SYMBOLCOMMON_NAMEaka. SYNONYMS

Red Menshen  (Back to overview)

aka: Earth Bluecrow, Red Dev 18

Since 2021, Red Menshen, a China based threat actor, which has been observed targeting telecommunications providers across the Middle East and Asia, as well as entities in the government, education, and logistics sectors using a custom backdoor referred as BPFDoor. This threat actor uses a variety of tools in its post-exploitation phase. This includes custom variants of the shared tool Mangzamel (including Golang variants), custom variants of Gh0st, and open source tools like Mimikatz and Metasploit to aid in its lateral movement across Windows systems. Also, They have been seen sending commands to BPFDoor victims via Virtual Privat Servers (VPSs) hosted at a well-known provider, and that these VPSs, in turn, are administered via compromised routers based in Taiwan, which the threat actor uses as VPN tunnels. Most Red Menshen activity that has been observed took place between Monday to Friday (with none observed on the weekends), with most communication taking place between 01:00 and 10:00 UTC.131 This pattern suggests a consistent 8 to 9-hour activity window for the threat actor, with realistic probability of it aligning to local working hours.


Associated Families
elf.bpfdoor win.ghost_rat win.mangzamel

References
2026-07-15 ⋅ Expel ⋅ AARON WALTON
Introducing CylindricalCanine: The GoldenEyeDog subgroup responsible for the April DigiCert incident
Ghost RAT
2026-03-26 ⋅ Rapid7 ⋅ Rapid7
BPFdoor in Telecom Networks: Sleeper Cells in the Backbone
BPFDoor tsh
2025-08-05 ⋅ Defentive ⋅ Defentive Threat Research
Lost in Translation: Threat Actors Use SEO Poisoning and Fake DeepL Sites to Distribute Gh0st RAT
Ghost RAT
2025-06-24 ⋅ Bridewell ⋅ Bridewell
2025 Cyber Threat Intelligence Report
AsyncRAT Brute Ratel C4 Cobalt Strike Fog Ghost RAT Lumma Stealer Meduza Stealer Quasar RAT RedLine Stealer Sliver
2025-06-02 ⋅ haxrob.net ⋅ haxrob
BPFDoor - Part 1 - The past
BPFDoor
2025-06-02 ⋅ haxrob.net ⋅ haxrob
BPFDoor Part 2 - The Present
BPFDoor
2025-05-26 ⋅ Yonhap News Agency ⋅ Kim Boram
Investigation into SK Telecom data breach expands to KT, LG Uplus: sources
BPFDoor
2025-04-30 ⋅ ⋅ AhnLab ⋅ ASEC
(Larva-25003) Web server target IIS malware dissemination case
Ghost RAT
2025-04-14 ⋅ Trend Micro ⋅ Fernando Mercês
BPFDoor’s Hidden Controller Used Against Asia, Middle East Targets
BPFDoor Red Menshen
2024-07-10 ⋅ Akamai ⋅ Allen West, Kyle Lefton, Sam Tinklenberg
CVE-2024-4577 Exploits in the Wild One Day After Disclosure
Tsunami Ghost RAT xmrig
2024-05-23 ⋅ Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 ⋅ Daniel Frank, Lior Rochberger
Operation Diplomatic Specter: An Active Chinese Cyberespionage Campaign Leverages Rare Tool Set to Target Governmental Entities in the Middle East, Africa and Asia
Agent Racoon CHINACHOPPER Ghost RAT JuicyPotato MimiKatz Ntospy PlugX SweetSpecter TunnelSpecter CL-STA-0043
2023-12-21 ⋅ Martin Clauß, Valentin Obst
BPF Memory Forensics with Volatility 3
BPFDoor TripleCross
2023-07-18 ⋅ Mandiant ⋅ Mandiant Intelligence
