Beyond the Surface: the evolution and expansion of the SideWinder APT group


SideWinder, aka T-APT-04 or RattleSnake, is one of the most prolific APT groups that began its activities in 2012 and was first publicly mentioned by us in 2018. Over the years, the group has launched attacks against high-profile entities in South and Southeast Asia. Its primary targets have been military and government entities in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, China and Nepal.

Over the years, SideWinder has carried out an impressive number of attacks and its activities have been extensively described in various analyses and reports published by different researchers and vendors, one of the latest of which was released at the end of July 2024. The group may be perceived as a low-skilled actor due to the use of public exploits, malicious LNK files and scripts as infection vectors, and the use of public RATs, but their true capabilities only become apparent when you carefully examine the details of their operations.

Read more…
Source: Kaspersky


Sign up for our Newsletter


Related:

  • ConnectWise rotating code signing certificates due to security concerns

    June 9, 2025

    ConnectWise is updating the digital signing certificates used in ScreenConnect, ConnectWise Automate, and ConnectWise RMM due to concerns raised by a third-party researcher about how ScreenConnect handled certain configuration data in earlier versions. In addition to issuing new certificates, ConnectWise is releasing an update to improve how this configuration data is managed in ScreenConnect. This issue ...

  • 5 Things Security Leaders Need to Know About Agentic AI

    June 9, 2025

    From writing assistance to intelligent summarization, generative AI has already transformed the way businesses work. But we’re now entering a new phase where AI doesn’t just generate content, but takes independent action on our behalf. This next evolution is called ‘agentic AI’, and it’s moving fast. Amazon recently announced a dedicated R&D group focused on agentic ...

  • Sleep with one eye open: how Librarian Ghouls steal data by night

    June 9, 2025

    Librarian Ghouls, also known as “Rare Werewolf” and “Rezet”, is an APT group that targets entities in Russia and the CIS. The group has remained active through May 2025, consistently targeting Russian companies. A distinctive feature of this threat is that the attackers favor using legitimate third-party software over developing their own malicious binaries. The malicious ...

  • Fortinet Flaws Exploited by Qilin Ransomware

    June 8, 2025

    Fortinet was recently found to have certain vulnerabilities that hackers like the Qilin group exploited. Here’s how they manipulated these weaknesses: Misconfigurations in security appliances provided a direct entry point for Qilin.Outdated Software: Failure to update Fortinet software allowed the ransomware to exploit known vulnerabilities. Qilin also employs social engineering tactics to gain unauthorized access: Phishing Attacks: Targeting employees ...

  • GoldenEye Dog(APT-Q-27) gang’s recent use of “Silver Fox” Trojan stealing activities

    June 6, 2025

    GoldenEyeDog (tracked internally as APT-Q-27 by Qi’anxin) is a hacking group targeting people involved in gaming and dog-pushing in Southeast Asia, as well as the overseas Chinese community, with a range of business activities including remote control, mining, DDoS attacks, etc. It is related to a larger attack group tracked by Qi’anxin, the Miuuti Group. The ...

  • Analysis of the latest Mirai wave exploiting TBK DVR devices with CVE-2024-3721

    June 6, 2025

    The abuse of known security flaws to deploy bots on vulnerable systems is a widely recognized problem. Many automated bots constantly search the web for known vulnerabilities in servers and devices connected to the internet, especially those running popular services. These bots often carry Remote Code Execution (RCE) exploits targeting HTTP services, allowing attackers to embed ...