- Category
- Criminal · Financially motivated: ransomware, fraud and theft.
- Origin
- North Korea(high confidence)
- Agency named
- Lazarus, Reconnaissance General Bureau
- Seen
- to 2026
- Status
- Active
- ATT&CK
- G1049 · 2 techniques
- Sources
- 6 sources carry it
- Identifier
- GINC-APT-0269 · applejeus
What it is
AppleJeus is a North Korean state-sponsored threat group attributed to the Reconnaissance General Bureau. Associated with the broader Lazarus Group umbrella of actors, AppleJeus has been active since at least 2018 and is closely aligned in resources with TEMP.hermit, another DPRK-affiliated group under the same umbrella. The group’s primary mission is to generate and launder revenue to provide financial support to the government. AppleJeus primarily targets the cryptocurrency industry and is most notably responsible for the 3CX Supply Chain Attack. The group traditionally deploys malicious cryptocurrency software in combination with Phishing. From these compromised environments, it selectively deploys additional backdoors to enable extended operations against high-value financial targets.
Names
The names each vendor, agency and source gives it. Naming differs by who tracks the actor, so one group carries many.
- Mandiant
- UNC4736, UNC1720
- Microsoft
- Citrine Sleet
- Other names
- Gleaming Pisces
Attribution
Each attribution is a claim: who makes it, and to whom. Western and Eastern sources are kept apart, as they often disagree.
Western sources
- MISP Galaxy (CFR tagging)North Korea
- ThreatActor.info (Malpedia et al.)North Korea · high
Sources
- MITRE ATT&CK attack.mitre.org
- Malpedia malpedia.caad.fkie.fraunhofer.de