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:
- Iran-linked DEV-0343 targeting defense, GIS, and maritime sectors
October 11, 2021
DEV-0343 is a new activity cluster that the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) first observed and began tracking in late July 2021. MSTIC has observed DEV-0343 conducting extensive password spraying against more than 250 Office 365 tenants, with a focus on US and Israeli defense technology companies, Persian Gulf ports of entry, or global maritime ...
- Microsoft: Russian state hackers behind 53% of attacks on US govt agencies
October 8, 2021
Microsoft says that Russian-sponsored hacking groups are increasingly targeting US government agencies, with roughly 58% of all nation-state attacks observed by Microsoft between July 2020 and June 2021 coming from Russia. “Russian nation-state actors are increasingly targeting government agencies for intelligence gathering, which jumped from 3% of their targets a year ago to 53% – largely ...
- Google warns 14,000 Gmail users targeted by Russian hackers
October 7, 2021
Google has warned about 14,000 of its users about being targeted in a state-sponsored phishing campaign from APT28, a threat group that has been linked to Russia. The campaign was detected in late September and accounts for a larger than usual batch of Government-Backed Attack notifications that Google sends to targeted users every month. Shane Huntley, who ...
- BlackBerry ties malware campaign targeting victims in India to Chinese cyberespionage group
October 5, 2021
The BlackBerry Research & Intelligence team released a new report on Tuesday linking disparate malware campaigns to Chinese cyberespionage group APT41, noting that the group has been taking advantage of Cobalt Strike activity using a bespoke Malleable C2 Profile that uses COVID-19 phishing lures to target victims in India. The team was able to link phishing ...
- New APT ChamelGang Targets Russian Energy, Aviation Orgs
October 1, 2021
A new APT group has emerged that’s specifically targeting the fuel and energy complex and aviation industry in Russia, exploiting known vulnerabilities like Microsoft Exchange Server’s ProxyShell and leveraging both new and existing malware to compromise networks. Researchers at security firm Positive Technologies have been tracking the group, dubbed ChamelGang for its chameleon-like capabilities, since March. ...
- GhostEmperor: From ProxyLogon to kernel mode
September 30, 2021
While investigating a recent rise of attacks against Exchange servers, we noticed a recurring cluster of activity that appeared in several distinct compromised networks. This cluster stood out for its usage of a formerly unknown Windows kernel mode rootkit that we dubbed Demodex, and a sophisticated multi-stage malware framework aimed at providing remote control over ...