Threat Group Cards: A Threat Actor Encyclopedia

APT group: Bronze Highland

Names	Bronze Highland (SecureWorks) Evasive Panda (Malwarebytes) Daggerfly (Symantec) Storm Cloud (Volexity) StormBamboo (Volexity)
Country	China
Motivation	Information theft and espionage
First seen	2012
Description	(SecureWorks) BRONZE HIGHLAND has been observed using spearphishing as an initial infection vector to deploy the MgBot remote access trojan against targets in Hong Kong. Third party reporting suggests the threat group also targets India, Malaysia and Taiwan and leverages Cobalt Strike and KsRemote Android Rat. CTU researchers assess with moderate confidence that BRONZE HIGHLAND operates on behalf of China and has a remit covering espionage against domestic human rights and pro-democracy advocates and nations neighbouring China.
Observed	Sectors: Telecommunications and human rights and pro-democracy advocates. Countries: China, Hong Kong, India, Macao, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Philippines, Taiwan, Tibet, Vietnam and Africa.
Tools used	Cobalt Strike, GIMMICK, Nightdoor, Macma, MgBot, KsRemote, RELOADEXT, Living off the Land.
Operations performed	2020	Evasive Panda APT group delivers malware via updates for popular Chinese software <https://www.welivesecurity.com/2023/04/26/evasive-panda-apt-group-malware-updates-popular-chinese-software/>
	Late 2021	Storm Cloud on the Horizon: GIMMICK Malware Strikes at macOS <https://www.volexity.com/blog/2022/03/22/storm-cloud-on-the-horizon-gimmick-malware-strikes-at-macos/>
	Nov 2022	Daggerfly: APT Actor Targets Telecoms Company in Africa <https://symantec-enterprise-blogs.security.com/blogs/threat-intelligence/apt-attacks-telecoms-africa-mgbot>
	Mid 2023	StormBamboo Compromises ISP to Abuse Insecure Software Update Mechanisms <https://www.volexity.com/blog/2024/08/02/stormbamboo-compromises-isp-to-abuse-insecure-software-update-mechanisms/>
	Sep 2023	Evasive Panda leverages Monlam Festival to target Tibetans <https://www.welivesecurity.com/en/eset-research/evasive-panda-leverages-monlam-festival-target-tibetans/>
	Jul 2024	Daggerfly: Espionage Group Makes Major Update to Toolset <https://symantec-enterprise-blogs.security.com/threat-intelligence/daggerfly-espionage-updated-toolset>
Information	<https://www.secureworks.com/research/threat-profiles> <https://blog.malwarebytes.com/threat-analysis/2020/07/chinese-apt-group-targets-india-and-hong-kong-using-new-variant-of-mgbot-malware/> <https://vb2020.vblocalhost.com/uploads/VB2020-43.pdf>

Last change to this card: 27 August 2024

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