Advanced Persistent Threat


NEWS 
  • The BadPilot campaign: Seashell Blizzard subgroup conducts multiyear global access operation

    February 12, 2025

    Microsoft is publishing for the first time their research into a subgroup within the Russian state actor Seashell Blizzard and its multiyear initial access operation, tracked by Microsoft Threat Intelligence as the “BadPilot campaign”. This subgroup has conducted globally diverse compromises of Internet-facing infrastructure to enable Seashell Blizzard to persist on high-value targets and support tailored ...

  • Analyzing ELF/Sshdinjector.A!tr with a Human and Artificial Analyst

    February 4, 2025

    ELF/Sshdinjector.A!tr is a collection of malware that can be injected into the SSH daemon. Samples of this malware collection surfaced around mid-November 2024. While Fortinet researchers have a good amount of threat intelligence on them (e.g., they are attributed to the DaggerFly espionage group and were used during the Lunar Peek campaign against network appliances), nobody ...

  • New Star Blizzard spear-phishing campaign targets WhatsApp accounts

    January 16, 2025

    Star Blizzard’s new spear-phishing campaign, while novel in that it uses and targets WhatsApp for the first time, exhibits familiar spear-phishing TTPs for Star Blizzard, with the threat actor initiating email contact with their targets, to engage them, before sending them a second message containing a malicious link. The sender address used by the threat actor ...

  • Cloud Atlas seen using a new tool in its attacks

    December 23, 2024

    Known since 2014, Cloud Atlas targets Eastern Europe and Central Asia. We’re shedding light on a previously undocumented toolset, which the group used heavily in 2024. Victims get infected via phishing emails containing a malicious document that exploits a vulnerability in the formula editor (CVE-2018-0802) to download and execute malware code. When opened, the document downloads a ...

  • BellaCPP: Discovering a new BellaCiao variant written in C++

    December 20, 2024

    BellaCiao is a .NET-based malware family that adds a unique twist to an intrusion, combining the stealthy persistence of a webshell with the power to establish covert tunnels. It surfaced for the first time in late April 2023 and has since been publicly attributed to the APT actor Charming Kitten. One important aspect of the BellaCiao samples ...

  • Lazarus group evolves its infection chain with old and new malware

    December 19, 2024

    Over the past few years, the Lazarus group has been distributing its malicious software by exploiting fake job opportunities targeting employees in various industries, including defense, aerospace, cryptocurrency, and other global sectors. This attack campaign is called the DeathNote campaign and is also referred to as “Operation DreamJob”. Kaspersky researchers have previously published the history of ...

  • Earth Koshchei Coopts Red Team Tools in Complex RDP Attacks

    December 17, 2024

    Red teaming provides essential tools and testing methodologies for organizations to strengthen their security defenses. Cybercriminals and advanced persistent threat (APT) actors pay close attention to new methods and tools red teams develop, and they may repurpose them with a malicious intent. In October 2024, an APT group that Trend Micro tracks as Earth Koshchei (also ...

  • Careto is back: what’s new after 10 years of silence?

    December 12, 2024

    During the first week of October, Kaspersky took part in the 34th Virus Bulletin International Conference, one of the longest-running cybersecurity events. There, Kaspersky researchers delivered multiple presentations, and one of our talks focused on newly observed activities by the Careto threat actor, which is also known as “The Mask”. The Mask APT is a legendary ...

  • US critical infrastructure hit once again by a new group on the scene

    December 6, 2024

    Storm-0227, a Chinese state-sponsored advanced persistent threat (APT) actor started targeting critical infrastructure organizations, as well as government entities, in the United States. The group abuses software vulnerabilities and engages in spear phishing attacks to gain access to people’s devices. Once they get the access, they deploy different Remote Access Trojans (RAT) and other malware to ...

  • APT trends report Q3 2024

    November 28, 2024

    In the second half of 2022, a wave of attacks from an unknown threat actor targeted victims with a new type of attack framework that we dubbed P8. The campaign targeted Vietnamese victims, mostly from the financial sector, with some from the real estate sector. Later, in 2023, Elastic Lab published a report about an OceanLotus ...