Stealth Mode: Chinese Cyber Espionage Actors Continue to Evolve Tactics to Avoid Detection
BPFDoor SALTWATER SEASPY SideWalk ZuoRAT Daxin HyperBro HyperSSL Waterbear
2023-07-13 ⋅ Trend Micro ⋅ Fernando Mercês
Detecting BPFDoor Backdoor Variants Abusing BPF Filters
BPFDoor Symbiote
2023-05-18 ⋅ Nikhil Hegde
Looking Closer at BPF Bytecode in BPFDoor
BPFDoor
2023-05-14 ⋅ unfinished.bike ⋅ Thomas Strömberg
Fun with the new bpfdoor (2023)
BPFDoor
2023-05-11 ⋅ Bleeping Computer ⋅ Bill Toulas
Stealthier version of Linux BPFDoor malware spotted in the wild
BPFDoor
2023-05-10 ⋅ Deep instinct ⋅ Deep Instinct Threat Lab
BPFDoor Malware Evolves – Stealthy Sniffing Backdoor Ups Its Game
BPFDoor
2023-05-03 ⋅ Sophos ⋅ Andrew Brandt, Gabor Szappanos, Xinran Wu
A doubled “Dragon Breath” adds new air to DLL sideloading attacks
Ghost RAT DragonBreath
2023-04-24 ⋅ Cofense ⋅ Austin Jones
Open-Source Gh0st RAT Still Haunting Inboxes 15 Years After Release
Ghost RAT
2023-04-13 ⋅ Intel 471 ⋅ Jorge Rodriguez, Souhail Hammou
From GhostNet to PseudoManuscrypt - The evolution of Gh0st RAT
BBSRAT Gh0stTimes Ghost RAT PseudoManuscrypt
2022-09-15 ⋅ Symantec ⋅ Threat Hunter Team
Webworm: Espionage Attackers Testing and Using Older Modified RATs
9002 RAT Ghost RAT Trochilus RAT
2022-08-01 ⋅ Qualys ⋅ Harshal Tupsamudre
Here’s a Simple Script to Detect the Stealthy Nation-State BPFDoor
BPFDoor
2022-07-18 ⋅ Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 ⋅ Unit 42
Iron Taurus
CHINACHOPPER Ghost RAT Wonknu ZXShell APT27
2022-05-25 ⋅ CrowdStrike ⋅ Jamie Harris
Hunting a Global Telecommunications Threat: DecisiveArchitect and Its Custom Implant JustForFun
BPFDoor
2022-05-23 ⋅ Trend Micro ⋅ Daniel Lunghi, Jaromír Hořejší
Operation Earth Berberoka
reptile oRAT Ghost RAT PlugX pupy Earth Berberoka
2022-05-17 ⋅ Elastic ⋅ Alex Bell, Colson Wilhoit, Jake King, Rhys Rustad-Elliott
A peek behind the BPFDoor
BPFDoor
2022-05-11 ⋅ ExaTrack ⋅ Tristan Pourcelot
Tricephalic Hellkeeper: a tale of a passive backdoor
BPFDoor Bvp47 Uroburos
2022-05-11 ⋅ Sandfly Security ⋅ The Sandfly Security Team
BPFDoor - An Evasive Linux Backdoor Technical Analysis
BPFDoor
2022-05-08 ⋅ Twitter (@cyb3rops) ⋅ Florian Roth
Tweet on source code for BPFDoor found on VT
BPFDoor
2022-05-08 ⋅ Twitter (@CraigHRowland) ⋅ Craig Rowland
Twitter Thread with description of functionality for BPFDoor
BPFDoor
2022-05-07 ⋅ DoublePulsar ⋅ Kevin Beaumont
BPFDoor — an active Chinese global surveillance tool
BPFDoor
2022-05-05 ⋅ Troopers Conference ⋅ Ben Jackson, Will Bonner
Tinker Telco Soldier Spy (to be given 2022-06-27)
BPFDoor GALLIUM
2022-04-28 ⋅ PWC ⋅ PWC UK
Cyber Threats 2021: A Year in Retrospect
BPFDoor APT15 APT31 APT41 APT9 BlackTech BRONZE EDGEWOOD DAGGER PANDA Earth Lusca HAFNIUM HAZY TIGER Inception Framework LOTUS PANDA QUILTED TIGER RedAlpha Red Dev 17 Red Menshen Red Nue VICEROY TIGER
2022-04-28 ⋅ PWC ⋅ PWC UK
Cyber Threats 2021: A Year in Retrospect (Annex)
Cobalt Strike Conti PlugX RokRAT Inception Framework Red Menshen
2022-04-27 ⋅ Trend Micro ⋅ Daniel Lunghi, Jaromír Hořejší
New APT Group Earth Berberoka Targets Gambling Websites With Old and New Malware
