Andariel is a North Korean state-sponsored threat group that has been active since at least 2009. Andariel has primarily focused its operations--which have included destructive attacks--against South Korean government agencies, military organizations, and a variety of domestic companies; they have also conducted cyber financial operations against ATMs, banks, and cryptocurrency exchanges. Andariel's notable activity includes Operation Black Mine, Operation GoldenAxe, and Campaign Rifle.[1][2][3][4][5]
Andariel is considered a sub-set of Lazarus Group, and has been attributed to North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau.[6]
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 instead of tracking clusters or subgroups.
12
Techniques39th pct
8
Tactics48th pct
2
Tools & malware39th pct
0
CampaignsNone recorded
Enterprise ATT&CK only. Any Mobile or ICS rows on the same ATT&CK page are not carried.
Andariel has used watering hole attacks, often with zero-day exploits, to gain initial access to victims within a specific IP range.1314
Initial Access6 detection rules
Standing G0138
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
Techniques1239th pct
39th percentile · 61% of 176 ATT&CK groups have more Enterprise techniques.
Tactics848th pct
48th percentile · 52% of 176 ATT&CK groups have more tactics spanned.
Tools & malware239th pct
39th percentile · 61% of 176 ATT&CK groups have more tools and malware.
Campaigns089% 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 / technique13.5med39th pct
39th percentile · 61% of 176 ATT&CK groups have more detection rules per technique.
Tests / technique1medBottom 22%
22nd percentile · 78% 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 12 Enterprise techniques.
Range
Technique Campaign use over its cumulative rule count.
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.
Detects the Linux-specific execution chain of the plain-crypto-js malicious npm dependency by Axios NPM package, including payload download via curl and detached execution using nohup and python3. (...)
Detects the macOS-specific execution chain of the plain-crypto-js malicious npm dependency in Axios NPM Package, including AppleScript execution via osascript, payload download, permission modification, execution, and cleanup.
The following analytic detects the creation of a batch file (.bat) within the Windows system directory tree, specifically in the System32 or SysWOW64 folders. (...)
This analytic detects potential reconnaissance activities on Cisco ASA devices by identifying execution of multiple information-gathering "show" commands within a short timeframe. (...)
This analytic detects unexpected outbound network connections initiated by known webserver processes such as `httpd.exe`, `nginx.exe`, or `tomcat.exe` to common file sharing or public content hosting services like GitHub, Discord CDN, Transfer.sh, or Pastebin. (...)
The following analytic detects file downloads involving executable, archive, or scripting-related file types that are commonly used in malware delivery. (...)
Michael Haag, Nasreddine Bencherchali, Splunk, Talos NTDR
2025-07-17
2026-05-13
93db24a0-fd21-45d7-9daf-84afd5a8cca2
Splunk
The following analytic detects potential reverse shell activity by identifying connections involving ports commonly associated with remote access tools, shell listeners, or tunneling utilities. (...)
The following analytic detects connections with a high Encrypted Visibility Engine (EVE) threat confidence score, indicating potentially malicious behavior within encrypted traffic. (...)
This analytic identifies Snort intrusion signatures that have been triggered by ten or more distinct internal IP addresses within a one-hour window. (...)