Security intelligence company, FireEye, has released the details of its Advanced Persistent Threat group – APT41.

FireEye said individual members of APT41 have been conducting primarily financially motivated operations since 2012 before expanding into likely state-sponsored activity. Evidence suggests that these two motivations were balanced concurrently from 2014 onward.

“APT41 is unique among the China-nexus actors we track in that it uses tools typically reserved for espionage campaigns in what appears to be activity for personal gain. They are as agile as they are skilled and well-resourced,” said Sandra Joyce, SVP of Global Threat Intelligence at FireEye.

“Their aggressive and persistent operations for both espionage and cybercrime purposes distinguish APT41 from other adversaries and make them a major threat across multiple industries.”