Lazarus

Lazarus Group — Adversary Emulation Playbook

Tier-3 DPRK (RGB) actor whose modern mission is revenue generation — North Korea-linked actors have stolen well over $3B in crypto. Two converging tracks: (a) enterprise intrusion via fake-job social engineering, trojanized trading apps (AppleJeus), and software supply-chain (3CX); (b) on-chain DeFi/bridge exploitation to drain protocols. Authorized red-team emulation only; on-chain steps run on testnet or a mainnet fork — never real funds.

When to emulate Lazarus

• Target is a cryptocurrency exchange, DeFi protocol, cross-chain bridge, wallet provider, or a fintech/blockchain firm and the client wants the full DPRK money-theft kill chain tested.
• The engagement spans both the enterprise estate (devs, build pipeline, cloud) and the smart-contract surface — Decepticon's contract-audit lane is what makes this actor a good fit (see ../../references/apt-groups.md).

ThreatProfile seed (plan/threat-profile.json)

{
  "engagement_name": "<fill>",
  "actor_name": "Lazarus-like (Hidden Cobra)",
  "actor_aliases": ["Hidden Cobra", "ZINC", "Diamond Sleet", "Labyrinth Chollima", "NICKEL ACADEMY"],
  "group_id": "G0032",
  "tier": "tier-3",
  "sophistication": "nation-state",
  "motivation": "financial",
  "initial_access": ["T1566.003", "T1195.002", "T1199", "T1204.002"],
  "key_ttps": ["T1574.002", "T1027", "T1059.006", "T1555", "T1552.001", "T1657", "T1071.001", "T1567.002"],
  "tools": ["Engagement-owned trojanized app + Sliver", "Foundry / Anvil (forked mainnet PoC)", "canary wallets", "NetExec"],
  "infrastructure": ["Fake-recruiter persona + lure docs", "Supply-chain build-step foothold", "Testnet/fork RPC endpoints"],
  "recent_cti_delta": "$3B+ crypto stolen; targets entire blockchain ecosystems (cross-chain bridges, DeFi, identity providers); Operation Dream Job fake-job social engineering vs developers; 3CX double software supply chain; AppleJeus trojanized trading apps.",
  "confidence": "probable"
}

Kill-chain emulation

CONOPS kill_chain (copy into conops.json)

1. recon — devs + protocol + bridge/contract surface (1).
2. initial-access — fake-job social engineering / trojanized supply chain (2-3).
3. post-exploit — trojan execution, wallet-key/cred theft, exchange web/API abuse, on-chain DeFi exploitation on a fork (4-9).
4. c2 — Sliver (10).
5. exfiltration — simulated theft to canary address on testnet/fork (11).

OPSEC & signature fidelity

• Patient grooming. Operation Dream Job runs for weeks — the social-engineering relationship is built slowly with benign files first.
• Obfuscated, side-loaded execution into trusted processes (mirror the DLL side-load chain).
• On-chain moves are irreversible on mainnet — fidelity comes from a working PoC on a forked mainnet, not from touching production funds.

RoE / safety gates

• On-chain exploitation MUST run on testnet or a forked-mainnet (Anvil) RPC. Never sign a real mainnet transaction. Add an EMERGENCY abort: "a transaction signed against a production/mainnet RPC or a real wallet key used."
• Developer-targeted social engineering requires authorization + lure-deconfliction (/skills/standard/phisher/lure-deconfliction/SKILL.md).
• Key/seed theft is simulated against canary wallets seeded for the exercise.

Deconfliction

• Record fork/testnet RPC URLs, canary wallet addresses, and the trojanized-app hash in deconfliction.json + cleanup.json.
• Mark the recruiter persona and lure documents so they can be distinguished from a real Dream Job approach.

Fidelity notes (deviations)

• No real AppleJeus/3CX samples — emulate the trojanized-app + supply-chain delivery pattern with an engagement-owned dropper + Sliver.
• DeFi exploitation reproduces the real bug classes (bridge validator bypass, signature replay, access-control) with Foundry PoCs on a fork; the proof is a drained canary balance on the fork, never a real protocol.
• Theft is demonstrated as a fund move to a canary address on testnet/fork; the deliverable distinguishes "drained on fork" from "production funds" (never the latter).