Cinnamon Tempest
Cinnamon Tempest is a financially motivated, China-based activity group tracked by Microsoft as DEV-0401 and also referred to as Emperor Dragonfly and Bronze Starlight; aliases in the provided content also include Highground and SLIME34. Microsoft states it is unique among the human-operated ransomware actors it tracks in being confirmed as China-based. The group conducts hands-on ransomware intrusions and has handled initial access, lateral movement, and ransomware deployment itself. Reported initial access includes exploitation of unpatched public-facing applications and vulnerabilities in Exchange, ManageEngine AdSelfService Plus, Confluence, Log4j 2, and VMware Horizon. Observed tradecraft includes use of customized Impacket wmiexec.py and WMI for lateral movement, PowerShell for C2 communications, file download, and reconnaissance, batch scripts deployed via Group Policy Objects for ransomware execution, weaponized DLLs to load and decrypt payloads, protocol tunneling and proxying, and use of web shells and IIS components for persistence. The group has used open-source and customized tooling including the Iox proxy tool, NPS tunneling tool, Meterpreter, and a keylogger that uploaded captured keystroke logs to Alibaba Cloud Object Storage Service (Aliyun OSS). Microsoft also reported that the group frequently launched Cobalt Strike via DLL search order hijacking and began replacing Cobalt Strike with Sliver around June 2022. In 2022, Microsoft observed DEV-0401 deploying Pandora ransomware and later shifting to LockBit 2.0.
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Tradecraft
42 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
Associated malware families
11 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
6 additional families tracked in Mallory.
Associated vulnerabilities
9 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 9 of them exploited in the wild.
This detection identifies instances where Windows Explorer.exe spawns PowerShell or cmd.exe processes, particularly focusing on executions initiated by LNK files. This behavior is associated with the ZDI-CAN-25373 Windows shortcut zero-day vulnerability, where specially crafted LNK files are used to trigger malicious code execution through cmd.exe or powershell.exe. This technique has been actively exploited by multiple APT groups in targeted attacks through both HTTP and SMB delivery methods.
This analytic identifies potential exploitation attempts of ProxyShell (CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, CVE-2021-31207) and ProxyNotShell (CVE-2022-41040, CVE-2022-41082) vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server.
This analytic identifies potential exploitation attempts of ProxyShell (CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, CVE-2021-31207) and ProxyNotShell (CVE-2022-41040, CVE-2022-41082) vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server.
This analytic identifies potential exploitation attempts of ProxyShell (CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, CVE-2021-31207) and ProxyNotShell (CVE-2022-41040, CVE-2022-41082) vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server.
In February of 2022, DEV-0401 was observed deploying the Pandora ransomware family, primarily via unpatched VMware Horizon systems vulnerable to the Log4j 2 CVE-2021-44228 vulnerability.
4 more CVEs tied to this actor tracked in Mallory.
Observables
5 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
Recent activity
20 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Listed as a threat actor associated with the PowerShell P/Invoke process injection API chain detection and related ATT&CK techniques.
Listed as a threat actor associated with PowerShell execution behavior relevant to this detection analytic.
Listed as a threat actor associated with Azure Active Directory account takeover, persistence, privilege escalation, and related cloud-focused post-compromise activity detected via PowerShell module installation.
Listed as a threat actor associated with use of Cobalt Strike PowerShell loader patterns.
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Match sector + geo + tech-stack targeting against your real footprint.
Every observed MITRE ATT&CK technique, grouped by tactic.
Families this actor is known to deploy, with IOCs and behavior.
CVEs this actor has used in known campaigns.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Domains, IPs, and hashes tied to this actor, refreshed continuously.