- Category
- Targeted, sponsor unknown · Targeted intrusions with no sponsor attributed.
- Origin
- Unknown
- Motivation
- Information theft and espionage
- Seen
- 2023
- Sources
- 7 sources carry it
- Identifier
- GINC-APT-0225 · mysterious-elephant
What it is
Mysterious Elephant is an APT group active since 2023 that primarily targets government and foreign affairs entities across South Asia, especially Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Afghanistan. In its early-2025 campaign it shifted toward spear-phishing and custom/customized tools—including the BabShell reverse shell and MemLoader HidenDesk/Edge loaders—to deploy RATs like Remcos and VRat, while also using WhatsApp-specific exfiltration tools to steal shared documents, images, and archives. The group shares code and infrastructure with other APT clusters (Origami Elephant, Confucius, SideWinder), reflecting ongoing tool reuse and collaboration among South Asian threat actors.
Names
The names each vendor, agency and source gives it. Naming differs by who tracks the actor, so one group carries many.
- Other names
- APT-K-47
Targets
- Countries
- Pakistan
Tools
The tools and malware families the sources tie to it.
- CrossRat
- ORPCBackdoor
- Remcos
Sources
- ETDA Threat Group Card apt.etda.or.th
- Malpedia malpedia.caad.fkie.fraunhofer.de