Tonto Team
Also known as CactusPete, KARMA PANDA, BRONZE HUNTLEY, COPPER, Red Beifang, G0131, PLA Unit 65017, Earth Akhlut, TAG-74, LONE CASTLE
Tonto Team is a Chinese-speaking APT group that has been active since at least 2013. They primarily target military, diplomatic, and infrastructure organizations in Asia and Eastern Europe. The group has been observed using various malware, including the Bisonal RAT and ShadowPad. They employ spear-phishing emails with malicious attachments as their preferred method of distribution.
Targets: Military, Government, Private sector, Eastern Europe, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, United States
CVEs in recent coverage
No CVEs named alongside this actor in the last 90 days.
Recent victims
No leak-site posts on record for this group.
ATT&CK techniques
Recent activity
No posts or advisories have named this actor recently.
References
- https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/04/researchers-claim-china-trying-to-hack-south-korea-missile-defense-efforts/
- https://docs.huihoo.com/rsaconference/usa-2014/anf-t07b-the-art-of-attribution-identifying-and-pursuing-your-cyber-adversaries-final.pdf
- https://securelist.com/cactuspete-apt-groups-updated-bisonal-backdoor/97962/
- https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-secret-weapon-in-south-korea-missile-fight-hackers-1492766403
- https://www.pwc.co.uk/cyber-security/pdf/pwc-cyber-threats-2020-a-year-in-retrospect.pdf
- https://www.fireeye.com/content/dam/fireeye-www/summit/cds-2019/presentations/cds19-executive-s08-achievement-unlocked.pdf
- https://www.welivesecurity.com/2021/03/10/exchange-servers-under-siege-10-apt-groups/
- https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/23/g/supply-chain-attack-targeting-pakistani-government-delivers-shad.html
- https://www.sentinelone.com/labs/targets-of-interest-russian-organizations-increasingly-under-attack-by-chinese-apts/
- https://go.recordedfuture.com/hubfs/reports/cta-2023-0919.pdf
- https://www.recordedfuture.com/multi-year-chinese-apt-campaign-targets-south-korean-academic-government-political-entities
- https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/updated-cyber-threat-actor-naming-system/
From the MISP threat-actor galaxy, MITRE ATT&CK and RansomLook (CC BY 4.0). Activity is any post or advisory Watch Floor collected that names the actor or one of its aliases.