GINC-APT-0184 · Criminal

Cobalt Group

Also Cobalt, ATK 67, Cobalt Gang, Cobalt Spider, G0080, GOLD KINGSWOOD and 2 other names.

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

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