{ "id": "e5ca800d-7ebc-4a3b-aa9e-145f9dcfeb38", "created_at": "2026-04-06T00:08:30.155799Z", "updated_at": "2026-04-10T13:12:32.248158Z", "deleted_at": null, "sha1_hash": "a1662f8de66a5ab4909aa59b62d81128693db4b5", "title": "More evidence links 3CX supply-chain attack to North Korean hacking group", "llm_title": "", "authors": "", "file_creation_date": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "file_modification_date": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "file_size": 88179, "plain_text": "More evidence links 3CX supply-chain attack to North Korean\r\nhacking group\r\nBy Alexander Martin\r\nPublished: 2023-03-31 · Archived: 2026-04-05 15:17:13 UTC\r\nThe supply-chain attack on the enterprise phone company 3CX used hacking code that “exactly matches” malware\r\npreviously seen in attacks by a notorious North Korean group, according to new analysis.\r\nEstablishing the extent of the damage caused by the hack has been a priority for researchers after a number of\r\ncybersecurity businesses went public with reports about the 3CX compromise on Wednesday evening, including\r\nSentinelOne, Sophos and CrowdStrike.\r\nAt the time CrowdStrike said there was “suspected nation-state involvement” in the attack by a group it calls\r\nLabyrinth Chollima and describes as “one of the most prolific” hacking groups based in North Korea. Other\r\nresearchers refer to it as the Lazarus Group.\r\nSophos added more evidence Friday to this attribution, saying that a shellcode loader the attacker used has only\r\npreviously been seen in incidents attributed to Lazarus — a financially motivated hacking organization that the\r\nFBI has linked to multiple cyber heists and allegedly is sponsored by the North Korean government.\r\n“The code in this incident is a byte-to-byte match to those previous samples,” said Sophos in an updated blog post\r\non the incident.\r\nChristopher Budd, a senior manager for threat research at Sophos, said in a statement: “Upon further analysis of\r\nthe attack, it’s clear the perpetrators were able to compromise the installation in a way that users unknowingly\r\ndownloaded not only the original application but also additional malicious code.”\r\nThe attackers were able to manipulate the application “in such a way that users were able to use 3CX without any\r\nindication that, in the background, this malicious code was running and executing various malicious commands.”\r\n“In terms of the who is behind the attack, further investigation has found that part of the malicious code in the\r\ncorrupted app exactly matches — byte by byte — malicious code that has been seen in attacks publicly attributed\r\nto Lazarus,” said Budd.\r\n3CX, which says it provides office phone systems to more than 600,000 companies globally, confirmed on\r\nThursday that its desktop apps for Windows and MacOS had been compromised by suspected state-sponsored\r\nattackers.\r\nThe hackers secretly modified these apps so they executed malicious commands in the background, downloading\r\nmalware that allowed them to steal sensitive information from the web browsers on users’ computers.\r\nhttps://therecord.media/3cx-attack-north-korea-lazarus-group\r\nPage 1 of 3\n\nSoftware providers have been on high alert for these types of supply-chain intrusions since the 2020 attack on\r\nSolarWinds, which led to data breaches at multiple organizations — including the U.S. government — after\r\nhackers compromised a third-party system used by Microsoft customers.\r\nIt is not yet known how many of 3CX’s customers have been impacted by the incident.\r\nThe company’s chief information security officer, Pierre Jourdan, described it as “a complex supply chain attack”\r\nand said the attackers “picked who would be downloading the next stages of their malware,\" in a statement on the\r\n3CX’s website.\r\nBrand logos featured on 3CX’s promotional materials include Mercedes-Benz, Coca-Cola, American Express and\r\nthe United Kingdom's National Health Service.\r\nThe NHS has issued a cyber alert with a \"High\" severity ranking warning about the active intrusion campaign,\r\ntelling healthcare organizations that “legitimate versions of 3CX DesktopApp have been compromised and are\r\nbeing actively exploited.”\r\nA spokesperson for Mercedes-Benz declined to comment, while American Express said that despite being listed\r\non 3CX’s website they were not a client of the company and did not use 3CX’s software.\r\nGet more insights with the\r\nRecorded Future\r\nIntelligence Cloud.\r\nLearn more.