Status

Active

Distinct actor

Tracked as a cluster; no figure published

Named actor

INSUFFICIENT

First observed

6 Apr 2026

Last updated

8 Apr 2026

Motivation

Assessed as an independent skilled developer or small private group; pre-operational

Note on UTA identifiers: "UTA" stands for Unattributed Threat Actor. UTA-2026-004 is a tracking label The Hunters Ledger assigns to an actor I have observed but cannot yet link to a publicly named threat group. Other vendors and feeds will not use this label; it is specific to this publication. If later evidence ties the activity to a named actor, I will retire the label and update the report.

Summary

A novel C2 toolkit whose three implant variants share one RSA key, recovered from an open directory before any known compromise, then expanded by 106 further files including a four-generation implant evolution chain. The watermark and cracked-tool branding found alongside it are distribution artifacts, and the report rejects them as actor evidence.

The confidence levels above are the published report's figures. Every claim on this page is a summary of the linked reports, which remain the record.

Targeting

Targeting is given as region and sector, drawn from the reports. Victim names are deliberately not published here or in the reports.

Reports

Actor identifiers

Artifacts this operator chose or created: handles, channels, operator brands and domains, wallets and the like. Each is printed in a report linked above; the full indicator set, with its caveats, is in each report's IOC feed.

Infrastructure and tooling

Primary host

172.105.0.126 (the operator-controlled host the assigning report is named for; the full indicator set, with its caveats, is in each report's IOC feed)

Tooling

OpenStrikeCobalt Strike (cracked)CovertVPN

MITRE ATT&CK

38 techniques across 8 tactics, read from the mapping tables of the reports about this actor. Each technique links to where it is mapped.

Actor profiles and the reports behind them are © Joseph, The Hunter's Ledger, licensed CC BY 4.0: free to use, including commercially, with attribution. All tracked actors.