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:
- Ireland proposes new law allowing police to use spyware
January 22, 2026
Ireland is considering new legislation to give its law enforcement agencies more surveillance powers, including allowing the use of spyware. The Irish government announced this week the introduction of the Communications (Interception and Lawful Access) Bill, which would regulate the use of “lawful interception,” the industry term for surveillance technology, including spyware made by companies such ...
- Firefox joins Chrome and Edge as sleeper extensions spy on users
January 19, 2026
A group of cybercriminals called DarkSpectre is believed to be behind three campaigns spread by malicious browser extensions: ShadyPanda, GhostPoster, and Zoom Stealer. Malwarebytes Labs wrote about the ShadyPanda campaign in December 2025, warning users that extensions which had behaved normally for years suddenly went rogue. After a malicious update, these extensions were able to track ...
- US removes three spyware-linked executives from sanctions list
December 31, 2025
Merom Harpaz, Andrea Nicola Constantino Hermes Gambazzi, and Sara Aleksandra Fayssal Hamou – three individuals who were sanctioned by the US for alleged links to commercial spyware products, have had their bans lifted recently. In a new press release published by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) earlier this week, it was briefly stated ...
- The HoneyMyte APT evolves with a kernel-mode rootkit and a ToneShell backdoor
December 29, 2025
In mid-2025, Kaspersky researchers identified a malicious driver file on computer systems in Asia. The driver file is signed with an old, stolen, or leaked digital certificate and registers as a mini-filter driver on infected machines. Its end-goal is to inject a backdoor Trojan into the system processes and provide protection for malicious files, user-mode ...
- Meet the team that investigates when journalists and activists get hacked with government spyware
December 27, 2025
For more than a decade, dozens of journalists and human rights activists have been targeted and hacked by governments all over the world. Cops and spies in Ethiopia, Greece, Hungary, India, Mexico, Poland, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates, among others, have used sophisticated spyware to compromise the phones of these victims, who at times ...
- Evasive Panda APT poisons DNS requests to deliver MgBot
December 23, 2025
The Evasive Panda APT group (also known as Bronze Highland, Daggerfly, and StormBamboo) has been active since 2012, targeting multiple industries with sophisticated, evolving tactics. Our latest research (June 2025) reveals that the attackers conducted highly-targeted campaigns, which started in November 2022 and ran until November 2024. The group mainly performed adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) attacks on specific ...

