Operation ForumTroll: APT attack with Google Chrome zero-day exploit chain


In mid-March 2025, Kaspersky technologies detected a wave of infections by previously unknown and highly sophisticated malware.

In all cases, infection occurred immediately after the victim clicked on a link in a phishing email, and the attackers’ website was opened using the Google Chrome web browser. No further action was required to become infected. All malicious links were personalized and had a very short lifespan. However, Kaspersky’s exploit detection and protection technologies successfully identified the zero-day exploit that was used to escape Google Chrome’s sandbox. Kaspersky researchers quickly analyzed the exploit code, reverse-engineered its logic, and confirmed that it was based on a zero-day vulnerability affecting the latest version of Google Chrome, which was then reported to the Google security team.

Read more…
Source: Kaspersky


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


Related:

  • Zoho zero-day published on Twitter

    March 6, 2020

    A security researcher published yesterday details on Twitter about a zero-day vulnerability in a Zoho enterprise product. Cyber-security experts who have reviewed the vulnerability have told ZDNet that the zero-day could spell trouble for companies around the world, as it could be an entry point for ransomware gangs to infect corporate networks and ransom their data. The vulnerability impacts ...

  • Chinese hackers use decade-old Bisonal Trojan in cyberespionage campaigns

    March 5, 2020

    Chinese cyberattackers continue to improve and deploy a decade-old Remote Access Trojan (RAT) in ongoing campaigns against Russian, Japanese, and South Korean targets. On Thursday, researchers from Cisco Talos said that the Bisonal RAT is an unusual sample of malware that has been improved, rolled back, and refined over a period of 10 years, an uncommon practice by ...

  • DoppelPaymer Ransomware Used to Steal Data from Supplier to SpaceX, Tesla

    March 3, 2020

    A company that provides custom parts to aerospace giants Lockheed Martin, SpaceX and Boeing, has been the target of an attack by an emerging type of ransomware that can both encrypt files and exfiltrate data. Colorado-based Visser Precision said it was targeted by a “cyber incident” that involved the attacker accessing and stealing company data after a security ...

  • Cobalt Ulster Strikes Again With New ForeLord Malware

    March 3, 2020

    A new credential-stealing malware, dubbed ForeLord, has been uncovered in a recent spear phishing campaign. Researchers tie the attack to a known advanced persistence threat (APT) group known as Cobalt Ulster. The emails distributing ForeLord were uncovered as part of a campaign, running between mid-2019 and mid-January 2020. The emails were targeting organizations in Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, as ...

  • GuLoader: Malspam Campaign Installing NetWire RAT

    March 3, 2020

    NetWire is a publicly-available RAT that has been used by criminal organizations and other malicious groups since 2012. NetWire is distributed through various campaigns, and we usually see it sent through malicious spam (malspam). GuLoader is a file downloader that was first discovered in December 2019, and it has been used to distribute a wide variety of remote ...

  • Molerats Delivers Spark Backdoor to Government and Telecommunications Organizations

    March 3, 2020

    Between October 2019 through the beginning of December 2019, Unit 42 observed multiple instances of phishing attacks likely related to a threat group known as Molerats (AKA Gaza Hackers Team and Gaza Cybergang) targeting eight organizations in six different countries in the government, telecommunications, insurance and retail industries, of which the latter two were quite ...