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Threats / Actors / Volt Typhoon
G1017 Nation-stateour call,
not MITRE’s
ATT&CK Group

Volt Typhoon

How MITRE ATT&CK characterizes this group1: Volt Typhoon is a People's Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored actor that has been active since at least 2021 primarily targeting critical infrastructure organizations in the US and its territories including Guam. Volt Typhoon's targeting and pattern of behavior have been assessed as pre-positioning to enable lateral movement to operational technology (OT) assets for potential destructive or disruptive attacks. Volt Typhoon has emphasized stealth in…

Attributed to China — state-sponsored (PRC) by government advisory.103104

Also tracked as: BRONZE SILHOUETTE Vanguard Panda DEV-0391 UNC3236 Voltzite Insidious Taurus — ATT&CK group page1
Read this as · tier is our editorial call, not MITRE’s

Read as a state-directed operator, not a smash-and-grab.

A nation-state classification means patience, tradecraft, and an intelligence objective. When this name attaches to a vulnerability, the question shifts from “will someone exploit it” to “has a well-resourced service already built it into an operation.” All tradecraft below is sourced to MITRE ATT&CK.

81
Techniques
ATT&CK count1
17
Named tools / malware
ATT&CK count2
2
Attributed campaigns
ATT&CK count1
12
Tactics spanned
ATT&CK count1
~2022–2024approx.
Activity bounds (campaign floor)
approximate1
01

Known for

— signature moves, each sourced to ATT&CK
CampaignKV Botnet Activity. ATT&CK tracks this attributed operation as C0035.101
CampaignVersa Director Zero Day Exploitation. ATT&CK tracks this attributed operation as C0039.102
ArsenalNamed tooling. ATT&CK attributes 17 tools/malware to this group, including Mimikatz, PsExec, Net, Tasklist.84
ReachFurthest outcome. This actor's cited tradecraft reaches as far as outcome 4 — Data at risk — exfiltration. (editorial mapping over ATT&CK tactics).
02

Tradecraft heatmap

— ATT&CK techniques mapped onto the five attacker-outcome narratives

Each row is a documented technique (MITRE ATT&CK). Each column is one of the five attacker-outcome narratives a defender funds against. A filled cell means this technique’s own ATT&CK tactic defensibly advances that outcome. The mapping of technique→outcome is our editorial alignment over ATT&CK's tactic data, not a separately-sourced MITRE edge. A filled cell means one of the technique's own ATT&CK tactics defensibly advances that outcome; enabler tactics (C2, Defense Evasion, Discovery) heat no column.

1Front door
2Keys to the kingdom
3Lateral reach
4Data at risk
5Lights out

Reach: this actor’s cited techniques light columns 1·2·3·4 — furthest is 4 · Data at risk. (furthest-position idiom, reused from the landing map).

A dot = this technique advances that outcomeColumn 5 (Lights out) is empty — Compare: a ransomware or wiper actor lights column 5.
Editorial: the technique→outcome alignment is our call over ATT&CK’s tactic data, not a separately-sourced MITRE edge — same basis the landing page declares. Enabler tactics (C2, defense evasion, discovery) heat no column.1
03

Arsenal

— named tools & malware ATT&CK attributes to this group
MimikatzS0002 · Tool
PsExecS0029 · Tool
NetS0039 · Tool
TasklistS0057 · Tool
RegS0075 · Tool
SysteminfoS0096 · Tool
PingS0097 · Tool
ipconfigS0100 · Tool
+9 moreCoverage

ATT&CK attributes 17 tools/malware to G1017 in total; the full list is on the group page.

04

Campaign highlights

— attributed operations in the ATT&CK record
A

KV Botnet Activity — ATT&CK Campaign C0035

Attributed operation
ATT&CK records KV Botnet Activity (C0035) — roughly 2022–2024 as an operation attributed to this group.101
Open ATT&CK C0035 ↗
B

Versa Director Zero Day Exploitation — ATT&CK Campaign C0039

Attributed operation
ATT&CK records Versa Director Zero Day Exploitation (C0039) — roughly 2024–2024 as an operation attributed to this group.102
Open ATT&CK C0039 ↗
05

Latest activity

— with explicit confidence, and what we cannot yet claim
ATT&CK
snapshot

The most recent cited activity in this card is the ATT&CK record itself. We do not paste a “last seen this week” line we cannot source. Recency from secondary reporting appears here only when attached to a named advisory.

ATT&CK snapshot, compiled 2026-06-22Coverage gap — live “currently active” status not asserted
CVE ↔ actor bridge — Known exploits / Linked CVEs every link below traces to a named source; tier is explicit
Known exploits — confirmed by named advisory 2 CVE(s)
CVE-2024-21887 →

CISA, NSA and FBI's AA24-038A attributes pre-positioning on US critical-infrastructure IT networks to Volt Typhoon, naming the group's exploitation of public-facing appliance vulnerabilities including the Ivanti Connect Secure (CVE-2024-21887) and Fortinet FortiOS (CVE-2022-42475) CVEs.

CISA AA24-038A — names this group + CVE ↗
CVE-2022-42475 →

CISA, NSA and FBI's AA24-038A attributes pre-positioning on US critical-infrastructure IT networks to Volt Typhoon, naming the group's exploitation of public-facing appliance vulnerabilities including the Ivanti Connect Secure (CVE-2024-21887) and Fortinet FortiOS (CVE-2022-42475) CVEs.

CISA AA24-038A — names this group + CVE ↗
06

Coverage & confidence

— what we know, and what we don’t

Established (cited)

  • Group identity, aliases, description — MITRE ATT&CK group page
  • 81 techniques — ATT&CK technique pages (linked per row)
  • 17 software (arsenal) — ATT&CK software pages
  • 2 attributed campaign(s) — ATT&CK campaign pages
  • Origin / sponsor (China — state-sponsored (PRC)) — curated government advisory (cited)
  • 4 third-party research citations — ATT&CK external references
  • Coverage gaps — stated, not hidden

  • Threat tier is OUR editorial classification (rule-based), not a MITRE field — labeled as such.
  • Technique → outcome heatmap is editorial alignment over ATT&CK tactic data, not a separately-sourced MITRE edge.
  • Activity bounds are a floor from attributed-campaign dates only — flagged approx., not a true active-since range.
  • ATT&CK has no first-class group→CVE relationship; this card asserts no specific CVE without a named advisory.
  • Empty heatmap column(s): Lights out — consistent with this actor's nature, stated as a finding.