- Category
- Targeted, sponsor unknown · Targeted intrusions with no sponsor attributed.
- Origin
- Russia(high confidence)
- Sources
- 3 sources carry it
- Identifier
- GINC-APT-0800 · infrastructure-destruction-squad
What it is
Dark Engine has emerged as a significant threat actor targeting industrial control systems and SCADA systems in sectors such as metallurgy and food processing. The group has conducted multiple ICS-targeted incidents, with a pronounced operational surge in June 2025. Additionally, Dark Engine is involved in a campaign that embeds fraudulent CAPTCHA prompts into legitimate WordPress sites, utilizing SEO poisoning to harvest login credentials. Reports also indicate a data leak from Dark Engine that exposed sensitive phone data in the U.S.
Names
The names each vendor, agency and source gives it. Naming differs by who tracks the actor, so one group carries many.
- Other names
- Dark Engine
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
Tools
The tools and malware families the sources tie to it.
- Dark DDoSeR
- PoisonIvy
Sources
- Malpedia malpedia.caad.fkie.fraunhofer.de