Mustang Panda

THREAT ACTOR PROFILE

Mustang Panda

Mustang Panda is a Chinese state-sponsored espionage group active since at least 2012. It targets governments and NGOs, mostly in Asia, with spear-phishing lures and a steady stream of new backdoors that almost always load through DLL sideloading.

China

Civil Society / Government

First seen

2012

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

HoneyMyte at Kaspersky, Twill Typhoon at Microsoft

Kaspersky publishes its research on this group under HoneyMyte, and Microsoft calls it Twill Typhoon, a name Darktrace also uses in its FDMTP reporting. If you only search for "Mustang Panda", you miss both.

We list all 16 names under one entry in our catalog of tracked adversaries, so indicators from each of these reports land together.

GROUP PROFILE

Asia-Pacific espionage that retools after takedowns

Mustang Panda collects intelligence from government, military, diplomatic and NGO targets. It has used event-themed lures such as COVID-19 documents for years, and our record also notes USB-spread tooling (HIUPAN) and abuse of Visual Studio Code.

The group swaps malware often. After a 2025 U.S. disruption of PlugX infrastructure, it came back quickly with families like TONESHELL, PUBLOAD, LOTUSLITE, ZOHOMURK and the CoolClient backdoor.

2026 victims include government entities in Myanmar, Mongolia, Pakistan and Russia, India's hydropower sector and government bodies tied to Taiwan agreements, and organizations across Japan and the wider Asia-Pacific.

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

Signed binaries loading malicious DLLs at every stage

The stages below come from 2026 Mustang Panda activity documented 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

PlugX's successors: CoolClient, TONESHELL and ZOHOMURK

Initial Access

CVES EXPLOITED

Mustang Panda

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

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Mustang Panda

IOC set, full IP, host and hash history.

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Showing a sample of recent indicators

Get the complete

Mustang Panda

IOC set, full IP, host and hash history.

Unlock all the IOCs for Free

NOTABLE CAMPAIGNS

Kernel rootkits and Zoho-based C2 in 2026

The recent reporting shows Mustang Panda investing in stealth, from a signed rootkit to C2 hidden in a business cloud service.

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.