Tonto Team G0131
Also known as Earth Akhlut, BRONZE HUNTLEY, CactusPete, Karma Panda.
Tonto Team is a suspected Chinese state-sponsored cyber espionage threat group that has primarily targeted South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and the United States since at least 2009; by 2020 they expanded operations to include other Asian as well as Eastern European countries. Tonto Team has targeted government, military, energy, mining, financial, education, healthcare, and technology organizations, including through the Heartbeat Campaign (2009-2012) and Operation Bitter Biscuit (2017).
Documented targeting: Financial Services, Healthcare, Government, Defense, Energy & Utilities, Education & Research
Methodology
Relevance is a match on your industry sector and technology stack against the MITRE ATT&CK v19.1 group graph (174 groups, 821 software families, 56 campaigns). It is computed deterministically from that data, with no language model in the request path. It is a relevance match, not threat-intelligence probability data: it tells you which documented actors and techniques are worth emulating for an org like yours, not a forecast that any specific group will act.
TurboPentest can autonomously exercise 0 of 15 of this actor's documented techniques today (0%). 4 are out of scope for automated testing (social engineering, denial of service, physical).
+8 coming soonmore unlock with our internal pentesting agent, currently in private beta.
These counts are computed from the vendored MITRE ATT&CK graph and the published coverage map, and are reproducible from source.
Known software
Emulate Tonto Team. Audit-Ready pentest, $99.
Finds nothing? Your next pentest is free. If a pentest surfaces zero actionable findings, we credit you a free re-pentest. Once per target; does not apply to retests or Recon. You always walk away with real findings or a free redo.
Launch this pentestFrequently asked questions
Who is Tonto Team (G0131)?
Tonto Team is a suspected Chinese state-sponsored cyber espionage threat group that has primarily targeted South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and the United States since at least 2009; by 2020 they expanded operations to include other Asian as well as Eastern European countries. Tonto Team has targeted government, military, energy, mining, financial, education, healthcare, and technology organizations, including through the Heartbeat Campaign (2009-2012) and Operation Bitter Biscuit (2017).
What sectors does Tonto Team target?
Based on MITRE ATT&CK, Tonto Team has been observed targeting Financial Services, Healthcare, Government, Defense, Energy & Utilities, Education & Research.
Can TurboPentest test for Tonto Team?
TurboPentest can autonomously exercise 0 of 15 of this actor's documented techniques today. 8 more need internal or assumed-breach access (the Adversarial-Depth tier), and the rest are out of scope for automated testing.
What does it cost to emulate Tonto Team?
An Audit-Ready pentest starts at $99 per target. If it surfaces zero actionable findings, your next pentest is free.
Reviewed by
Michel Chamberland, Founder & CEO of IntegSec. CISSP, OSCP, OSCE, with 20+ years in offensive security, alumni of IBM X-Force Red and Trustwave SpiderLabs.
Last reviewed July 30, 2026.