HelloBot AsyncRAT Ghost RAT HelloBot PlugX Quasar RAT Earth Berberoka
2022-04-27 ⋅ Trendmicro ⋅ Daniel Lunghi, Jaromír Hořejší
Operation Gambling Puppet
reptile oRAT AsyncRAT Cobalt Strike DCRat Ghost RAT PlugX Quasar RAT Trochilus RAT Earth Berberoka
2022-04-15 ⋅ Center for Internet Security ⋅ CIS
Top 10 Malware March 2022
Mirai Shlayer Agent Tesla Ghost RAT Nanocore RAT SectopRAT solarmarker Zeus
2022-04-01 ⋅ The Hacker News ⋅ Ravie Lakshmanan
Chinese Hackers Target VMware Horizon Servers with Log4Shell to Deploy Rootkit
Fire Chili Ghost RAT
2022-03-30 ⋅ Fortinet ⋅ Eliran Voronovitch, Rotem Sde-Or
New Milestones for Deep Panda: Log4Shell and Digitally Signed Fire Chili Rootkits
Fire Chili Ghost RAT
2022-03-16 ⋅ AhnLab ⋅ ASEC Analysis Team
Gh0stCringe RAT Being Distributed to Vulnerable Database Servers
Ghost RAT Kingminer
2022-02-11 ⋅ Cisco Talos ⋅ Talos
Threat Roundup for February 4 to February 11
DarkComet Ghost RAT Loki Password Stealer (PWS) Tinba Tofsee Zeus
2021-12-14 ⋅ Trend Micro ⋅ Nick Dai, Ted Lee, Vickie Su
Collecting In the Dark: Tropic Trooper Targets Transportation and Government
ChiserClient Ghost RAT Lilith Quasar RAT xPack APT23
2021-10-05 ⋅ Blackberry ⋅ The BlackBerry Research & Intelligence Team
Drawing a Dragon: Connecting the Dots to Find APT41
Cobalt Strike Ghost RAT
2021-10-04 ⋅ JPCERT/CC ⋅ Shusei Tomonaga
Malware Gh0stTimes Used by BlackTech
Gh0stTimes Ghost RAT
2021-05-05 ⋅ Zscaler ⋅ Aniruddha Dolas, Manohar Ghule, Mohd Sadique
Catching RATs Over Custom Protocols Analysis of top non-HTTP/S threats
Agent Tesla AsyncRAT Crimson RAT CyberGate Ghost RAT Nanocore RAT NetWire RC NjRAT Quasar RAT Remcos
2021-04-28 ⋅ Trend Micro ⋅ Jaromír Hořejší, Joseph C Chen
Water Pamola Attacked Online Shops Via Malicious Orders
Ghost RAT
2021-04-02 ⋅ Dr.Web ⋅ Dr.Web
Study of targeted attacks on Russian research institutes
Cotx RAT Ghost RAT TA428
2021-02-22 ⋅ tccontre Blog ⋅ tcontre
Gh0stRat Anti-Debugging: Nested SEH (try - catch) to Decrypt and Load its Payload
Ghost RAT
2021-02-01 ⋅ ESET Research ⋅ Ignacio Sanmillan, Matthieu Faou
Operation NightScout: Supply‑chain attack targets online gaming in Asia
Ghost RAT NoxPlayer Poison Ivy Red Dev 17
2021-01-15 ⋅ Swisscom ⋅ Markus Neis
Cracking a Soft Cell is Harder Than You Think
Ghost RAT MimiKatz PlugX Poison Ivy Trochilus RAT
2020-12-18 ⋅ Seqrite ⋅ Pavankumar Chaudhari
RAT used by Chinese cyberspies infiltrating Indian businesses
Ghost RAT
2020-12-10 ⋅ US-CERT ⋅ FBI, MS-ISAC, US-CERT
Alert (AA20-345A): Cyber Actors Target K-12 Distance Learning Education to Cause Disruptions and Steal Data
PerlBot Shlayer Agent Tesla Cerber Dridex Ghost RAT Kovter Maze MedusaLocker Nanocore RAT Nefilim REvil Ryuk Zeus
2020-12-10 ⋅ Intel 471 ⋅ Intel 471
No pandas, just people: The current state of China’s cybercrime underground
Anubis SpyNote AsyncRAT Cobalt Strike Ghost RAT NjRAT
2020-10-27 ⋅ Dr.Web ⋅ Dr.Web
Study of the ShadowPad APT backdoor and its relation to PlugX
Ghost RAT PlugX ShadowPad
2020-07-28 ⋅ ⋅ NTT ⋅ NTT Security
CraftyPanda 標的型攻撃解析レポート
Ghost RAT PlugX
2020-07-20 ⋅ Risky.biz ⋅ Daniel Gordon
What even is Winnti?