\r\nNo previous article\r\nNo new articles\r\nhttps://therecord.media/3cx-attack-north-korea-lazarus-group\r\nPage 2 of 3\n\nAlexander Martin\r\nis the UK Editor for Recorded Future News. He was previously a technology reporter for Sky News and a fellow\r\nat the European Cyber Conflict Research Initiative, now Virtual Routes. He can be reached securely using Signal\r\non: AlexanderMartin.79\r\nSource: https://therecord.media/3cx-attack-north-korea-lazarus-group\r\nhttps://therecord.media/3cx-attack-north-korea-lazarus-group\r\nPage 3 of 3", "extraction_quality": 1, "language": "EN", "sources": [ "ETDA" ], "origins": [ "web" ], "references": [ "https://therecord.media/3cx-attack-north-korea-lazarus-group" ], "report_names": [ "3cx-attack-north-korea-lazarus-group" ], "threat_actors": [ { "id": "34eea331-d052-4096-ae03-a22f1d090bd4", "created_at": "2025-08-07T02:03:25.073494Z", "updated_at": "2026-04-10T02:00:03.709243Z", "deleted_at": null, "main_name": "NICKEL ACADEMY", "aliases": [ "ATK3 ", "Black Artemis ", "COVELLITE ", "CTG-2460 ", "Citrine Sleet ", "Diamond Sleet ", "Guardians of Peace", "HIDDEN COBRA ", "High Anonymous", "Labyrinth Chollima ", "Lazarus Group ", "NNPT Group", "New Romanic Cyber Army Team", "Temp.Hermit ", "UNC577 ", "Who Am I?", "Whois Team", "ZINC " ], "source_name": "Secureworks:NICKEL ACADEMY", "tools": [ "Destover", "KorHigh", "Volgmer" ], "source_id": "Secureworks", "reports": null }, { "id": "732597b1-40a8-474c-88cc-eb8a421c29f1", "created_at": "2025-08-07T02:03:25.087732Z", "updated_at": "2026-04-10T02:00:03.776007Z", "deleted_at": null, "main_name": "NICKEL GLADSTONE", "aliases": [ "APT38 ", "ATK 117 ", "Alluring Pisces ", "Black Alicanto ", "Bluenoroff ", "CTG-6459 ", "Citrine Sleet ", "HIDDEN COBRA ", "Lazarus Group", "Sapphire Sleet ", "Selective Pisces ", "Stardust Chollima ", "T-APT-15 ", "TA444 ", "TAG-71 " ], "source_name": "Secureworks:NICKEL GLADSTONE", "tools": [ "AlphaNC", "Bankshot", "CCGC_Proxy", "Ratankba", "RustBucket", "SUGARLOADER", "SwiftLoader", "Wcry" ], "source_id": "Secureworks", "reports": null }, { "id": "a2b92056-9378-4749-926b-7e10c4500dac", "created_at": "2023-01-06T13:46:38.430595Z", "updated_at": "2026-04-10T02:00:02.971571Z", "deleted_at": null, "main_name": "Lazarus Group", "aliases": [ "Operation DarkSeoul", "Bureau 121", "Group 77", "APT38", "NICKEL GLADSTONE", "G0082", "COPERNICIUM", "Moonstone Sleet", "Operation GhostSecret", "APT 38", "Appleworm", "Unit 121", "ATK3", "G0032", "ATK117", "NewRomanic Cyber Army Team", "Nickel Academy", "Sapphire Sleet", "Lazarus group", "Hastati Group", "Subgroup: Bluenoroff", "Operation Troy", "Black Artemis", "Dark Seoul", "Andariel", "Labyrinth Chollima", "Operation AppleJeus", "COVELLITE", "Citrine Sleet", "DEV-0139", "DEV-1222", "Hidden Cobra", "Bluenoroff", "Stardust Chollima", "Whois Hacking Team", "Diamond Sleet", "TA404", "BeagleBoyz", "APT-C-26" ], "source_name": "MISPGALAXY:Lazarus Group", "tools": [], "source_id": "MISPGALAXY", "reports": null }, { "id": "32a223a8-3c79-4146-87c5-8557d38662ae", "created_at": "2022-10-25T15:50:23.703698Z", "updated_at": "2026-04-10T02:00:05.261989Z", "deleted_at": null, "main_name": "Lazarus Group", "aliases": [ "Lazarus Group", "Labyrinth Chollima", "HIDDEN COBRA", "Guardians of Peace", "NICKEL ACADEMY", "Diamond Sleet" ], "source_name": "MITRE:Lazarus Group", "tools": [ "RawDisk", "Proxysvc", "BADCALL", "FALLCHILL", "WannaCry", "MagicRAT", "HOPLIGHT", "TYPEFRAME", "Dtrack", "HotCroissant", "HARDRAIN", "Dacls", "KEYMARBLE", "TAINTEDSCRIBE", "AuditCred", "netsh", "ECCENTRICBANDWAGON", "AppleJeus", "BLINDINGCAN", "ThreatNeedle", "Volgmer", "Cryptoistic", "RATANKBA", "Bankshot" ], "source_id": "MITRE", "reports": null }, { "id": "f32df445-9fb4-4234-99e0-3561f6498e4e", "created_at": "2022-10-25T16:07:23.756373Z", "updated_at": "2026-04-10T02:00:04.739611Z", "deleted_at": null, "main_name": "Lazarus Group", "aliases": [ "APT-C-26", "ATK 3", "Appleworm", "Citrine Sleet", "DEV-0139", "Diamond Sleet", "G0032", "Gleaming Pisces", "Gods Apostles", "Gods Disciples", "Group 77", "Guardians of Peace", "Hastati Group", "Hidden Cobra", "ITG03", "Jade Sleet", "Labyrinth Chollima", "Lazarus Group", "NewRomanic Cyber Army Team", "Operation 99", "Operation AppleJeus", "Operation AppleJeus sequel", "Operation Blockbuster: Breach of Sony Pictures Entertainment", "Operation CryptoCore", "Operation Dream Job", "Operation Dream Magic", "Operation Flame", "Operation GhostSecret", "Operation In(ter)caption", "Operation LolZarus", "Operation Marstech Mayhem", "Operation No Pineapple!", "Operation North Star", "Operation Phantom Circuit", "Operation Sharpshooter", "Operation SyncHole", "Operation Ten Days of Rain / DarkSeoul", "Operation Troy", "SectorA01", "Slow Pisces", "TA404", "TraderTraitor", "UNC2970", "UNC4034", "UNC4736", "UNC4899", "UNC577", "Whois Hacking Team" ], "source_name": "ETDA:Lazarus Group", "tools": [ "3CX Backdoor", "3Rat Client", "3proxy", "AIRDRY", "ARTFULPIE", "ATMDtrack", "AlphaNC", "Alreay", "Andaratm", "AngryRebel", "AppleJeus", "Aryan", "AuditCred", "BADCALL", "BISTROMATH", "BLINDINGCAN", "BTC Changer", "BUFFETLINE", "BanSwift", "Bankshot", "Bitrep", "Bitsran", "BlindToad", "Bookcode", "BootWreck", "BottomLoader", "Brambul", "BravoNC", "Breut", "COLDCAT", 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