Inside Shadow-Earth-053: A China-Aligned Cyberespionage Campaign Against Government and Defense Sectors in Asia


Through ongoing analysis of ShadowPad implants targeting South and Southeast Asia, TrendAI Research has uncovered a series of new related campaigns that are tracked under a temporary intrusion set (a provisional cluster of related activity pending formal attribution) designated SHADOW-EARTH-053, which we assess to be aligned with China’s broader strategic interests.

Trend Micro telemetry indicates that this group has targeted government entities and critical infrastructure sectors across at least eight countries over the past year. Activity attributed to SHADOW-EARTH-053 has been traced back to at least December 2024, indicating the group has been operational for over a year.

Read more…
Source:Trend Micro


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • Private equity firm Apollo confirms data breach amid hacking wave targeting financial giants

    August 21, 2026

    Private equity giant Apollo Global Management has confirmed a data breach in which hackers stole reams of personal information from the company’s cloud systems. The breach comes a month after security researchers sounded the alarm on a new hacking campaign targeting financial and private equity giants. The financial giant confirmed the incident in a letter filed with California’s ...

  • Securing the overlooked corners of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) supply chain

    August 21, 2026

    While supply chain threats have been quietly compounding over the past decade, the last 12–18 months have triggered a drastic shift in the scale and velocity of these attacks. Rather than just hunting for bugs in finished software, attackers are targeting the everyday tools and code developers rely on. Unit 42 research shows this happening at ...

  • Zombie Card: An expired Visa credit card can be used for purchases

    August 21, 2026

    Did you know there is still a good reason to physically destroy your expired credit card? Scientific research found that the expiration date used by payment terminals on some contactless cards was not effectively protected against tampering. University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers Raja Hasnain Anwar, Gerard DeCunha, and Muhammad Taqi Raza tested contactless cards across Visa, Mastercard, Discover, ...

  • The invisible passenger in your car

    August 21, 2026

    While monitoring Android threats in June 2026, Kaspersky discovered a new piece of Android malware. What struck the researchers as unusual was that it installed like an ordinary user app yet made no attempt to disguise itself as legitimate software: it had no user interface at all. This led us to suspect the app might ...

  • Hackers are spending millions on expired domains to enable malware scams

    August 21, 2026

    A domain name is the closest thing the web has to a credit history: age, inbound links, search visibility, and reputation all feed the reputation scores that security products consult before deciding whether a request is worth worrying about. New research from Infoblox Threat Intel claims this history has become a commodity with a market price, and that at least ...

  • Medical records, SSNs, and bank details exposed in CareCloud data breach

    August 21, 2026

    Healthcare technology giant CareCloud has confirmed that a data breach earlier this year impacted more than 3.75 million people, making it one of the largest healthcare data incidents disclosed this year. The New Jersey-based company, which provides electronic health record (EHR) and practice management services, first flagged the intrusion in an SEC filing back in March, but the true scope ...