In November 2023, the team at the Positive Technologies Expert Security Center (PT ESC) released their first research report on attacks by the hitherto-unknown group Hellhounds on Russian companies’ infrastructure: Operation Lahat.
The report focused on the group’s attacks on Linux hosts that relied on a new backdoor known as Decoy Dog. Hellhounds carried on attacks on organizations located in Russia, scoring at least 48 confirmed victims by Q2 2024. As the PT ESC CSIRT team responded to an incident at a transportation company, they detected previously unreported attacks on Windows-based infrastructure, besides already-known TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures) and attacks on Linux hosts. The new investigation also found that Hellhounds had been successfully hitting Russian companies since at least 2021. It is a known fact that development of the malware began at least as early as 2019.
Read more…
Source: Positive Technologies
Related:
- Frozen in transit: Secret Blizzard’s AiTM campaign against diplomats
July 31, 2025
Microsoft Threat Intelligence has uncovered a cyberespionage campaign by the Russian state actor we track as Secret Blizzard that has been targeting embassies located in Moscow using an adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) position to deploy their custom ApolloShadow malware. ApolloShadow has the capability to install a trusted root certificate to trick devices into trusting malicious actor-controlled sites, enabling ...
- Cobalt Strike Beacon delivered via GitHub and social media
July 30, 2025
n the latter half of 2024, the Russian IT industry, alongside a number of entities in other countries, experienced a notable cyberattack. The attackers employed a range of malicious techniques to trick security systems and remain undetected. To bypass detection, they delivered information about their payload via profiles on both Russian and international social media platforms, ...
- Russia: Aeroflot cancels dozens of flights after hacker attack paralyzes IT systems
July 28, 2025
Russia’s Aeroflot airline has cancelled 49 round-trip flights to and from Moscow due to an IT system failure, the air carrier reported. The press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia said that the airline’s information systems were brought down by a hacker attack. The carrier warned of adjustments to its flight schedule, including delays ...
- Global operation targets NoName057(16) pro-Russian cybercrime network
July 16, 2025
Between 14 and 17 July, a joint international operation, known as Eastwood and coordinated by Europol and Eurojust, targeted the cybercrime network NoName057(16). Law enforcement and judicial authorities from Czechia, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the United States took simultaneous actions against offenders and infrastructure belonging to the pro-Russian ...
- Pro basketball player and 4 youths arrested in connection to ransomware crimes
July 10, 2025
Authorities in Europe have detained five people, including a former Russian professional basketball player, in connection with crime syndicates responsible for ransomware attacks. Until recently, one of the suspects, Daniil Kasatkin, played for MBA Moscow, a basketball team that’s part of the VTB United League, which includes teams from Russia and other Eastern European countries. Kasatkin ...
- Batavia spyware steals data from Russian organizations
July 7, 2025
Since early March 2025, our systems have recorded an increase in detections of similar files with names like договор-2025-5.vbe, приложение.vbe, and dogovor.vbe (translation: contract, attachment) among employees at various Russian organizations. The targeted attack begins with bait emails containing malicious links, sent under the pretext of signing a contract. The campaign began in July 2024 and ...