Home/Threat Actor/Naikon
Threat Actor

Naikon

naikon · china · active since 2010

Naikon (Lotus Panda / Hellsing / Override Panda / BRONZE GENEVA / BRONZE STERLING / CAMERASHY / G0019, closely overlapping with APT30 / G0013) is a Chinese state-sponsored cyber-espionage actor attributed to People's Liberation Army Chengdu Military Region Second Technical Reconnaissance Bureau (Military Unit Cover Designator 78020), operator-level attribution established via ThreatConnect / DGI's September 2015 'Project CAMERASHY' OSINT investigation tracing the operator handle GreenSky27 to PLA officer Ge Xing in Kunming, active since at least 2010 and sustaining decade-plus intelligence collection operations against Southeast Asian government, military, and ASEAN-related targets across the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore, Laos, Myanmar, and Brunei; documented tradecraft includes the MsnMM / Aria-Body / RainyDay / Nebulae / FoundCore implant lineage (Kaspersky 2015 - Check Point 2020 - Bitdefender 2021 - Kaspersky 2021), DLL side- loading via legitimately-signed binaries, and, for the APT30 cluster specifically, the SHIPSHAPE / SPACESHIP / FLASHFLOOD air-gap-jumping toolkit (FireEye April 2015) designed to bridge classified networks via removable media.

china confidence: high 23 aliases MITRE ATT&CK G0013 ↗

Profile

Naikon is a Chinese state-sponsored cyber-espionage actor attributed to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Chengdu Military Region Second Technical Reconnaissance Bureau, Military Unit Cover Designator (MUCD) 78020, with operations centered in Kunming. The attribution was established by ThreatConnect Inc. and Defense Group Inc. (DGI) in their September 2015 'Project CAMERASHY' investigation, which traced the Naikon operator handle 'GreenSky27' to PLA officer Ge Xing through detailed social-media and OSINT correlation. This is the only PLA cyber unit (besides Unit 61398 / APT1) to receive comparably detailed open-source attribution, and the methodology, combining malware-attribution with OSINT operator-doxing, has been widely imitated since. Active since at least 2010, Naikon's strategic mission is sustained intelligence collection against Southeast Asian governments and South China Sea claimant states in support of PLA regional dominance objectives. Documented targeting consistently includes the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore, Laos, Myanmar, and Brunei, covering all ASEAN member states except the few closest to Beijing, as well as the UNDP, ASEAN secretariat, and international bodies engaged with Southeast Asian affairs. MITRE tracks APT30 as a separate but closely-related Chinese cluster (G0013) based on FireEye's April 2015 disclosure. The two clusters share targeting, regional focus, and some tooling patterns.

Kaspersky's original 2015 Naikon disclosure noted 'aligns with...APT30, but we haven't discovered any exact matches.' APT30 is distinguished primarily by the SHIPSHAPE / SPACESHIP / FLASHFLOOD air-gap-jumping toolkit specifically designed to bridge classified networks via removable media, a capability tier not consistently documented for Naikon proper. This entry consolidates both clusters under a single retrieval record (Naikon primary, APT30 included as alias) because defenders frequently conflate them and most public reporting treats them as a single actor ecosystem.

Tradecraft hallmarks: (a) spear-phishing with Office-vulnerability- laden attachments (CVE-2012-0158 was the workhorse exploit for most of the 2010-2018 era); (b) the MsnMM implant family and successor backdoors evolving through SSLMM
  • WinHTTPHelper.
  • Exforel.
  • Sys10.
  • Rarstone.
  • Aria-Body.
  • RainyDay.
  • Nebulae.
  • FoundCore; (c) DLL side-loading via legitimately-signed Microsoft and security-vendor binaries; (d) for the APT30 cluster specifically, the documented capability to compromise air-gapped networks via SHIPSHAPE / SPACESHIP USB-spreading malware. Operations follow Beijing working hours; documented operator dwell-times measured in years.

