- Category
- Criminal · Financially motivated: ransomware, fraud and theft.
- Origin
- Russia(medium confidence)
- Motivation
- Financial crime
- Seen
- 2016–2026
- Status
- Active
- ATT&CK
- G0080 · 34 techniques
- Sources
- 7 sources carry it
- Identifier
- GINC-APT-0184 · cobalt-group
What it is
Cobalt Group is a financially motivated threat group that has primarily targeted financial institutions since at least 2016. The group has conducted intrusions to steal money via targeting ATM systems, card processing, payment systems and SWIFT systems. Cobalt Group has mainly targeted banks in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia. One of the alleged leaders was arrested in Spain in early 2018, but the group still appears to be active. The group has been known to target organizations in order to use their access to then compromise additional victims. Reporting indicates there may be links between Cobalt Group and both the malware Carbanak and the group Carbanak.
Names
The names each vendor, agency and source gives it. Naming differs by who tracks the actor, so one group carries many.
- CrowdStrike
- Cobalt Spider
- MITRE ATT&CK
- G0080
- Secureworks
- GOLD KINGSWOOD
- Other names
- Cobalt, ATK 67, Cobalt Gang, Mule Libra, TAG-CR3
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
- ETDA / ThaiCERTRussia
Targets
- Countries
- Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czech, Estonia, Georgia, Italy, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Moldova, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Türkiye, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam
- Sectors
- Financial, High-Tech, Media, Retail
Tools
The tools and malware families the sources tie to it.
- Cobalt Strike
- CrossRat
- Mimikatz
- More_eggs
- PsExec
- SDelete
- SpicyOmelette
Sources
- MITRE ATT&CK attack.mitre.org
- ETDA Threat Group Card apt.etda.or.th
- Malpedia malpedia.caad.fkie.fraunhofer.de