About the group
AppleJeus is a North Korean state-sponsored threat group attributed to the Reconnaissance General Bureau. Associated with the broader Lazarus Group umbrella of actors, AppleJeus has been active since at least 2018 and is closely aligned in resources with TEMP.hermit, another DPRK-affiliated group under the same umbrella. The group’s primary mission is to generate and launder revenue to provide financial support to the government. AppleJeus primarily targets the cryptocurrency industry and is most notably responsible for the 3CX Supply Chain Attack. The group traditionally deploys malicious cryptocurrency software in combination with Phishing. From these compromised environments, it selectively deploys additional backdoors to enable extended operations against high-value financial targets.
Attack chain
Plausible scenario built from the group's real techniques, ordered by the phases of an attack. Each step shows how the group typically operates.
Illustrative chain derived from techniques documented in MITRE ATT&CK — it does not represent a specific past attack. Severity summarizes the known arsenal (kill-chain coverage, actively exploited CVEs, techniques).
Techniques (MITRE ATT&CK) 2
How the group operates, mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK matrix and organized by the phases of an attack.
Exploited vulnerabilities
No CVEs attributed to this group in public sources (MITRE ATT&CK). Absence of attribution does not mean absence of activity.
References
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