Chinese Playful Taurus Activity in Iran

Playful Taurus, also known as APT15, BackdoorDiplomacy, Vixen Panda, KeChang and NICKEL, is a Chinese advanced persistent threat group that routinely conducts cyber espionage campaigns. The group has been active since at least 2010 and has historically targeted government and Read More …

Russia’s Trident Ursa (aka Gamaredon APT) Cyber Conflict Operations Unwavering Since Invasion of Ukraine

Since Unit 42 last blog in early February covering the advanced persistent threat (APT) group Trident Ursa (aka Gamaredon, UAC-0010, Primitive Bear, Shuckworm), Ukraine and its cyber domain has faced ever-increasing threats from Russia. Trident Ursa is a group attributed Read More …

Iran-linked Charming Kitten espionage gang bares claws to pollies, power orgs

An Iranian cyber espionage gang with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has learned new methods and phishing techniques, and aimed them at a wider set of targets – including politicians, government officials, critical infrastructure and medical researchers – Read More …

Ukrainian government networks breached via trojanized Windows 10 installers

Ukrainian government entities were hacked in targeted attacks after their networks were first compromised via trojanized ISO files posing as legitimate Windows 10 installers. These malicious installers delivered malware capable of collecting data from compromised computers, deploying additional malicious tools, Read More …

Hackers target Japanese politicians with new MirrorStealer malware

A hacking group tracked as MirrorFace has been targeting Japanese politicians for weeks before the House of Councilors election in July 2022, using a previously undocumented credentials stealer named ‘MirrorStealer.’ The campaign was discovered by ESET, whose analysts report they Read More …

Internet Explorer 0-day exploited by North Korean actor APT37

To protect our users, Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) routinely hunts for 0-day vulnerabilities exploited in-the-wild. This blog will describe a 0-day vulnerability, discovered by TAG in late October 2022, embedded in malicious documents and used to target users in Read More …

Always Another Secret: Lifting the Haze on China-nexus Espionage in Southeast Asia

Mandiant Managed Defense recently identified cyber espionage activity that heavily leverages USB devices as an initial infection vector and concentrates on the Philippines. Mandiant tracks this activity as UNC4191 and we assess it has a China nexus. UNC4191 operations have Read More …

Earth Preta Spear-Phishing Governments Worldwide

Trend Micro researchers have been monitoring a wave of spear-phishing attacks targeting the government, academic, foundations, and research sectors around the world. Based on the lure documents researchers observed in the wild, this is a large-scale cyberespionage campaign that began Read More …

Billbug: State-sponsored Actor Targets Cert Authority, Government Agencies in Multiple Asian Countries

State-sponsored actors compromised a digital certificate authority in an Asian country during a campaign in which multiple government agencies were also targeted. Symantec, by Broadcom Software, was able to link this activity to a group we track as Billbug due Read More …

SolarWinds says it’s facing SEC ‘enforcement action’ over 2020 hack

The long hangover from a 2020 state-sponsored compromise still isn’t over for SolarWinds, as the software giant targeted by Russian government hackers has to pony up $26 million to shareholders and face possible enforcement action from the federal government. In Read More …