Mysterious Elephant is an APT group targeting diplomatic and state entities in South Asia.
Analyst brief
Mysterious Elephant is an APT group active since 2023, primarily targeting government and foreign affairs entities across South Asia. Its primary targets include diplomatic and state organizations in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Afghanistan. The group employs TTPs such as spear-phishing, custom tools like BabShell and MemLoader, deployment of Remcos and VRat RATs, and WhatsApp-specific exfiltration utilities to steal documents. Defenders should focus on spear-phishing email vectors, anomalous PowerShell/loader activity, and WhatsApp traffic anomalies, while accounting for code/infrastructure overlaps with groups like Origami Elephant.
Mysterious Elephant
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Mysterious Elephant is an APT group active since 2023 that primarily targets government and foreign affairs entities across South Asia, especially Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Afghanistan. In its early-2025 campaign it shifted toward spear-phishing and custom/customized tools—including the BabShell reverse shell and MemLoader HidenDesk/Edge loaders—to deploy RATs like Remcos and VRat, while also using WhatsApp-specific exfiltration tools to steal shared documents, images, and archives. The group shares code and infrastructure with other APT clusters (Origami Elephant, Confucius, SideWinder), reflecting ongoing tool reuse and collaboration among South Asian threat actors.
What custom tools does the Mysterious Elephant group use in early 2025?+
In early 2025, Mysterious Elephant uses spear-phishing alongside custom tools such as the BabShell reverse shell, MemLoader loaders, and RATs like Remcos and VRat.
What geographic region and types of organizations does Mysterious Elephant target?+
Mysterious Elephant targets government and foreign affairs entities, including diplomatic and state organizations, across South Asia, especially in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Afghanistan.