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SHADOW-EARTH-053

actor · actor:shadow-earth-053 single-source

China-linked cluster Recorded Future's Insikt Group associates with Mimikatz-based credential dumping following exploitation of CVE-2021-26855 in Microsoft Exchange Server (Insikt Group, H1 2026 Malware and Vulnerability Trends, 2026-09-03).

Coverage
1
first 2026-09-07 → last 2026-09-07
Latest activity
2026-09-07
Insikt Group: the same six-tool stack followed thirteen unrelated CVEs into Exchange, SharePoint, FortiOS…
Peak priority
notable
1 notable
Targets
·
no sector or region stated
Sources cited
2
2 hosts

Defender insights

What each entry about SHADOW-EARTH-053 tells a defender to do, newest first.

2026-09-07NOTABLEInsikt Group: the same six-tool stack followed thirteen unrelated CVEs into Exchange, SharePoint, FortiOS, Cisco IOS XE, F5 BIG-IP, GeoServer and Apache Shiro

Story timeline

  1. 2026-09-07Recorded Future's H1 2026 Malware and Vulnerability Trends: two clusters reuse an identical post-exploitation tool stack across thirteen and ten unrelated initial CVEs
    researchInsikt Group: the same six-tool stack followed thirteen unrelated CVEs into Exchange, SharePoint, FortiOS, Cisco IOS XE, F5 BIG-IP, GeoServer and Apache Shiro

Hunting pivots

Affected products
Apache ShiroCisco IOS XEF5 BIG-IPFortinet FortiOSGeoServerMicrosoft Exchange ServerMicrosoft SharePoint
Tags
organized-crimeransomwarevulnerabilities
ATT&CK techniques (10 across 7 tactics)

10 techniques observed across 1 entry about this entity, derived from entry metadata and body evidence, never asserted without a published entry behind it · pinned to MITRE ATT&CK v20.0 · compare on the matrix · Navigator layer (JSON)

  • Initial AccessExploit Public-Facing Application
  • ExecutionCommand and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell · Command and Scripting Interpreter: Windows Command Shell · Command and Scripting Interpreter: Unix Shell
  • PersistenceServer Software Component: Web Shell
  • DiscoverySystem Information Discovery
  • CollectionData from Local System
  • Command and ControlApplication Layer Protocol: Web Protocols · Ingress Tool Transfer
  • ExfiltrationExfiltration Over C2 Channel

Initial Access TA0001

T1190Exploit Public-Facing Application×1

Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network. The weakness in the system can be a software bug, a temporary glitch, or a misconfiguration.

Evidence: 2026-09-07/recordedfuture-h1-2026-tool-stack-reuse · ATT&CK page ↗

Execution TA0002

T1059.001Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell×1

Adversaries may abuse PowerShell commands and scripts for execution. PowerShell is a powerful interactive command-line interface and scripting environment included in the Windows operating system. PowerShell can also be installed on Linux and macOS. Adversaries can use PowerShell to perform a number of actions, including discovery of information and execution of code. Examples include the <code>Start-Process</code> cmdlet which can be used to run an executable and the <code>Invoke-Command</code> cmdlet which runs a command locally or on a remote computer (though administrator permissions are required to use PowerShell to connect to remote systems).

Evidence: 2026-09-07/recordedfuture-h1-2026-tool-stack-reuse · ATT&CK page ↗

T1059.003Command and Scripting Interpreter: Windows Command Shell×1

Adversaries may abuse the Windows command shell for execution. The Windows command shell (cmd) is the primary command prompt on Windows systems. The Windows command prompt can be used to control almost any aspect of a system, with various permission levels required for different subsets of commands. The command prompt can be invoked remotely via Remote Services such as SSH.

Evidence: 2026-09-07/recordedfuture-h1-2026-tool-stack-reuse · ATT&CK page ↗

T1059.004Command and Scripting Interpreter: Unix Shell×1

Adversaries may abuse Unix shell commands and scripts for execution. Unix shells are the primary command prompt on Linux, macOS, and ESXi systems, though many variations of the Unix shell exist (e.g. sh, ash, bash, zsh, etc.) depending on the specific OS or distribution. Unix shells can control every aspect of a system, with certain commands requiring elevated privileges.

Evidence: 2026-09-07/recordedfuture-h1-2026-tool-stack-reuse · ATT&CK page ↗

Persistence TA0003

T1505.003Server Software Component: Web Shell×1

Adversaries may backdoor web servers with web shells to establish persistent access to systems. A Web shell is a Web script that is placed on an openly accessible Web server to allow an adversary to access the Web server as a gateway into a network. A Web shell may provide a set of functions to execute or a command-line interface on the system that hosts the Web server.

Evidence: 2026-09-07/recordedfuture-h1-2026-tool-stack-reuse · ATT&CK page ↗

Discovery TA0007

T1082System Information Discovery×1

An adversary may attempt to get detailed information about the operating system and hardware, including version, patches, hotfixes, service packs, and architecture. Adversaries may use this information to shape follow-on behaviors, including whether or not the adversary fully infects the target and/or attempts specific actions. This behavior is distinct from Local Storage Discovery which is an adversary's discovery of local drive, disks and/or volumes.

Evidence: 2026-09-07/recordedfuture-h1-2026-tool-stack-reuse · ATT&CK page ↗

Collection TA0009

T1005Data from Local System×1

Adversaries may search local system sources, such as file systems, configuration files, local databases, virtual machine files, or process memory, to find files of interest and sensitive data prior to Exfiltration.

