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Threat Group-3390

G0027 China Espionage MITRE ATT&CK →

Also known as: Earth Smilodon · TG-3390 · Emissary Panda · BRONZE UNION · APT27 · Iron Tiger · LuckyMouse · Linen Typhoon

Overview

Threat Group-3390 is a Chinese threat group that has extensively used strategic Web compromises to target victims. The group has been active since at least 2010 and has targeted organizations in the aerospace, government, defense, technology, energy, manufacturing and gambling/betting sectors.

Naming & attribution

Threat Group-3390 is tracked under 9 names across the industry. It uses 57 documented ATT&CK techniques — more than 88% of the 174 groups tracked here. Activity attributed since at least 2010.

Who calls this group what — MITRE lists each alias with the report that used it, but not which vendor coined it.
NameFirst reported by
Earth SmilodonLunghi, D. and Lu, K
TG-3390Dell SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit Threat Intelligence
Emissary PandaGallagher, S.
BRONZE UNIONCounter Threat Unit Research Team
APT27Pantazopoulos, N., Henry T
Iron TigerKhandelwal, S
LuckyMouseLegezo, D
Linen TyphoonMicrosoft

Distinctive techniques

Techniques this group uses that are rare across the other 173 tracked groups — these carry more signal than the near-universal ones.

  • T1070.005 Network Share Connection Removal — used by 1 of 174 groups
  • T1560.002 Archive via Library — used by 2 of 174 groups
  • T1608.002 Upload Tool — used by 2 of 174 groups
  • T1685.001 Disable or Modify Windows Event Log — used by 2 of 174 groups
  • T1053.002 At — used by 3 of 174 groups

Closest groups by technique overlap

Computed from shared ATT&CK techniques. Overlap is not attribution — distinct actors converge on the same tradecraft — but a high share is a useful pivot.

  • menuPass China — 28 shared techniques (37% overlap)
  • OilRig Iran — 32 shared techniques (32% overlap)
  • Dragonfly Russia — 27 shared techniques (31% overlap)
  • APT32 Vietnam — 30 shared techniques (29% overlap)
  • APT41 China — 30 shared techniques (28% overlap)
  • GALLIUM China — 19 shared techniques (28% overlap)

Malware families with current indicators

One family attributed to Threat Group-3390, carrying 5 indicators currently tracked from abuse.ch ThreatFox, MalwareBazaar, URLhaus and SSLBL. MITRE documents what a group does; this is what its tooling is doing now.

  • Pandora 5 indicators

Browse or copy the indicators by hash, domain, IP or URL, filtered by age from 1 day to 3 years.

Targets

Defense · Government · Private sector · Technology

Regions

Australia · Canada · China · France · India · Iran · Israel · Japan · Russia · South Korea · Taiwan · Thailand · Turkey · United Kingdom · United States

Capabilities

  • Supply-chain compromise — ATT&CK T1195.002
  • Exploitation of public-facing / client applications — ATT&CK T1190, T1203
  • Custom malware/implant development — ATT&CK: 12 attributed custom malware families

TTPs — 57 techniques across 13 tactics

Resource Development

Initial Access

Execution

Persistence

Privilege Escalation

Stealth

Defense Impairment

Credential Access

Discovery

Lateral Movement

Collection

Command and Control

Exfiltration

Tools & malware (24)

Net · Systeminfo · gsecdump · PlugX · ASPXSpy · Cobalt Strike · Mimikatz · Impacket · gh0st RAT · certutil · China Chopper · HTTPBrowser · Tasklist · netstat · SysUpdate · HyperBro · ZxShell · RCSession · ipconfig · Clambling · pwdump · NBTscan · Pandora · Windows Credential Editor

Reporting (3)

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