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
Related:
- New malware targets macOS devices via OpenVSX extensions
February 3, 2026
GlassWorm, the malware campaign which targeted VS Code developers on Microsoft’s official Visual Studio Code marketplace, has now expanded to open source alternatives, experts have claimed. Recently, security researchers Socket said they discovered four extensions in Open VSX, an open, vendor-neutral marketplace for editor extensions (mainly used by developers who work with VS Code-compatible editors). These ...
- Northern Ireland: PSNI officers affected by data breach to receive £7,500
February 3, 2026
Almost 10,000 police officers and staff affected by a huge data breach in Northern Ireland are to get a payment of at least £7,500 each. The details of all the PSNI’s serving officers and civilian staff were inadvertently published as part of a response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request in August 2023. The database ...
- Russian ransomware hackers allegedly hit Tulsa airport in cyberattack, dump private files online as proof
February 2, 2026
Russian ransomware operators Qilin have claimed to have broken into the Tulsa International Airport and stolen an unspecified amount of sensitive company data. A report from Cybernews says the group recently added the airport to their data leak site, and included 18 samples as proof of their claims. The researchers analyzed the samples, finding it included ...
- The Chrysalis Backdoor: A Deep Dive into Lotus Blossom’s toolkit
February 2, 2026
Rapid7 Labs, together with the Rapid7 MDR team, has uncovered a sophisticated campaign attributed to the Chinese APT group Lotus Blossom. Active since 2009, the group is known for its targeted espionage campaigns primarily impacting organizations across Southeast Asia and more recently Central America, focusing on government, telecom, aviation, critical infrastructure, and media sectors. Rapid7 investigation ...
- Russia-linked APT28 attackers already abusing new Microsoft Office zero-day
February 2, 2026
Russia-linked attackers are already exploiting Microsoft’s latest Office zero-day, with Ukraine’s national cyber defense team warning that the same bug is being used to target government agencies inside the country and organizations across the EU. In an alert published on Sunday, CERT-UA says the activity is being driven by UAC-0001, better known as “APT28” or “Fancy ...
- Oregon residents health data stolen in TriZetto breach
January 31, 2026
Thousands more Oregonians will soon receive data breach letters in the continued fallout from the TriZetto data breach, in which someone hacked the insurance verification provider and gained access to its healthcare provider customers across multiple US states. The breach occurred back in November 2024, with intruders snooping through protected health information and other sensitive personal ...