Skip to content

Commit e365d17

Browse files
authored
Update microsoft-threat-actor-naming.md
1 parent 6a263f7 commit e365d17

File tree

1 file changed

+6
-6
lines changed

1 file changed

+6
-6
lines changed

defender-xdr/microsoft-threat-actor-naming.md

Lines changed: 6 additions & 6 deletions
Original file line numberDiff line numberDiff line change
@@ -30,22 +30,22 @@ Microsoft categorizes threat actors into five key groups:
3030

3131
**Nation-state actors:** cyber operators acting on behalf of or directed by a nation/state-aligned program, irrespective of whether for espionage, financial gain, or retribution. Microsoft observed that most nation state actors continue to focus operations and attacks on government agencies, intergovernmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and think tanks for traditional espionage or surveillance objectives.
3232

33-
**Financially motivated actors:** cyber campaigns/groups directed by a criminal organization/person with motivations of financial gain and are not associated with high confidence to a known non-nation state or commercial entity. This category includes ransomware operators, business email compromise, phishing, and other groups with purely financial or extortion motivations.
33+
**Financially motivated actors:** cyber campaigns/groups directed by a criminal organization/person with motivations of financial gain and aren't associated with high confidence to a known non-nation state or commercial entity. This category includes ransomware operators, business email compromise, phishing, and other groups with purely financial or extortion motivations.
3434

35-
**Private sector offensive actors (PSOAs):** cyber activity led by commercial actors that are known/legitimate legal entities, that create and sell cyberweapons to customers who then select targets and operate the cyberweapons. These tools were observed targeting and surveilling dissidents, human rights defenders, journalists, civil society advocates, and other private citizens, threatening many global human rights efforts.
35+
**Private sector offensive actors (PSOAs):** cyber activity led by commercial actors that are known/legitimate legal entities, that create and sell cyberweapons to customers who then select targets and operate the cyberweapons. These tools were observed targeting and surveiling dissidents, human rights defenders, journalists, civil society advocates, and other private citizens, threatening many global human rights efforts.
3636

3737
**Influence operations:** information campaigns communicated online or offline in a manipulative fashion to shift perceptions, behaviors, or decisions by target audiences to further a group or a nation's interests and objectives.
3838

3939
**Groups in development:** a temporary designation given to an unknown, emerging, or developing threat activity. This designation allows Microsoft to track a group as a discrete set of information until we can reach high confidence about the origin or identity of the actor behind the operation. Once criteria are met, a group in development is converted to a named actor or merged into existing names.
4040

4141
In our new taxonomy, a weather event or *family name* represents one of the above categories. For nation-state actors, we assigned a family name to a country/region of origin tied to attribution. For example, Typhoon indicates origin or attribution to China. For other actors, the family name represents a motivation. For example, Tempest indicates financially motivated actors.
4242

43-
Threat actors within the same weather family are given an adjective to distinguish actor groups with distinct tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), infrastructure, objectives, or other identified patterns. For groups in development, we use a temporary designation of Storm and a four-digit number where there is a newly discovered, unknown, emerging, or developing cluster of threat activity.
43+
Threat actors within the same weather family are given an adjective to distinguish actor groups with distinct tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), infrastructure, objectives, or other identified patterns. For groups in development, we use a temporary designation of Storm and a four-digit number where there's a newly discovered, unknown, emerging, or developing cluster of threat activity.
4444

4545
The table that follows shows how the family names map to the threat actors that we track.
4646

47-
|Actor category|Type|Family name|
48-
|:---:|:---:|:---:|
47+
|Threat actor category|Type|Family name|
48+
|:---|:---|:---|
4949
|Nation-state|China<br>Iran<br>Lebanon<br>North Korea<br>Russia<br>South Korea<br>Turkey<br>Vietnam|Typhoon<br>Sandstorm<br>Rain<br>Sleet<br>Blizzard<br>Hail<br>Dust<br>Cyclone|
5050
|Financially motivated|Financially motivated|Tempest|
5151
|Private sector offensive actors|PSOAs|Tsunami|
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ The table that follows shows how the family names map to the threat actors that
5555
The table that follows lists publicly disclosed threat actor names with their origin or threat actor category, previous names, and corresponding names used by other security vendors where available. This page will be updated as more info on other vendors’ names become available.
5656

5757
|Threat actor name|Origin/Threat actor category|Other names|
58-
|:----|:----|:---|
58+
|:-----|:-----|:---|
5959
|Amethyst Rain|Lebanon|Volatile Cedar|
6060
|[Antique Typhoon](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2023/07/14/analysis-of-storm-0558-techniques-for-unauthorized-email-access/)|China|Storm-0558|
6161
|[Aqua Blizzard](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2022/02/04/actinium-targets-ukrainian-organizations/)|Russia|ACTINIUM, Gamaredon, Armageddon, UNC530, shuckworm, SectorC08, Primitive Bear|

0 commit comments

Comments
 (0)