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OT Atlas

Threats · Activity group

TALONITE

unknownIT access with OT relevanceDragosAttribution · Low
Last verified

Executive summary

TALONITE is reported for phishing campaigns against North American electric utilities using malicious documents and custom malware, focused on access rather than demonstrated ICS effects.

At a glance

Tracked byDragos
NexusNot publicly established as a government attribution
First observed2019 (public reporting)
Last reportedContinued Dragos tracking
ICS kill chainStage 1 — Reconnaissance · Stage 1 — Intrusion

Rosetta Stone

Names across the industry

Every edge states the kind of relationship the public source supports — an alias is not the same as an overlap.

No publicly associated names established for this cluster.

Relevance

Why OT defenders care

Objectives

  • Access to electric utilities via phishing

Reported impacts

  • No publicly confirmed OT process effects

Observed behaviours

  • Utility-themed phishing lures
  • Custom loader delivery

Targeting

Sectors, geography and assets

Target industries

Electric power

Target geography

North America

Observed assets

Corporate IT supporting OT

Protocols in scope

SMTPHTTPS

Capability

Malware and tools

Malware, commercial tooling, open-source utilities and native operating-system tools are kept separate — they demand different detections.

Malware

  • Custom document-delivered malware reported by Dragos

Commercial tool

Not publicly established

Open-source utility

Not publicly established

Native OS tool

Not publicly established

ATT&CK

Technique mapping

ATT&CK Enterprise

ATT&CK for ICS

History

Known campaigns and incidents

Reported campaigns

Not publicly established

Atlas incident case studies

Not publicly established

Defence

Defensive hunting priorities

Start with the hunts below — each one is a complete procedure in the Field Playbook.

Priorities

  • Attachment sandboxing
  • User reporting workflow
  • Endpoint telemetry on OT-supporting IT

Hunt for this activity

Indicators

Indicator guidance

Indicators expire. Behaviour usually ages better.

This registry deliberately does not republish volatile IP and domain lists. Pull current indicators from the linked authoritative reporting, match them locally against your own telemetry, and invest your standing detections in the behaviours listed above.
Last verified