An ongoing surveillance operation has been uncovered that targets a Southeast Asian government, researchers said – using a previously unknown espionage malware.
According to Check Point Research, the attack involves spear-phishing emails with malicious Word documents to gain initial access, along with the exploitation of older, known Microsoft Office security vulnerabilities. But most notable, researchers said, is the novel backdoor, which they said has been in development by a Chinese APT for at least three years.
The documents were “sent to different employees of a government entity in Southeast Asia,” according to the Check Point analysis. “In some cases, the emails are spoofed to look like they were from other government-related entities. The attachments to these emails are weaponized copies of legitimate looking official documents and use the remote template technique to pull the next stage from the attacker’s server.”
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Source: ThreatPost