CCleaner Backdoor Ghost RAT PlugX ZXShell
2020-06-14 ⋅ BushidoToken ⋅ BushidoToken
Deep-dive: The DarkHotel APT
Asruex Ghost RAT Ramsay Retro Unidentified 076 (Higaisa LNK to Shellcode)
2020-06-05 ⋅ Prevailion ⋅ Danny Adamitis
The Gh0st Remains the Same
Ghost RAT
2020-06-04 ⋅ PTSecurity ⋅ PT ESC Threat Intelligence
COVID-19 and New Year greetings: an investigation into the tools and methods used by the Higaisa group
Ghost RAT SongXY
2020-05-20 ⋅ Medium Asuna Amawaka ⋅ Asuna Amawaka
What happened between the BigBadWolf and the Tiger?
Ghost RAT
2020-05-14 ⋅ Avast Decoded ⋅ Luigino Camastra
APT Group Planted Backdoors Targeting High Profile Networks in Central Asia
BYEBY Ghost RAT Microcin MimiKatz Vicious Panda
2020-05-05 ⋅ Troopers Conference ⋅ Ben Jackson, Will Bonner
Tinker Telco Soldier Spy
Red Menshen
2020-03-05 ⋅ SophosLabs ⋅ Sergei Shevchenko
Cloud Snooper Attack Bypasses AWS Security Measures
Cloud Snooper Ghost RAT
2020-01-01 ⋅ Secureworks ⋅ SecureWorks
BRONZE FLEETWOOD
Binanen Ghost RAT OrcaRAT APT5
2020-01-01 ⋅ Secureworks ⋅ SecureWorks
BRONZE GLOBE
EtumBot Ghost RAT APT12
2020-01-01 ⋅ Secureworks ⋅ SecureWorks
BRONZE EDISON
Ghost RAT sykipot APT4 SAMURAI PANDA
2020-01-01 ⋅ Secureworks ⋅ SecureWorks
BRONZE UNION
9002 RAT CHINACHOPPER Enfal Ghost RAT HttpBrowser HyperBro owaauth PlugX Poison Ivy ZXShell APT27
2019-12-12 ⋅ Microsoft ⋅ Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center
GALLIUM: Targeting global telecom
CHINACHOPPER Ghost RAT HTran MimiKatz Poison Ivy GALLIUM
2019-11-19 ⋅ FireEye ⋅ Kelli Vanderlee, Nalani Fraser
Achievement Unlocked: Chinese Cyber Espionage Evolves to Support Higher Level Missions
MESSAGETAP TSCookie ACEHASH CHINACHOPPER Cobalt Strike Derusbi Empire Downloader Ghost RAT HIGHNOON HTran MimiKatz NetWire RC POISONPLUG Poison Ivy pupy Quasar RAT ZXShell
2019-11-04 ⋅ ⋅ Tencent ⋅ Tencent Security Mikan TIC
APT attack group "Higaisa" attack activity disclosed
Ghost RAT Higaisa
2019-09-23 ⋅ MITRE ⋅ MITRE ATT&CK
APT41
Derusbi MESSAGETAP Winnti ASPXSpy BLACKCOFFEE CHINACHOPPER Cobalt Strike Derusbi Empire Downloader Ghost RAT MimiKatz NjRAT PlugX ShadowPad Winnti ZXShell APT41
2019-09-17 ⋅ Talos ⋅ Christopher Evans, David Liebenberg
Cryptocurrency miners aren’t dead yet: Documenting the voracious but simple “Panda”
