SugarGh0st RAT Used to Target American Artificial Intelligence Experts


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


Sign up for our Newsletter


Related:

  • Leafminer: New Espionage Campaigns Targeting Middle Eastern Regions

    July 25, 2018

    Active attack group is eager to make use of available tools, research, and the work of other threat actors. Symantec has uncovered the operations of a threat actor named Leafminer that is targeting a broad list of government organizations and business verticals in various regions in the Middle East since at least early 2017. The group tends ...

  • Hackers Used Malicious MDM Solution to Spy On ‘Highly Targeted’ iPhone Users

    July 13, 2018

    Security researchers have uncovered a “highly targeted” mobile malware campaign that has been operating since August 2015 and found spying on 13 selected iPhones in India. The attackers, who are also believed to be operating from India, were found abusing mobile device management (MDM) protocol—a type of security software used by large enterprises to control and ...

  • Ex-NSO Employee Caught Selling Stolen Phone Hacking Tool For $50 Million

    July 5, 2018

    A former employee of one of the world’s most powerful hacking companies NSO Group has been arrested and charged with stealing phone hacking tools from the company and trying to sell it for $50 million on the Darknet secretly. Israeli hacking firm NSO Group is mostly known for selling high-tech malware capable of remotely cracking into ...

  • New Malware Family Uses Custom UDP Protocol for C&C Communications

    June 26, 2018

    Security researchers have uncovered a new highly-targeted cyber espionage campaign, which is believed to be associated with a hacking group behind KHRAT backdoor Trojan and has been targeting organizations in South East Asia. According to researchers from Palo Alto, the hacking group, which they dubbed RANCOR, has been found using two new malware families—PLAINTEE and DDKONG—to target ...

  • APT15 Pokes Its Head Out With Upgraded MirageFox RAT

    June 19, 2018

    The elusive APT15 cyber-espionage group, believed to be affiliated with the Chinese government, has been spotted for the first time in many months, mounting a highly targeted spy campaign using an upgraded version of the Mirage remote access trojan. This is the first evidence of the China-linked actor’s activity since hacking the U.K. government and military ...

  • FakeSpy Android Information-Stealing Malware Targets Japanese and Korean-Speaking Users

    June 19, 2018

    Spoofing legitimate mobile applications is a common cybercriminal modus that banks on their popularity and relies on their users’ trust to steal information or deliver payloads. Cybercriminals typically use third-party app marketplaces to distribute their malicious apps, but in operations such as the ones that distributed CPUMINER, BankBot, and MilkyDoor, they would try to get their apps published ...