AppleJeus
MITRE ATT&CK: G1049 View on attack.mitre.org
Aliases: Gleaming Pisces, Citrine Sleet, UNC1720, UNC4736, AppleJeus
- First seen
- 2018-01-01 00:00:00
- Primary motivation
- financial-gain
- Sophistication
- expert
- Resource level
- government
- Actor type
- nation-state
- Last IoC activity
- 2026-04-24 03:11:50
- Profile updated
- 2026-07-07 12:30:19
Targeted industries: financial-services technology-and-telecommunications
Context
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.
Detection coverage
- 11 Sigma rules
Malware & tools used
- Financial Theft (attack-pattern)
- Phishing (attack-pattern)
Reports & references
- blogs.jpcert.or.jp — Classifying Lazaruss Subgroup (report)
- cloud.google.com — North Korea Cyber Structure Alignment 2023 (report)
- reports.dtexsystems.com — Dtex Exposing+Dprk+Cyber+Syndicate+And+Hidden+It+Workforce (report)
- MITRE ATT&CK — G1049 (report)
- cloud.google.com — 3Cx Software Supply Chain Compromise (report)
- Palo Alto Unit 42 — Threat Assessment North Korean Threat Groups 2024 (report)
Attributed from
- 3CX Supply Chain Attack (campaign)