Andariel is a threat group that the Korean Financial Security Institute designated as a subgroup of Lazarus, as Kaspersky reported in 2021. AhnLab described it in 2018 as active since 2015 and linked its activity to earlier operations against South Korean organizations. Its targets span military and defense bodies, political organizations, security and technology companies, energy research, banks, cash machines, cryptocurrency exchanges, and other financially relevant businesses. Characteristic access methods include spear-phishing documents with macros, watering holes that exploit locally used ActiveX software, attacks on centralized management products, and supply-chain compromise. By 2018 it was also expanding reconnaissance beyond Internet Explorer, collecting browser and software details from compromised Korean websites. Activity observed from 2020 into 2021 showed further evolution toward staged in-memory loaders, interactive backdoor use, and selectively deployed custom ransomware, combining intelligence collection with direct financial gain.
Defense Network
#DESERTWOLF • 2016-08
🇰🇷 Korea, Republic of
DESERTWOLF involved a compromise of South Korean defense-network systems after attackers abused weaknesses in the military internet antivirus system and distributed malware through an internet antivirus relay server. Investigators found malware on defense-network PCs, confirmed theft of military materials including classified information, and cited weak vulnerability management and improper internet-to-defense network connectivity; South Korean defense reporting assessed the activity as likely North Korean, and FSI later grouped DESERTWOLF within the Andariel/Rifle activity set.
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5
Related Reports
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1
Affected Countries
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120
Months Since
Related Actors
First seen: 2017-07 •
Last seen: 2026-06