McAfee Advanced Threat Research analysts have discovered a new operation targeting humanitarian aid organizations and using North Korean political topics as bait to lure victims into opening malicious Microsoft Word documents. Our analysts have named this Operation Honeybee, based on the names of the malicious documents used in the attacks. Advanced Threat Research analysts have also discovered malicious documents authored by the same actor that indicate a tactical shift. These documents do not contain the typical lures by this actor, instead using Word compatibility messages to entice victims into opening them. The Advanced Threat Research team also observed a heavy concentration of the implant in Vietnam from January 15–17.
The same group is tracked under different names by different vendors.
| Vendor | Name |
|---|---|
| OSINT | G0072 |
No techniques mapped yet.
No IOCs extracted yet from reports naming this actor.
Every report in the Global Intel Library that names Honeybee, newest first. Open any report to see the full analysis with provenance.
No reports in the Lore library name this actor yet.
Indicators from free threat feeds (abuse.ch ThreatFox, AlienVault OTX) attributed to Honeybee. Each row shows why it was linked and where it came from.
No feed indicators linked to this actor yet. Feeds are checked every hour.
Open-source reports about this actor collected from MISP Galaxy and MITRE ATT&CK.