APT27 engages in cyber operations where the goal is intellectual property theft, usually focusing on the data and projects that make a particular organization competitive within its field.
Name: APT27 (FireEye), Budworm (Symantec), Emissary Panda (CrowdStrike), Iron Tiger (Trend Micro), Lucky Mouse (Kaspersky), Temp.Hippo (FireEye), TG-3390 (SCWX CTU)
Location: China
Suspected attribution: This actor worked together with TA428 in Operation StealthyTrident.
Date of initial activity: 2010
Targets: APT27 has targeted multiple organizations headquartered around the globe, including North and South America, Europe, and the Middle East. These organizations fall into a range of different industries, including business services, high tech, government, and energy; however a notable number are in the aerospace and transport or travel industries.
Motivation: Information theft and espionage
Associated tools: 9002, ASPXSpy, China Chopper, Enfal, Gh0st RAT, HttpBrowser, Hunter, HyperBro, OwaAuth, PlugX, PoisonIvy, Sysupdate, ZxShell
Attack vectors: Operation Iron Tiger is a targeted attack campaign discovered to have stolen trillions of data from defense contractors in the US, including stolen emails, intellectual property, strategic planning documents – data and records that could be used to destabilize an organization.
How they work: APT27 often uses spear phishing as its initial compromise method. APT 27 threat actors are not known for using original zero-day exploits, but they may leverage those exploits once they have been made public. In at least one case, APT27 actors used a compromised account at one victim organization to send a spear phishing email to other intended victims in the similar industries. Additionally, APT 27 may compromise vulnerable web applications in order to gain an initial foothold.
Since 2013 BRONZE UNION has targeted organizations across a wide range of industry verticals including government, technology, manufacturing and non-governmental organizations in support of its political and military intelligence-collection objectives. CTU researchers assess with high confidence that BRONZE UNION operates on behalf of China. The group is adept at using a range of custom and openly available tools to identify and selectively exfiltrate high-value information and maintain access to sensitive systems over a long period of time. BRONZE UNION maintains a high degree of operational flexibility in order to adapt to the environments it operates in, using tools such as Sysupdate, PlugX, HttpBrowser and webshells including China Chopper, OwaAuth and a variant of ASPXSpy.
