Skip to content
Install MCP

Threat actor

Kimsuky

Last fetched

Kimsuky is a threat actor tracked in WhisperGraph's MITRE ATT&CK corpus, observed using 130 techniques and also known as 13 other names.

Also known as

Velvet Chollima, Black Banshee, Thallium, Operation Stolen Pencil, G0086, APT43, Emerald Sleet, THALLIUM, Springtail, Sparkling Pisces, TA427, Earth Kumiho, PatheticSlug

Description

[Kimsuky](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0094) is a Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)-based cyber espionage group that has been active since at least 2012. The group initially targeted South Korean government agencies, think tanks, and subject-matter experts in various fields. Its operations expanded to include the United Nations and organizations in the government, education, business services, and manufacturing sectors across the United States, Japan, Russia, and Europe. [Kimsuky](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0094) has focused collection on foreign policy and national security issues tied to the Korean Peninsula, nuclear policy, and sanctions. [Kimsuky](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0094) operations have overlapped with those of other North Korean state-sponsored cyber espionage actors as a result of ad hoc collaborations or other limited resource sharing.(Citation: EST Kimsuky April 2019)(Citation: Cybereason Kimsuky November 2020)(Citation: Malwarebytes Kimsuky June 2021)(Citation: CISA AA20-301A Kimsuky)(Citation: Mandiant APT43 March 2024)(Citation: Proofpoint TA427 April 2024) [Kimsuky](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0094) was assessed to be responsible for the 2014 Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. compromise; other notable campaigns include Operation STOLEN PENCIL (2018), Operation Kabar Cobra (2019), and Operation Smoke Screen (2019).(Citation: Netscout Stolen Pencil Dec 2018)(Citation: EST Kimsuky SmokeScreen April 2019)(Citation: AhnLab Kimsuky Kabar Cobra Feb 2019) In 2023, [Kimsuky](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0094) was observed using commercial large language models (LLMs) to assist with vulnerability research, scripting, social engineering and reconnaissance.(Citation: MSFT-AI) DPRK threat actor cluster boundaries overlap in open source reporting, with some security researchers consolidating all attributed North Korean state-sponsored cyber activity under [Lazarus Group](https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0032), rather than tracking operationally distinct 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

Infrastructure with a published ATTRIBUTED_TO link to Kimsuky in WhisperGraph. Attribution is sparse graph-wide — this list is rarely exhaustive.

References

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

Related pages

Pivot from Kimsuky 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 →

Or query Whisper from your own LLM workflow via the Whisper MCP server.