Evidence: 2026-09-07/recordedfuture-h1-2026-tool-stack-reuse · ATT&CK page ↗

Command and Control TA0011

T1071.001Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols×1

Adversaries may communicate using application layer protocols associated with web traffic to avoid detection/network filtering by blending in with existing traffic. Commands to the remote system, and often the results of those commands, will be embedded within the protocol traffic between the client and server.

Evidence: 2026-09-07/recordedfuture-h1-2026-tool-stack-reuse · ATT&CK page ↗

T1105Ingress Tool Transfer×1

Adversaries may transfer tools or other files from an external system into a compromised environment. Tools or files may be copied from an external adversary-controlled system to the victim network through the command and control channel or through alternate protocols such as ftp. Once present, adversaries may also transfer/spread tools between victim devices within a compromised environment (i.e. Lateral Tool Transfer).

Evidence: 2026-09-07/recordedfuture-h1-2026-tool-stack-reuse · ATT&CK page ↗

Exfiltration TA0010

T1041Exfiltration Over C2 Channel×1

Adversaries may steal data by exfiltrating it over an existing command and control channel. Stolen data is encoded into the normal communications channel using the same protocol as command and control communications.

Evidence: 2026-09-07/recordedfuture-h1-2026-tool-stack-reuse · ATT&CK page ↗

Entries about SHADOW-EARTH-053 (1)

2026-09-07 · view entry permalink →

NOTABLENATOB2

Recorded Future's H1 2026 Malware and Vulnerability Trends: two clusters reuse an identical post-exploitation tool stack across thirteen and ten unrelated initial CVEs

Recorded Future's Insikt Group published its H1 2026 Malware and Vulnerability Trends report on 3 September 2026, tracking 215 actively exploited CVEs in the first half of 2026, up 34% from 161 in H1 2025 (Recorded Future, 2026-09-03). Of those, 176 (82%) were network-accessible and 146 (68%) could be exploited without prior authentication; 142 of those 146 combined both properties, and 60 of 82 remote-code-execution CVEs combined network reachability, no authentication requirement and code execution in a single package (Recorded Future, 2026-09-03).

The report's most actionable finding for defenders is that post-exploitation tool-stack reuse persists across otherwise-unrelated initial-access vulnerabilities, regardless of vendor or product family (Recorded Future, 2026-09-03). A cluster the report designates StrikeShark applied an identical six-tool post-exploitation stack (SharkLoader, Cobalt Strike Beacon, FScan, Searchall, Pillager Stealer and SharpGPOAbuse) across thirteen separate CVEs spanning 2016 through 2025, reaching Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint, Fortinet FortiOS, Cisco IOS XE, F5 BIG-IP, GeoServer and Apache Shiro (Recorded Future, 2026-09-03); SharkLoader itself was previously profiled by Kaspersky's GReAT, which found it deploying Cobalt Strike via "Perfect DLL Hijacking" in a campaign whose confirmed victims spanned government and diplomatic entities, software developers and organizations in several other sectors and regions (Kaspersky Securelist, 2026-06-24). Separately, Storm-1175 linked Mimikatz, Impacket, PsExec, Rclone and Medusa ransomware across ten different initial CVEs; a China-linked cluster the report designates SHADOW-EARTH-053 separately reused Mimikatz following exploitation of CVE-2021-26855 in Microsoft Exchange Server (Recorded Future, 2026-09-03). Insikt Group mapped 114 of the 215 CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK: exploitation of a public-facing application was associated with 77 CVEs (68%), and 50 of those 77 also co-occurred with PowerShell, Windows Command Shell or Unix Shell execution; every one of the 28 web-shell-associated CVEs also carried the public-facing-application technique. The next most frequently associated post-exploitation behaviors across the mapped CVEs were system-information discovery, collection of data from the local system, transfer of further tooling into the compromised environment, and exfiltration over the command-and-control channel or web-protocol-based C2 traffic (Recorded Future, 2026-09-03).

The report's own defender-facing conclusion is explicit: because the same limited tool stack recurs regardless of which vulnerability supplied the initial foothold, detection engineering should chain exploitation telemetry from public-facing systems through to the post-exploitation behaviors these clusters repeat (credential dumping, remote-service execution via native administration mechanisms, bulk outbound data transfer, and ransomware staging) rather than treating each CVE alert as an isolated, one-off event (Recorded Future, 2026-09-03).

Threat actors reused post-exploitation playbooks across different initial vulnerabilities; StrikeShark applied the same six-tool stack across thirteen CVEs, while Storm-1175 linked credential theft, remote execution, data transfer, and ransomware tooling across ten.

In the StrikeShark campaign, SharkLoader, Cobalt Strike Beacon, FScan, Searchall, Pillager Stealer, and SharpGPOAbuse were linked to the same thirteen CVEs. Those vulnerabilities spanned 2016 through 2025 and affected Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint, Fortinet FortiOS, Cisco IOS XE, F5 BIG-IP, GeoServer, Apache Shiro, and other public-facing technologies.

50 of the 77 CVEs associated with the exploitation of public-facing applications were also linked to PowerShell, Windows Command Shell, or Unix Shell, and all 28 web-shell-associated CVEs also included T1190.

Recorded Future (Insikt Group) 2026-09-03

Builds on: Kaspersky GReAT: "StrikeShark" loader deploys Cobalt Strike via "Perfect DLL Hijacking" against…

annual-report07 Sep 04:43Zsingle-sourceOpen finding →
Sources: Recorded Future (Insikt Group) · Kaspersky Securelist (GReAT)

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Where this entity is cited

  • Research1

Source distribution

  • recordedfuture.com1 (50%)
  • securelist.com1 (50%)
All cited sources (2)