Water Sigbin

THREAT ACTOR PROFILE

Water Sigbin

8220 Gang

Water Sigbin, widely known as the 8220 Gang, is a China-linked, financially motivated crew active since around 2017 that specializes in cryptojacking cloud and server infrastructure. It mass-exploits Oracle WebLogic and other exposed services to deploy Monero miners and botnet tooling, refining its loaders and evasion over years of high-volume campaigns.

Country:

China

Cloud / Cryptojacking

First seen

2017

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

Water Sigbin and the 8220 Gang

Water Sigbin is tracked mainly under the 8220 Gang name. It maps to one entry among the cryptomining crews we track, and its opportunistic, cloud-focused style overlaps with crews like TeamTNT.

GROUP PROFILE

Cryptojacking at cloud and server scale

Water Sigbin is a profit-driven operation that monetizes other people's compute. It scans for and exploits exposed servers and cloud workloads, installs cryptominers, and uses worm and botnet components to spread and maintain its mining fleet.

Our record places its origin as China and ties it to cryptojacking of cloud and server infrastructure. The group repeatedly targets Oracle WebLogic, along with Log4j, Confluence and other exposed services, across Windows and Linux.

Its tradecraft includes multi-stage fileless PowerShell routines, DLL reflective and process injection, .NET Reactor code protection, and tooling such as K4Spreader, Hadooken, Tsunami and PwnRig alongside the XMRig miner.

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

Exploitation into miners and botnets

The stages below come from Water Sigbin and 8220 Gang 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

XMRig, Tsunami and the spreader tooling

Initial Access

CVES EXPLOITED

Oracle WebLogic, Log4j and Confluence

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.

Showing a sample of recent indicators

Get the complete 8Base IOC set, full IP, host and hash history.

Unlock all the IOCs for Free

Showing a sample of recent indicators

Get the complete 8Base IOC set, full IP, host and hash history.

Unlock all the IOCs for Free

NOTABLE CAMPAIGNS

Hadooken, K4Spreader and Spinning WebLogic

Recent reporting tracks the group's tooling and exploitation.

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

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

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