Russian APT Deploys New 'Kapeka' Backdoor in Eastern European Attacks

A previously undocumented "flexible" backdoor called Kapeka has been "sporadically" observed in cyber attacks targeting Eastern Europe, including Estonia and Ukraine, since at least mid-2022. The findings come from Finnish cybersecurity firm WithSecure, which attributed the malware to the Russia-linked advanced persistent threat (APT) group tracked as Sandworm (aka APT44 or

U.S. Sanctions 3 Cryptocurrency Exchanges for Helping Russia Evade Sanctions

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned three cryptocurrency exchanges for offering services used to evade economic restrictions imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. This includes Bitpapa IC FZC LLC, Crypto Explorer DMCC (AWEX), and Obshchestvo S Ogranichennoy Otvetstvennostyu Tsentr Obrabotki Elektronnykh Platezhey (

RedCurl Cybercrime Group Abuses Windows PCA Tool for Corporate Espionage

The Russian-speaking cybercrime group called RedCurl is leveraging a legitimate Microsoft Windows component called the Program Compatibility Assistant (PCA) to execute malicious commands. “The Program Compatibility Assistant Service (pcalua.exe) is a Windows service designed to identify and address compatibility issues with older programs,” Trend Micro said in an analysis

Russian Government Software Backdoored to Deploy Konni RAT Malware

An installer for a tool likely used by the Russian Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID) has been backdoored to deliver a remote access trojan called Konni RAT (aka UpDog). The findings come from German cybersecurity company DCSO, which linked the activity as originating from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)-nexus actors targeting Russia. The