Advanced Persistent Threat


NEWS 
  • IronHusky updates the forgotten MysterySnail RAT to target Russia and Mongolia

    April 17, 2025

    Day after day, threat actors create new malware to use in cyberattacks. Each of these new implants is developed in its own way, and as a result gets its own destiny – while the use of some malware families is reported for decades, information about others disappears after days, months or several years. Kaspersky researchers observed ...

  • BPFDoor’s Hidden Controller Used Against Asia, Middle East Targets

    April 14, 2025

    The stealthy rootkit-like malware known as BPFDoor (detected as Backdoor.Linux.BPFDOOR) is a backdoor with strong stealth capabilities, most of them related to its use of Berkeley Packet Filtering (BPF). In a previous article, Trend Micro researchers covered how BPFDoor and BPF-enabled malware work. BPFDoor has been active for at least four years, with a report by ...

  • GOFFEE continues to attack organizations in Russia

    April 10, 2025

    GOFFEE is a threat actor that first came to our attention in early 2022. Since then, Kaspersky researchers have observed malicious activities targeting exclusively entities located in the Russian Federation, leveraging spear phishing emails with a malicious attachment. Starting in May 2022 and up until summer of 2023, GOFFEE deployed modified Owowa (malicious IIS module) in ...

  • How ToddyCat tried to hide behind AV software

    April 7, 2025

    To hide their activity in infected systems, APT groups resort to various techniques to bypass defenses. Most of these techniques are well known and detectable by both EPP solutions and EDR threat-monitoring and response tools. In early 2024, while investigating ToddyCat-related incidents, Kaspersky researchers detected a suspicious file named version.dll in the temp directory on multiple ...

  • The Espionage Toolkit of Earth Alux: A Closer Look at its Advanced Techniques

    March 31, 2025

    The Earth Alux APT group’s schemes and tactics have been uncloaked through our relentless monitoring and investigation efforts. The China-linked intrusion set is actively launching cyberespionage attacks against the government, technology, logistics, manufacturing, telecommunications, IT services, and retail sectors. The first sighting of its activity was in the second quarter of 2023; back then, it was ...

  • A Deep Dive into Water Gamayun’s Arsenal and Infrastructure

    March 28, 2025

    Water Gamayun, a suspected Russian threat actor also known as EncryptHub and Larva-208, has been exploiting the MSC EvilTwin (CVE-2025-26633), a zero-day vulnerability that was patched on March 11. In the first installment of this two-part series, Trend Research discussed in depth its discovery of an Water Gamayun campaign exploiting this vulnerability. In this blog entry, ...

  • Operation ForumTroll: APT attack with Google Chrome zero-day exploit chain

    March 25, 2025

    In mid-March 2025, Kaspersky technologies detected a wave of infections by previously unknown and highly sophisticated malware. In all cases, infection occurred immediately after the victim clicked on a link in a phishing email, and the attackers’ website was opened using the Google Chrome web browser. No further action was required to become infected. All malicious ...

  • ZDI-CAN-25373: Windows shortcut exploit abused as Zero-Day in widespread APT campaigns

    March 18, 2025

    The Trend Zero Day Initiative threat hunting team identified significant instances of the exploitation of ZDI-CAN-25373 across a variety of campaigns dating back to 2017. The researchers analysis revealed that 11 state-sponsored groups from North Korea, Iran, Russia, and China have employed ZDI-CAN-25373 in operations primarily motivated by cyber espionage and data theft. Trend Micro discovered ...

  • Squid Werewolf cyber spies masquerade as recruiters

    March 12, 2025

    Espionage activity clusters may pose as recruiters to distribute phishing emails, targeting key employees in organizations of interest. In December 2024, the BI.ZONE Threat Intelligence team uncovered a peculiar phishing campaign aimed at luring victims with fake job opportunities at an industrial organization. A detailed analysis revealed that the attack had been carried out by Squid Werewolf ...

  • SideWinder targets the maritime and nuclear sectors with an updated toolset

    March 10, 2025

    Last year, Kaspersky researchers published an article about SideWinder, a highly prolific APT group whose primary targets have been military and government entities in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, China, and Nepal. In the article, they described activities that had mostly happened in the first half of the year. The researchers tried to draw attention to the group, ...