HOMETHREATSKaiji
APT / THREAT GROUP

Kaiji

2
aliases
Last seen:Mar 17, 2026

Intelligence Profile

Surfaced in late April 2020, Intezer describes Kaiji as a DDoS malware written in Go that spreads through SSH brute force attacks. Recovered function names are an English representation of Chinese words, hinting about the origin. The name Kaiji was given by MalwareMustDie based on strings found in samples.

Threat Analysis

Kaiji is a known-sophistication threat actor of undetermined national origin, engaged in cyber operations with a primary motivation of unknown activity patterns.

External References

→https://blog.lumen.com/chaos-is-a-go-based-swiss-army-knife-of-malware/
→https://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/xorddos-kaiji-botnet-malware-variants-target-exposed-docker-servers/
→https://intezer.com/blog/research/kaiji-new-chinese-linux-malware-turning-to-golang/
→https://www.bitdefender.com/box/blog/iot-news/kaiji-new-strain-iot-malware-seizing-control-launching-ddos-attacks/
→https://www.elastic.co/security-labs/betting-on-bots

Quick Facts

TypeAPT / Threat Group
Aliases2

Also Known As

Kaijielf.kaiji

External Intelligence

Malpedia: elf.kaiji

Research Links

MITRE ATT&CK VirusTotal Google (news) Twitter/X search
Data sourced from Malpedia, Ransomware.live, RansomLook, and CTIWATCH OSINT collection. Actor attribution is based on available intelligence and may be incomplete.
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