APT / THREAT GROUP

POISON CARP

aliases

Last seen:Mar 17, 2026

Intelligence Profile

Between November 2018 and May 2019, senior members of Tibetan groups received malicious links in individually tailored WhatsApp text exchanges with operators posing as NGO workers, journalists, and other fake personas. The links led to code designed to exploit web browser vulnerabilities to install spyware on iOS and Android devices, and in some cases to OAuth phishing pages. This campaign was carried out by what appears to be a single operator that we call POISON CARP.

Threat Analysis

POISON CARP 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://citizenlab.ca/2019/09/poison-carp-tibetan-groups-targeted-with-1-click-mobile-exploits/

→https://www.volexity.com/blog/2019/09/02/digital-crackdown-large-scale-surveillance-and-exploitation-of-uyghurs/

→https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/20/f/new-android-spyware-actionspy-revealed-via-phishing-attacks-from-earth-empusa.html

Quick Facts

TypeAPT / Threat Group

Aliases4

SourceMalpedia

Also Known As

Red Dev 16Evil EyePOISON CARPEarth Empusa

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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