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:

  • Cyber criminals who hacked into Transport for London’s computer network are convicted

    June 22, 2026

    Two young men have admitted mounting a cyber attack on Transport for London (TfL), which cost tens of millions of pounds in losses and inconvenienced thousands of customers. The National Crime Agency and City of London Police investigated Thalha Jubair, 20, from East London, and Owen Flowers, 18, from Walsall, West Midlands, after TfL’s network was ...

  • Security experts warn of AI-boosted scam campaigns that can trick even the smartest victims

    June 21, 2026

    Messaging scams are becoming increasingly sophisticated as criminals use AI to imitate trusted people, familiar brands, and everyday conversations. New research from Kaspersky suggests these schemes are succeeding with alarming speed, often convincing victims to hand over money within minutes. The findings indicate that digital experience alone may no longer provide reliable protection against modern fraud attempts. Read more… Source: TechRadar ...

  • Shadowbyt3$ claims Nintendo of America breach, stealing ~1GB of employee data from TinyPulse survey platform and demanding $2M ransom

    June 20, 2026

    Nintendo of America has confirmed suffering a third-party data breach incident, but played down its severity. An “extortion-as-a-service” hacking group called Shadowbyt3$ recently claimed to have breached Nintendo of America, a subsidiary of the Japanese gaming giant, operating in the United States, Canada, and some Latin America countries, and exfiltrated sensitive data on its employees. Read more… Source:  ...

  • Apple users told to watch out for ‘unpatchable’ iPhone security issues – here’s what we know

    June 19, 2026

    Security researchers Paradigm Shift have discovered a vulnerability in older iPhone and Apple Watch models which can be used to jailbreak the devices. What makes this vulnerability special is the fact that there is no fix for it – the only way to really be secure is to replace the device with a newer model. The good news is that ...

  • Microsoft working on a fix for RoguePlanet, a flaw that grants full PC control

    June 18, 2026

    A publicly available exploit called RoguePlanet can give attackers the highest level of access on Windows systems. Microsoft has confirmed the vulnerability and says it’s working on a security update. RoguePlanet is tracked under CVE-2026-50656, where it’s described as a Microsoft Defender Elevation of Privilege (EoP) vulnerability. Read more… Source:  MalwareBytes Labs Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter The latest cyber ...

  • Kodak confirms breach as ShinyHunters’ leak threat reaches deadline

    June 18, 2026

    The Eastman Kodak Company (Kodak) confirmed to BleepingComputer that it is investigating a security breach after the ShinyHunters extortion group claimed responsibility for the incident. Kodak is the latest organization to land on the group’s leak site. ShinyHunters claims it stole more than 2.2 million records and threatened to publish the data unless the company responded by June ...