Hackers hijacked hundreds of devices in an outlandish intel campaign aimed at US and Asian targets


A recently disclosed cyber espionage operation, dubbed LapDogs, has drawn scrutiny following revelations from SecurityScorecard’s Strike Team. The operation, believed to be conducted by China-aligned threat actors, has quietly infiltrated over 1,000 devices across the United States, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

What makes this campaign distinctive is its use of hijacked SOHO routers and IoT hardware, transforming them into Operational Relay Boxes (ORBs) for sustained surveillance. LapDogs is an ongoing campaign, active since September 2023, targeting real estate, media, municipal, and IT sectors. Devices from known vendors such as Buffalo Technology and Ruckus Wireless have reportedly been compromised.

Read more…
Source:TechRadar News


Sign up for our Newsletter
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox.


Related:

  • Old-school cruel: Dodgy PDF email attachments enjoying a renaissance

    April 19, 2019

    The last few months have seen a big increase in malware attacks using PDF email attachments, according to security firm SonicWall. “Increasingly, email, Office documents and now PDFs are the vehicle of choice for malware and fraud in the cyber landscape,” said the outfit’s Bill Conner. There’s nothing new in this, of course, but many recent attacks ...

  • Potential Targeted Attack Uses AutoHotkey and Malicious Script Embedded in Excel File to Avoid Detection

    April 17, 2019

    Trend Micro discovered a potential targeted attack that makes use of legitimate script engine AutoHotkey, in combination with malicious script files. This file is distributed as an email attachment and disguised as a legitimate document with the filename “Military Financing.xlsm.” The user would need to enable macro for it to open fully, which would use ...

  • Source code of Iranian cyber-espionage tools leaked on Telegram

    April 17, 2019

    In an incident reminiscent of the Shadow Brokers leak that exposed the NSA’s hacking tools, someone has now published similar hacking tools belonging to one of Iran’s elite cyber-espionage units, known as APT34, Oilrig, or HelixKitten. The hacking tools are nowhere near as sophisticated as the NSA tools leaked in 2017, but they are dangerous nevertheless. The tools have been ...

  • Pirates of Brazil: Integrating the Strengths of Russian and Chinese Hacking Communities

    April 16, 2019

    Each country’s hackers are unique, with their own codes of conduct, forums, motives and payment methods. Recorded Future’s Portuguese-speaking analysts, with a long-standing background in the Brazilian underground, have analyzed underground markets and forums tailored to the Brazilian Portuguese audience over the past decade and discovered a number of particularities in content hosted on forums, ...

  • Malspam Campaigns Distribute HawkEye Keylogger, Post Ownership Change

    April 16, 2019

    After the HawkEye malware kit underwent an ownership change and new development, researchers are spotting the keylogger used in several malicious email campaigns. The HawkEye malware kit and information-stealer has been spotted in a newfound slew of campaigns after a recent ownership change. While the keylogger has been in continuous development since 2013, in December a thread ...

  • Scranos: New Rapidly Evolving Rootkit-Enabled Spyware Discovered

    April 16, 2019

    A new powerful rootkit-enabled spyware operation has been discovered wherein hackers are distributing multifunctional malware disguised as cracked software or trojanized app posing as legitimate software like video players, drivers and even anti-virus products. While the rootkit malware—dubbed Scranos—which was first discovered late last year, still appears to be a work in progress, it is continuously evolving, ...