- Category
- State · Attributed to a state or working for one.
- Origin
- North Korea(high confidence)
- Agency named
- Lazarus
- Motivation
- Information theft and espionage
- Seen
- 2018
- Sources
- 8 sources carry it
- Identifier
- GINC-APT-0162 · wassonite
What it is
WASSONITE is a North Korea-linked APT that has targeted industrial sectors, including electric generation, nuclear energy, manufacturing, and research entities in India, South Korea, and Japan since at least 2018. The group employs DTrack RAT for remote access, Mimikatz for credential capture, and various system tools for lateral movement and file transfers. WASSONITE has been observed using nuclear energy-themed spear phishing lures to deploy the AppleSeed backdoor, which can take screenshots, log keystrokes, and execute commands from a C2 server. Their operations focus on initial access, reconnaissance, and data collection without demonstrating disruptive capabilities.
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
- ETDA / ThaiCERTNorth Korea
- MISP Galaxy (CFR tagging)North Korea
- ThreatActor.info (Malpedia et al.)North Korea
Targets
- Countries
- India, Japan, South Korea
- Sectors
- Energy, Manufacturing, Oil and gas, Research
Tools
The tools and malware families the sources tie to it.
- Backdoor.Oldrea
- DTrack
- Mimikatz
- Nuclear RAT
- Remote Utilities
- RemoteCMD
- RemotePC
- Seed RAT
Sources
- ETDA Threat Group Card apt.etda.or.th
- Malpedia malpedia.caad.fkie.fraunhofer.de