- Category
- State · Attributed to a state or working for one.
- Origin
- China(high confidence)
- Sponsor
- State-sponsored
- Motivation
- Information theft and espionage
- Seen
- 2021
- Sources
- 10 sources carry it
- Identifier
- GINC-APT-0064 · flax-typhoon
What it is
Flax Typhoon is a Chinese state-sponsored threat actor that primarily targets organizations in Taiwan. They conduct espionage campaigns and focus on gaining and maintaining long-term access to networks using minimal malware. Flax Typhoon relies on tools built into the operating system and legitimate software to remain undetected. They exploit vulnerabilities in public-facing servers, use living-off-the-land techniques, and deploy a VPN connection to maintain persistence and move laterally within compromised networks.
Names
The names each vendor, agency and source gives it. Naming differs by who tracks the actor, so one group carries many.
- CrowdStrike
- Ethereal Panda
- Microsoft
- Storm-0919
- Other names
- RedJuliett
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
- Djibouti, Hong Kong, Kenya, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Rwanda, South Korea, Taiwan, United States
- Sectors
- Education, Government, IT, Manufacturing
Tools
The tools and malware families the sources tie to it.
- China Chopper
- GodZilla webshell
- Minimo
- UNITEDRAKE
- Xploit
Sources
- ETDA Threat Group Card apt.etda.or.th
- Malpedia malpedia.caad.fkie.fraunhofer.de