GREF
- First seen
- 2017-03-01 00:00:00
- Origin
- CN
- Primary motivation
- espionage
- Sophistication
- advanced
- Resource level
- government
- Actor type
- nation-state
- Last IoC activity
- 2026-07-15 16:45:04
- Profile updated
- 2026-07-07 12:11:24
Targeted industries: technology-and-telecommunications media-and-entertainment government-and-public-sector
Targeted regions: country_code:cn country_code:tr
Context
GREF is a China-aligned APT group that has been active since at least March 2017. They are known for using custom backdoors, loaders, and ancillary tools in their targeted attacks. Recently, they have been attributed to two active Android campaigns that distribute the BadBazaar malware through malicious apps on official and alternative app stores. GREF has targeted Android users, particularly Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic minorities outside of China, using trojanized versions of popular messaging apps like Signal and Telegram.
Reports & references
- ESET — Badbazaar Espionage Tool Targets Android Users Trojanized Signal Telegram Apps (report)