Aliases

23
naikonapt30apt 30apt-30g0013lotus pandahellsingoverride pandabronze genevabronze sterlingcamerashyoperation camerashyproject camerashymsnmmmsnmm campaignspla unit 78020unit 78020chengdu mr 2tbchengdu second technical reconnaissance bureauchengdu military region 2tbgreensky27ge xingg0019

Notable Campaigns

8
2021FoundCore / Cycldek (Kaspersky April 2021)
2020Aria-Body Backdoor Targeting Southeast Asian Governments (Check Point May 2020)
2019-2021RainyDay and Nebulae Backdoors, Military Targeting (Bitdefender April 2021)
2015-2019Hellsing / Lotus Panda, Continued Operations Post-Disclosure
2015APT30 and the Mechanics of a Long-Running Cyber Espionage Operation (FireEye April 2015)
2015The MsnMM Campaigns, Earliest Naikon APT Campaigns (Kaspersky May 2015)
2015The Naikon APT (Kaspersky May 14, 2015)
2015Project CAMERASHY, Closing the Aperture on China's Unit 78020 (ThreatConnect/DGI September 2015)

Attribution & Reporting

Attributed by
ThreatConnectDefense Group Inc. (DGI)Kaspersky GReATFireEyeMandiantCheck Point ResearchBitdefenderTrend MicroSymantec / BroadcomCisco TalosCrowdStrikeMicrosoftESETSecureworks Counter Threat UnitGroup-IBRecorded FutureSentinelOnePWCMacnica NetworksVerint
Key reporting
reportFireEye Labs: APT30 and the Mechanics of a Long-Running Cyber Espionage Operation (April 2015)
reportKaspersky GReAT: The MsnMM Campaigns, The Earliest Naikon APT Campaigns (May 2015)
reportKaspersky GReAT: The Naikon APT (May 14, 2015)
reportThreatConnect Inc. / Defense Group Inc.: Project CAMERASHY, Closing the Aperture on China's Unit 78020 (September 2015)
reportKaspersky GReAT: The Chronicles of the Hellsing APT, Empire Strikes Back (April 2015)
reportCheck Point Research: Naikon APT, Cyber Espionage Reloaded (May 2020)
reportBitdefender: NAIKON, Traces from a Military Cyber-Espionage Operation (April 2021)
reportKaspersky GReAT: APT Cycldek, Bridging the Air Gap (June 2020)
reportKaspersky GReAT: Lifting the Veil on Vietnam-Linked Malware (FoundCore, April 2021)
reportSymantec: Lotus Blossom, Targeting Southeast Asia
reportEuRepoC: APT Profile, Naikon

Operational

State sponsor

People's Liberation Army (PLA) Chengdu Military Region Second Technical Reconnaissance Bureau (Military Unit Cover Designator 78020), Kunming-based subordinate operating unit. Attribution established by ThreatConnect and Defense Group Inc. in September 2015 'Project CAMERASHY' through OSINT tracking of operator Ge Xing / GreenSky27 to PLA Unit 78020. APT30 cluster is widely assessed as a closely-related but not-identical PRC state cluster.

Motivations
espionage, intelligence_gathering, geopolitical_collection, south_china_sea_geopolitics, asean_collection, regional_dominance_in_asia, military_intelligence, foreign_policy_intelligence, dual_use_technology_collection
Sectors
Regions

Detection Blind Spots

60 techniques
Across this actor’s 60 mapped techniques, the share covered by each detection layer. Low bars are where you’d be blind if this actor targeted you.
Behavioral / log (Sigma)55/60 · 91%
Analytics (MITRE CAR)33/60 · 55%
Runtime / container (Falco)5/60 · 8%
File / malware (YARA)0/60 · 0%
Network (Suricata/Snort)16/60 · 26%
Vuln scan (Nuclei)0/60 · 0%

Atomic Test Plan

30 techniques
Runnable Atomic Red Team tests covering this actor’s mapped techniques - validate your detections against this specific adversary. Cross-reference the blind spots above. For authorized lab / purple-team use. Open the full builder
Intelligence Graph · click any node to traverse
CVETechnique ActorTool Family
drag to reposition · click any node to traverse · button top-right enlarges
External lookups - second-class, for what we don’t hold ourselves
Vulnerabilities
CISA KEV catalog
CWE weaknesses
CAPEC attack patterns
Package vulnerabilities
Threat intelligence
Threat actors
Tools & malware
ATT&CK techniques
IOCs
Detection & defense
Sigma rules
YARA rules
Atomic Red Team tests
D3FEND countermeasures
Compliance
NIST 800-53
ISO 27001:2022
SOC 2 TSC
PCI-DSS v4.0
CIS Controls v8.1
About
All capabilities
Live statistics
Data sources
Privacy policy
Terms of service
threatengine.sh  ·  Open-source threat intelligence platform  ·  100+ authoritative sources  ·  Every fact traces to its origin