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Executive Summary

Unit 42 has identified malicious Chinese APT infrastructure masquerading as cloud backup services. Monitoring telemetry associated with two prominent Chinese APT groups, we observed network connections predominately originating from the country of Cambodia, including inbound connections originating from at least 24 Cambodian government organizations.…

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Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

SEQRITE Labs APT-Team has discovered multiple campaigns of APT SideCopy, targeting Indian government and defense entities in the past few months. The threat group is now exploiting the recent WinRAR vulnerability CVE-2023-38831 (See our advisory for more details) to deploy AllaKore RAT, DRat and additional payloads.…

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Introduction

On October 11, 2023, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published an advisory for AvosLocker, which was a sophisticated double extortion Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) group that was last observed being active in May 2023. Our research team put this report together so the security community can learn how to counteract other threats that employ similar tactics and procedures (TTPs). …

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Malvertising is a powerful malware or scam delivery mechanism that makes it easy to target specific geographies or even users. A recent article from the South China Morning Post discussed an increase in malicious webpages for the popular WhatsApp communication tool, driven via malicious Google ads. The paper described how these ads appeared to be exclusively targeted at people from Hong Kong and have caused losses of about USD$300K last month.…

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SUMMARY

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) are releasing this joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) in response to the active exploitation of CVE-2023-22515. This recently disclosed vulnerability affects certain versions of Atlassian Confluence Data Center and Server, enabling malicious cyber threat actors to obtain initial access to Confluence instances by creating unauthorized Confluence administrator accounts.…

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I. Abstract

In September 2023, NSFOCUS global threat hunting system monitored several new botnet variant families developed based on Mirai, among which hailBot, kiraiBot and catDDoS are the most active, are accelerating their spread, and are widely deployed, which has constituted a considerable threat. Through this article, we will disclose the technical details of these three new Mirai variants and the data monitored by the global threat hunting system.More…

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Executive Summary 

EclecticIQ analysts identified a cyber espionage campaign where threat actors used a variant of HyperBro loader with a Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) lure, likely to target the semiconductor industry in Mandarin/Chinese speaking East Asian regions (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore). Operational tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) overlap with previously reported activities attributed to People’s Republic of China (PRC) backed cyber espionage group. …

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Executive SummarySentinelLabs observes sustained tasking towards strategic intrusions by Chinese threat actors in Africa, designed to extend influence throughout the continent. New attacks include those against telecommunication, finance and government, attributed to the BackdoorDiplomacy APT and the threat group orchestrating Operation Tainted Love. China’s engagement in soft power diplomacy has a lengthy history, yet the use of strategic cyber intrusions highlights recent objectives and potential lasting impact in Africa.…
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While monitoring Earth Lusca, we discovered an intriguing, encrypted file on the threat actor’s server — a Linux-based malware, which appears to originate from the open-source Windows backdoor Trochilus, which we’ve dubbed SprySOCKS due to its swift behavior and SOCKS implementation.

In early 2021, we published a research paper discussing the operation of a China-linked threat actor we tracked as Earth Lusca.…

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This post is also available in: 日本語 (Japanese)

Executive Summary

A cluster of threat actor activity that Unit 42 observed attacking a Southeast Asian government target could provide insight into a rarely seen, stealthy APT group known as Gelsemium.

We found this activity as part of an investigation into compromised environments within a Southeast Asian government.…

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Recorded Future’s Insikt Group has conducted an analysis of a prolonged cyber-espionage campaign known as TAG-74, which is attributed to Chinese state-sponsored actors. TAG-74 primarily focuses on infiltrating South Korean academic, political, and government organizations. This group has been linked to Chinese military intelligence and poses a significant threat to academic, aerospace and defense, government, military, and political entities in South Korea, Japan, and Russia.…

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This post is also available in: 日本語 (Japanese)

Executive Summary

An advanced persistent threat (APT) group suspected with moderate-high confidence to be Stately Taurus engaged in a number of cyberespionage intrusions targeting a government in Southeast Asia. The intrusions took place from at least the second quarter of 2021 to the third quarter of 2023.…

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Key TakeawaysProofpoint has observed an increase in activity from specific malware families targeting Chinese-language speakers. Campaigns include Chinese-language lures and malware typically associated with Chinese cybercrime activity. Newly observed ValleyRAT is emerging as a new malware among Chinese-themed cybercrime activity, while Sainbox RAT and related variants are recently active as well.…
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