

Privilege Escalation

Reconnaissance

Resource Development

Stealth

Attributed infrastructure

None published. WhisperGraph carries no ATTRIBUTED_TO edge to APT38 today — this states the absence of a published link, not that APT38 has no infrastructure.

References

© The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation.

Related pages

Pivot from APT38 into its techniques, tactics and any attributed infrastructure.

Queries

Resolves the slug to this actor, merging every duplicate node sharing the same name.


MATCH (a:ACTOR)
WHERE a.name =~ $pattern OR any(x IN a.aliases WHERE x =~ $pattern)
RETURN a.id AS id, a.name AS name, a.aliases AS aliases, a.description AS description,
       a.references AS references, a.campaigns AS campaigns
LIMIT 25
Run yourself →

Techniques this actor uses, grouped by the tactic each one serves.


MATCH (a:ACTOR {name: $name})-[:USES_TECHNIQUE]->(t:ATTACK_PATTERN)
OPTIONAL MATCH (t)-[:USES_TACTIC]->(tac:ATTACK_PATTERN)
RETURN t.id AS techniqueId, t.name AS techniqueName, tac.id AS tacticId, tac.name AS tacticName
LIMIT 1000
Run yourself →

Infrastructure publicly attributed to this actor.


MATCH (n)-[:ATTRIBUTED_TO]->(a:ACTOR {name: $name})
RETURN labels(n)[0] AS kind, n.name AS name
LIMIT 25
Run yourself →

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