Lazarus Group · Labyrinth Chollima · HIDDEN COBRA · Guardians of Peace · ZINC · NICKEL ACADEMY · Diamond Sleet
Lazarus Group is a North Korean state-sponsored cyber threat group attributed to the Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB). [1][2]Lazarus Group has been active since at least 2009 and is reportedly responsible for the November 2014 destructive wiper attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, identified by Novetta as part of Operation Blockbuster. Malware used by Lazarus Group correlates to other reported campaigns, including Operation Flame, Operation 1Mission, Operation Troy, DarkSeoul, and Ten Days of Rain.[3]
North Korea’s cyber operations have shown a consistent pattern of adaptation, forming and reorganizing units as national priorities shift. These units frequently share personnel, infrastructure, malware, and tradecraft, making it difficult to attribute specific operations with high confidence. Public reporting often uses “Lazarus Group” as an umbrella term for multiple North Korean cyber operators conducting espionage, destructive attacks, and financially motivated campaigns.[4][5][6]
93
TechniquesTop 1%
15
TacticsTop 1%
26
Tools & malwareTop 3%
1
Campaignunranked
Enterprise ATT&CK only. Any Mobile or ICS rows on the same ATT&CK page are not carried.
Lazarus Group malware also uses a unique form of communication encryption known as FakeTLS that mimics TLS but uses a different encryption method, potentially evading SSL traffic inspection/decryption.78910
Lazarus Group malware SierraAlfa sends data to one of the hard-coded C2 servers chosen at random, and if the transmission fails, chooses a new C2 server to attempt the transmission again.1718
Lazarus Group malware IndiaIndia obtains and sends to its C2 server the title of the window for each running process. The KilaAlfa keylogger also reports the title of the window in the foreground.192021
Lazarus Group malware IndiaIndia checks Registry keys within HKCU and HKLM to determine if certain applications are present, including SecureCRT, Terminal Services, RealVNC, TightVNC, UltraVNC, Radmin, mRemote, TeamViewer, FileZilla, pcAnyware, and Remote Desktop. Another Lazarus Group malware sample checks for the presence of the following Registry key:HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Bitcoin\Bitcoin-Qt.222324
Lazarus Group malware IndiaIndia obtains and sends to its C2 server information about the first network interface card’s configuration, including IP address, gateways, subnet mask, DHCP information, and whether WINS is available.2526
Discovery25 detection rules
Standing G0032
Reach is how much of ATT&CK this group touches. Coverage is how well defended each thing it does is, as a median per technique rather than a total — a total would just restate the reach. Each figure is ranked against all 176 ATT&CK groups only where that population actually spreads. Where most of the population shares one value, a percentile would rank the tie instead of the entity, so the raw value is shown and no rank is claimed.
Reach
Techniques93Top 1%
99th percentile · 99% of 176 ATT&CK groups have this many Enterprise techniques or fewer.
Tactics15Top 1%
100th percentile · None of the 176 ATT&CK groups has more tactics spanned — the highest in the population.
Tools & malware26Top 3%
97th percentile · 97% of 176 ATT&CK groups have this many tools and malware or fewer.
Campaign189% tie · 4 values
89% of the population shares a single value across only 4 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
Coverage
Rules / technique12med31st pct
31st percentile · 69% of 176 ATT&CK groups have more detection rules per technique.
Tests / technique3med50th pct
50th percentile · 50% of 176 ATT&CK groups have more atomic tests per technique.
Data comps / technique4med65% tie · 12 values
65% of the population shares a single value across only 12 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
Mitigations / technique1med43% tie · 11 values
43% of the population shares a single value across only 11 distinct values, so a percentile here would rank the tie, not the entity.
5 of 8 axes carry an honest rank on this page. Coverage medians are taken across this group’s 93 Enterprise techniques.
Range
Technique Campaign use over its cumulative rule count.
Mark Morowczynski '@markmorow', MikeDuddington, '@dudders1', Tim Shelton
2022-08-11
2022-08-18
6f583da0-3a90-4566-a4ed-83c09fe18bbf
This method uses uncommon error codes on failed logons to determine suspicious activity and tampering with accounts that have been disabled or somehow restricted.
The following analytic detects suspicious modifications to firewall rule registry settings that allow inbound traffic on specific ports with a public profile. (...)
Mark Morowczynski '@markmorow', Bailey Bercik '@baileybercik'
2022-06-01
—
248649b7-d64f-46f0-9fb2-a52774166fb5
Resource owner password credentials (ROPC) should be avoided if at all possible as this requires the user to expose their current password credentials to the application directly. (...)
Mark Morowczynski '@markmorow', Bailey Bercik '@baileybercik'
2022-06-01
—
55695bc0-c8cf-461f-a379-2535f563c854
Detects when AppLocker "Audit only" enforcement mode reports that an Application, DLL, Script, MSI, or Packaged-App would have been blocked if AppLocker "Enforce rules" enforcement mode was enabled.