MOONSHINE Exploit Kit and DarkNimbus Backdoor Enabling Earth Minotaur’s Multi-Platform Attacks


Trend Micro researchers have been continuously monitoring the MOONSHINE exploit kit’s activity since 2019. During our research, they discovered a MOONSHINE exploit kit server with improper operational security: Its server exposed MOONSHINE’s toolkits and operation logs, which revealed the information of possible victims and the attack tactics of a threat actor we have named Earth Minotaur.

MOONSHINE was first discovered as part of malicious activities against the Tibetan community, and is believed to also be associated with previous malicious activities against Uyghurs. It’s designed to implant a backdoor by exploiting the vulnerabilities of instant messaging apps on Android mobile devices.

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Source: Trend Micro


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