Gamaredon

THREAT ACTOR PROFILE

Gamaredon

Gamaredon is a Russian FSB-linked espionage group that runs one of the highest-volume campaigns against Ukraine. Active since around 2013, it floods Ukrainian government, military and critical-infrastructure targets with spear-phishing, WinRAR exploitation and a sprawling family of "Gamma" malware, and it serves as an access broker to more advanced actors.

Russia

Government / Military

First seen

2013

Latest IOC

IP indicators

Hosts

SHA256 hashes

Posts

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Names and aliases

Group profile

Attack lifecycle

Malware and tooling

IOCs

Notable campaigns

NAMES AND ALIASES

Shuckworm, Primitive Bear and Armageddon

Gamaredon carries many vendor names for the same FSB-linked activity. They map to one entry among the Russian state actors we track, so a Shuckworm report and an Aqua Blizzard advisory read as one group. It feeds access to Turla, another FSB actor.

GROUP PROFILE

High-volume espionage and access brokering

Gamaredon collects intelligence for Russia's FSB, with a near-exclusive focus on Ukraine: government, military, law enforcement and critical infrastructure. It is noisy and relentless rather than stealthy, running continuous spear-phishing waves.

Our record places its origin as Russia and ties it to espionage against Ukraine and select NATO countries. It also acts as an access broker, handing footholds to more capable groups such as Turla.

The group's tradecraft centers on the Gamma malware family and WinRAR exploitation: weaponized archives and HTML-smuggled payloads drop multi-stage VBScript and PowerShell loaders that cache C2 in the registry and use dead-drop resolvers on trusted services.

Facts:

Initial Access

Russian Federation · GRU

Initial Access

Russian Federation · GRU

Initial Access

Russian Federation · GRU

Initial Access

Russian Federation · GRU

Victims reported in our records and posts:

ATTACK LIFECYCLE

WinRAR and HTML smuggling into the Gamma family

The stages below come from 2026 Gamaredon activity in posts we track on our IOC Hunter feed.

Initial Access

Spear-phishing remains the front door. In the 2026 campaign Hunt.io tracked as Operation Neusploit, APT28 sent convincing spear-phishing from already-compromised government accounts and abused a Microsoft Office security bypass (CVE-2026-21509) to kick off a fileless chain. A separate June 2026 cluster delivered the LameHug malware through spear-phishing ZIP archives using double-extension lures.

Initial Access

MALWARE AND TOOLING

The Gamma malware family

Initial Access

CVES EXPLOITED

WinRAR for delivery

CVE-2026-21509

A Microsoft Office security bypass used to open the fileless chain in Operation Neusploit, and again in the PixyNetLoader intrusion chain. Both campaigns paired the exploit with spear-phishing from compromised accounts rather than mass exploitation.

CVE-2026-21509

Gamaredon

IOCS FROM HUNT.IO PLATFORM

Latest IOCs

We currently track - IP indicators, - hosts, and - SHA256 hashes for Akira across - intelligence posts, with the most recent indicator dated -. The sample below is limited to indicators from the latest posts. It is not the full set.

Showing a sample of recent indicators

Get the complete

Gamaredon

IOC set, full IP, host and hash history.

Unlock all the IOCs for Free

Showing a sample of recent indicators

Get the complete

Gamaredon

IOC set, full IP, host and hash history.

Unlock all the IOCs for Free

NOTABLE CAMPAIGNS

The Gamma family, unpacked

Recent reporting breaks down Gamaredon's 2026 toolset stage by stage.

PixyNetLoader tracking

A clustering of roughly 90 loader samples across four sub-families from 2024 to 2026, with steganography and cloud C2, also linking to related APT28 tooling such as SlimAgent and Graphite.

PixyNetLoader tracking

A clustering of roughly 90 loader samples across four sub-families from 2024 to 2026, with steganography and cloud C2, also linking to related APT28 tooling such as SlimAgent and Graphite.

PixyNetLoader tracking

A clustering of roughly 90 loader samples across four sub-families from 2024 to 2026, with steganography and cloud C2, also linking to related APT28 tooling such as SlimAgent and Graphite.

PixyNetLoader tracking

A clustering of roughly 90 loader samples across four sub-families from 2024 to 2026, with steganography and cloud C2, also linking to related APT28 tooling such as SlimAgent and Graphite.

Track {{name}} across campaigns, IOCs and infrastructure

This page shows a sample of recent indicators and recent campaigns. Sign up free to pivot through {{name}}'s full IOC history, linked campaigns and the infrastructure behind them.

Track {{name}} across campaigns, IOCs and infrastructure

This page shows a sample of recent indicators and recent campaigns. Sign up free to pivot through {{name}}'s full IOC history, linked campaigns and the infrastructure behind them.

Track {{name}} across campaigns, IOCs and infrastructure

This page shows a sample of recent indicators and recent campaigns. Sign up free to pivot through {{name}}'s full IOC history, linked campaigns and the infrastructure behind them.

Threat Hunting Platform