Ghost RAT
2019-04-25 ⋅ ⋅ DATANET ⋅ Kim Seon-ae
Chinese-based hackers attack domestic energy institutions
CALMTHORN Ghost RAT
2019-02-27 ⋅ Secureworks ⋅ CTU Research Team
A Peek into BRONZE UNION’s Toolbox
Ghost RAT HyperBro ZXShell
2019-01-07 ⋅ Intezer ⋅ Ignacio Sanmillan
ChinaZ Revelations: Revealing ChinaZ Relationships with other Chinese Threat Actor Groups
Ghost RAT
2018-09-19 ⋅ Möbius Strip Reverse Engineering ⋅ Rolf Rolles
Hex-Rays Microcode API vs. Obfuscating Compiler
Ghost RAT
2018-04-20 ⋅ NCC Group ⋅ Nikolaos Pantazopoulos
Decoding network data from a Gh0st RAT variant
Ghost RAT APT27
2018-04-17 ⋅ NCC Group ⋅ Nikolaos Pantazopoulos
Decoding network data from a Gh0st RAT variant
Ghost RAT APT27
2018-02-01 ⋅ Bitdefender ⋅ Bitdefender Team
Operation PZCHAO Inside a highly specialized espionage infrastructure
Ghost RAT APT27
2018-01-04 ⋅ Malware Traffic Analysis ⋅ Brad Duncan
MALSPAM PUSHING PCRAT/GH0ST
Ghost RAT
2018-01-01 ⋅ CrowdStrike ⋅ CrowdStrike
2018 Global Threat Report
Mangzamel BAMBOO SPIDER HOUND SPIDER ZOMBIE SPIDER
2017-12-19 ⋅ Proofpoint ⋅ Darien Huss
North Korea Bitten by Bitcoin Bug: Financially motivated campaigns reveal new dimension of the Lazarus Group
Ghost RAT
2017-12-19 ⋅ Proofpoint ⋅ Darien Huss
North Korea Bitten by Bitcoin Bug
QUICKCAFE PowerSpritz Ghost RAT PowerRatankba
2017-05-31 ⋅ MITRE ⋅ MITRE
APT18
Ghost RAT HttpBrowser APT18
2017-05-31 ⋅ MITRE ⋅ MITRE ATT&CK
PittyTiger
Enfal Ghost RAT MimiKatz Poison Ivy APT24
2017-05-31 ⋅ MITRE ⋅ MITRE ATT&CK
Axiom
Derusbi 9002 RAT BLACKCOFFEE Derusbi Ghost RAT HiKit PlugX ZXShell APT17
2017-02-25 ⋅ Financial Security Institute ⋅ Kyoung-Ju Kwak (郭炅周)
Silent RIFLE: Response Against Advanced Threat
Ghost RAT
2016-04-22 ⋅ Cylance ⋅ Isaac Palmer
The Ghost Dragon
Ghost RAT
2015-04-14 ⋅ Youtube (Kaspersky) ⋅ Kris McConkey
Following APT OpSec failures
BLACKCOFFEE Mangzamel APT17
2015-04-13 ⋅ Hybrid-Analysis ⋅ Hybrid-Analysis
sqlconnt1.exe
Mangzamel
2012-01-01 ⋅ Norman ASA ⋅ Snorre Fagerland
The many faces of Gh0st Rat
Ghost RAT
2011-06-29 ⋅ Symantec ⋅ John McDonald
Inside a Back Door Attack
Ghost RAT Dust Storm
2009-03-28 ⋅ Infinitum Labs ⋅ Information Warfare Monitor
Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network
Ghost RAT GhostNet

Credits: MISP Project