Nomadic Octopus
Also tracked as DustSquad
Nomadic Octopus is a Russian-speaking cyber espionage threat group that has primarily targeted Central Asia, including local governments, diplomatic missions, and individuals, since at least 2014. Nomadic Octopus has been observed conducting campaigns involving Android and Windows malware, mainly using the Delphi programming language, and building custom variants.
- Known attack methods
- 7
- Origin
- Russia
- Motive
- Espionage
- First seen
- 2014
- Source
- MITRE ATT&CK
How they break in
Techniques MITRE has documented this group using, mapped onto the ATT&CK matrix. Each one is a behaviour you can look for in your own logs, and a control you can test.
Reconnaissance
12 techniques
Resource Development
9 techniques
Initial Access
11 techniques · 1 used
Execution
20 techniques · 2 used
Persistence
22 techniques
Privilege Escalation
13 techniques
Stealth
30 techniques · 2 used
Defense Impairment
18 techniques
Credential Access
17 techniques
Discovery
34 techniques
Lateral Movement
9 techniques
Collection
17 techniques
Command and Control
18 techniques · 1 used
Exfiltration
9 techniques
Impact
15 techniques
Initial access1
Command and control1
Malware
Families MITRE records this group deploying. Detection names for these are a reasonable place to start.