Donot Team

THREAT ACTOR PROFILE

Donot Team

VICEROY TIGER

Donot Team is an India-linked espionage group active since around 2016 that targets government, defense, diplomatic and foreign-affairs organizations, mainly in Pakistan and the wider South Asia region, with recent operations reaching a European foreign ministry. It relies on spear-phishing, the LoptikMod backdoor and a growing set of Android surveillance malware.

Country:

India

Government / Diplomatic

First seen

2016

Latest IOC

IP indicators

Hosts

SHA256 hashes

Posts

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

Donot Team, VICEROY TIGER and APT-C-35

Donot Team is tracked under many vendor names tied to its long history. It maps to one entry among the South Asian threat groups we profile, and its regional espionage overlaps with other India-linked crews like SideWinder.

GROUP PROFILE

Persistent espionage across South Asia

Donot Team is an India-linked espionage actor focused on regional intelligence collection. Its operations target Pakistani government and military entities most heavily, with activity extending to Bangladesh, diplomatic bodies, and more recently European government institutions.

Our record places its origin as India and ties it to espionage against government and diplomatic targets. Trellix documented a 2025 campaign against a Southern European foreign-affairs ministry using the LoptikMod malware, which is exclusive to the group.

The group's tradecraft spans spear-phishing with malicious documents, RAR and LNK lures, scheduled-task persistence, and a line of Android surveillance malware such as the Tanzeem chat-app impersonator.

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

Spear-phishing into LoptikMod and Android spyware

The stages below come from Donot Team and APT-C-35 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

LoptikMod, ShadowAgent and Android spyware

Initial Access

CVES EXPLOITED

Document and archive flaws 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

RECENT {{name}} IOCS

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.

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NOTABLE CAMPAIGNS

European ministry and Android operations

Recent reporting tracks the group's expanding targeting.

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

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

This page shows a sample of recent indicators and recent campaigns. Sign up free to pivot through