GINC-APT-0131 · State

Longhorn

Also CIA, APT-C-39, CIA - APT-C-39, Lamberts, Longhorn, The Lamberts, Platinum Terminal and 1 other names.

Category
State · Attributed to a state or working for one.
Origin
United States(high confidence)
Sponsor
State-sponsored, CIA
Agency named
CIA
Motivation
Espionage; Information theft and espionage
Seen
2009–2017
Status
Dormant
Sources
8 sources carry it
Identifier
GINC-APT-0131 · longhorn

What it is

Longhorn has been active since at least 2011. It has used a range of back door Trojans in addition to zero-day vulnerabilities to compromise its targets. Longhorn has infiltrated governments and internationally operating organizations, in addition to targets in the financial, telecoms, energy, aerospace, information technology, education, and natural resources sectors. All of the organizations targeted would be of interest to a nation-state attacker. Longhorn has infected 40 targets in at least 16 countries across the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Africa. On one occasion a computer in the United States was compromised but, following infection, an uninstaller was launched within hours, which may indicate this victim was infected unintentionally. According to cfr, this threat actor compromises governments, international organizations, academic institutions, and financial, telecommunications, energy, aerospace, information technology, and natural resource industries for espionage purposes. Some of the tools used by this threat actor were released by Wikileaks under the name "Vault 7."

Names

The names each vendor, agency and source gives it. Naming differs by who tracks the actor, so one group carries many.

Qihoo 360
APT-C-39
Other names
CIA, CIA - APT-C-39, Lamberts, Longhorn, The Lamberts, Platinum Terminal, The Lamberts

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

Chinese and Russian sources

  • Qihoo 360United States
  • 360 Digital Security Group · 2020-03360 links APT-C-39 to CIA via Vault 7 tooling (Fluxwire, Grasshopper, Athena, AfterMidnight, HIVE); claims an 11-year campaign against Chinese aerospace, research, petroleum, internet and government targets.United States · high (claimant)
  • Kaspersky · 2017-04Kaspersky's Lamberts family matched to Symantec's Longhorn and to WikiLeaks Vault 7.United States · medium

Targets

Countries
China, Global
Sectors
Aerospace, Aviation, Education, Energy, Finance, Financial, Government, Government, Administration, IT, News - Media, Oil and gas, Private sector, Research, Telecommunications, Telecoms

Tools

The tools and malware families the sources tie to it.

  • Back Orifice
  • Back Orifice 2000
  • Black Lambert
  • Blue Lambert
  • Corentry
  • CrossRat
  • Cyan Lambert
  • Gray Lambert
  • Green Lambert
  • Lambert
  • Magenta Lambert
  • Pink Lambert
  • Purple Lambert
  • SPACESHIP
  • Silver Lambert
  • Trojan.Karagany
  • Trojan.Mebromi
  • UNITEDRAKE
  • Violet Lambert
  • White Lambert
  • everything in the [Vault 7/8] archives

Sources