GINC-APT-0269 · Criminal

AppleJeus

Also UNC4736, Citrine Sleet, Gleaming Pisces, UNC1720.

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

Sources