Proofpoint recently identified a SugarGh0st RAT campaign targeting organizations in the United States involved in artificial intelligence efforts, including those in academia, private industry, and government service.
Proofpoint tracks the cluster responsible for this activity as UNK_SweetSpecter. SugarGh0st RAT is a remote access trojan, and is a customized variant of Gh0stRAT, an older commodity trojan typically used by Chinese-speaking threat actors. SugarGh0st RAT has been historically used to target users in Central and East Asia, as first reported by Cisco Talos in November 2023.
Read more…
Source: ProofPoint
Related:
- Rancor: Cyber Espionage Group Uses New Custom Malware to Attack Southeast Asia
December 17, 2019
In late June 2018, Unit 42 revealed a previously unknown cyber espionage group we dubbed Rancor, which conducted targeted attacks in Southeast Asia throughout 2017 and 2018. In recent attacks, the group has persistently targeted at least one government organization in Cambodia from December 2018 through January 2019. While researching these attacks, we discovered an undocumented, ...
- More than a Dozen Obfuscated APT33 Botnets Used for Extreme Narrow Targeting
December 12, 2019
The threat group regularly referred to as APT33 is known to target the oil and aviation industries aggressively. This threat group has been reported on consistently for years, but our recent findings show that the group has been using about a dozen live Command and Control (C&C) servers for extremely narrow targeting. The group puts up multiple layers of obfuscation to ...
- Waterbear is Back, Uses API Hooking to Evade Security Product Detection
December 11, 2019
Waterbear, which has been around for several years, is a campaign that uses modular malware capable of including additional functions remotely. It is associated with the cyberespionage group BlackTech, which mainly targets technology companies and government agencies in East Asia (specifically Taiwan, and in some instances, Japan and Hong Kong) and is responsible for some infamous campaigns ...
- Mobile Cyberespionage Campaign Distributed Through CallerSpy Mounts Initial Phase of a Targeted Attack
December 2, 2019
Trend Micro found a new spyware family disguised as chat apps on a phishing website. We believe that the apps, which exhibit many cyberespionage behaviors, are initially used for a targeted attack campaign. We first came across the threat in May on the site http://goooglepress/, which was advertising a chat app called “Chatrious.” Users can ...
- Operation ENDTRADE: Finding Multi-Stage Backdoors that TICK
November 29, 2019
While we have been following cyberespionage group TICK (a.k.a. “BRONZE BUTLER” or “REDBALDKNIGHT”) since 2008, we noticed an unusual increase in malware development and deployments towards November 2018. We already know that the group uses previously deployed malware and modified tools for obfuscation, but we also found TICK developing new malware families capable of detection ...
- NSO Group President Defends Controversial Tactics
November 27, 2019
In a rare public appearance by Shiri Dolev, the president of the secretive NSO Group Technologies, the company leader vented over what she called “false myths” about the firm. Dolev also took indirect aim at secure messaging platforms, offered by the likes of Facebook, explaining surveillance companies may soon have to step in where law ...