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:

  • More than 200 systems infected by new Chinese APT ‘FunnyDream’

    November 17, 2020

    A new Chinese state-sponsored hacking group (also known as an APT) has infected more than 200 systems across Southeast Asia with malware over the past two years. The malware infections are part of a widespread cyber-espionage campaign carried out by a group named FunnyDream, according to a new report published today by security firm Bitdefender. The attacks ...

  • CEOs Will Be Personally Liable for Cyber-Physical Security Incidents by 2024

    November 17, 2020

    Digital attack attempts in industrial environments are on the rise. In February 2020, IBM X-Force reported that it had observed a 2,000% increase in the attempts by threat actors to target Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and Operational Technology (OT) assets between 2018 and 2020. This surge eclipsed the total number of attacks against organizations’ industrial ...

  • Operation North Star: Behind The Scenes

    November 5, 2020

    It is rare to be provided an inside view on how major cyber espionage campaigns are conducted within the digital realm. The only transparency afforded is a limited view of victims, a malware sample, and perhaps the IP addresses of historical command and control (C2) infrastructure. The Operation North Star campaign we detailed earlier this year ...

  • North Korea-Backed Spy Group Poses as Reporters in Spearphishing Attacks, Feds Warn

    October 28, 2020

    The North Korean advanced persistent threat (APT) group known as Kimsuky is actively attacking commercial-sector businesses, often by posing as South Korean reporters, according to an alert from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Kimsuky (a.k.a. Hidden Cobra) has been operating as a cyberespionage group since 2012 under the auspices of the regime in ...

  • Phishing for secrets: Russian cyber experts believe defense industry is being attacked by North Korea

    October 19, 2020

    A hacker group from North Korea has been attacking Russian military and industrial organizations by sending fraudulent emails, according to cybersecurity experts, who believe that Pyongyang is beginning to cast its net wider. This may come as a surprise to some, as Russia is one of very few countries with no hostility towards Pyongyang, which has ...

  • GravityRAT: The spy returns

    October 19, 2020

    In 2018, researchers at Cisco Talos published a post on the spyware GravityRAT, used to target the Indian armed forces. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) first discovered the Trojan in 2017. Its creators are believed to be Pakistani hacker groups. According to our information, the campaign has been active since at least 2015, ...