Governmental entities in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia are the target of a Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT) group as part of an ongoing cyber espionage campaign dubbed Operation Diplomatic Specter since at least late 2022.
"An analysis of this threat actor’s activity reveals long-term espionage operations against at least seven governmental entities," Palo Alto Networks
The recently uncovered cyber espionage campaign targeting perimeter network devices from several vendors, including Cisco, may have been the work of China-linked actors, according to new findings from attack surface management firm Censys.
Dubbed ArcaneDoor, the activity is said to have commenced around July 2023, with the first confirmed attack against an unnamed victim
Multiple China-nexus threat actors have been linked to the zero-day exploitation of three security flaws impacting Ivanti appliances (CVE-2023-46805, CVE-2024-21887, and CVE-2024-21893).
The clusters are being tracked by Mandiant under the uncategorized monikers UNC5221, UNC5266, UNC5291, UNC5325, UNC5330, and UNC5337. Also previously linked to the exploitation spree is a Chinese
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Monday unsealed indictments against seven Chinese nationals for their involvement in a hacking group that targeted U.S. and foreign critics, journalists, businesses, and political officials for about 14 years.
The defendants include Ni Gaobin (倪高彬), Weng Ming (翁明), Cheng Feng (程锋), Peng Yaowen (彭耀文), Sun Xiaohui (孙小辉), Xiong Wang (熊旺), and Zhao Guangzong (
The U.S. government on Wednesday said it took steps to neutralize a botnet comprising hundreds of U.S.-based small office and home office (SOHO) routers hijacked by a China-linked state-sponsored threat actor called Volt Typhoon and blunt the impact posed by the hacking campaign.
The existence of the botnet, dubbed KV-botnet, was first disclosed by the Black Lotus Labs team at
A previously undocumented China-aligned threat actor has been linked to a set of adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) attacks that hijack update requests from legitimate software to deliver a sophisticated implant named NSPX30.
Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET is tracking the advanced persistent threat (APT) group under the name Blackwood. It's said to be active since at least 2018.
The NSPX30
An advanced China-nexus cyber espionage group previously linked to the exploitation of security flaws in VMware and Fortinet appliances has been attributed to the abuse of a critical vulnerability in VMware vCenter Server as a zero-day since late 2021.
"UNC3886 has a track record of utilizing zero-day vulnerabilities to complete their mission without being detected, and this latest example
Barracuda has revealed that Chinese threat actors exploited a new zero-day in its Email Security Gateway (ESG) appliances to deploy backdoors on a "limited number" of devices.
Tracked as CVE-2023-7102, the issue relates to a case of arbitrary code execution that resides within a third-party and open-source library named Spreadsheet::ParseExcel that's used by the Amavis scanner
A suspected Chinese-speaking threat actor has been attributed to a malicious campaign that targets the Uzbekistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and South Korean users with a remote access trojan called SugarGh0st RAT.
The activity, which commenced no later than August 2023, leverages two different infection sequences to deliver the malware, which is a customized variant of Gh0st RAT 
An ad fraud botnet dubbed PEACHPIT leveraged an army of hundreds of thousands of Android and iOS devices to generate illicit profits for the threat actors behind the scheme.
The botnet is part of a larger China-based operation codenamed BADBOX, which also entails selling off-brand mobile and connected TV (CTV) devices on popular online retailers and resale sites that are backdoored with an
A "multi-year" Chinese state-sponsored cyber espionage campaign has been observed targeting South Korean academic, political, and government organizations.
Recorded Future's Insikt Group, which is tracking the activity under the moniker TAG-74, said the adversary has been linked to "Chinese military intelligence and poses a significant threat to academic, aerospace and defense, government,
China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) has accused the U.S. of breaking into Huawei's servers, stealing critical data, and implanting backdoors since 2009, amid mounting geopolitical tensions between the two countries.
In a message posted on WeChat, the government authority said U.S. intelligence agencies have "done everything possible" to conduct surveillance, secret theft, and intrusions on
Microsoft on Wednesday revealed that a China-based threat actor known as Storm-0558 acquired the inactive consumer signing key to forge tokens and access Outlook by compromising an engineer’s corporate account.
This enabled the adversary to access a debugging environment that contained information pertaining to a crash of the consumer signing system and steal the key. The system crash took place
A nation-state activity group originating from China has been linked to cyber attacks on dozens of organizations in Taiwan as part of a suspected espionage campaign.
The Microsoft Threat Intelligence team is tracking the activity under the name Flax Typhoon, which is also known as Ethereal Panda.
"Flax Typhoon gains and maintains long-term access to Taiwanese organizations' networks with minimal
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is warning that Barracuda Networks Email Security Gateway (ESG) appliances patched against a recently disclosed critical flaw continue to be at risk of potential compromise from suspected Chinese hacking groups.
It also deemed the fixes as "ineffective" and that it "continues to observe active intrusions and considers all affected Barracuda ESG
The Chinese threat actor known as APT31 (aka Bronze Vinewood, Judgement Panda, or Violet Typhoon) has been linked to a set of advanced backdoors that are capable of exfiltrating harvested sensitive information to Dropbox.
The malware is part of a broader collection of more than 15 implants that have been put to use by the adversary in attacks targeting industrial organizations in Eastern Europe
A widely used Chinese language input app for Windows and Android has been found vulnerable to serious security flaws that could allow a malicious interloper to decipher the text typed by users.
The findings from the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, which carried out an analysis of the encryption mechanism used in Tencent's Sogou Input Method, an app that has over 455 million monthly active
Hackers associated with China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) have been linked to attacks in 17 different countries in Asia, Europe, and North America from 2021 to 2023.
Cybersecurity firm Recorded Future attributed the intrusion set to a nation-state group it tracks under the name RedHotel (previously Threat Activity Group-22 or TAG-22), which overlaps with a cluster of activity broadly
A nation-state actor with links to China is suspected of being behind a series of attacks against industrial organizations in Eastern Europe that took place last year to siphon data stored on air-gapped systems.
Cybersecurity company Kaspersky attributed the intrusions with medium to high confidence to a hacking crew called APT31, which is also tracked under the monikers Bronze Vinewood,
The recent attack against Microsoft's email infrastructure by a Chinese nation-state actor referred to as Storm-0558 is said to have a broader scope than previously thought.
According to cloud security company Wiz, the inactive Microsoft account (MSA) consumer signing key used to forge Azure Active Directory (Azure AD or AAD) tokens to gain illicit access to Outlook Web Access (OWA) and
The prolific China-linked nation-state actor known as APT41 has been linked to two previously undocumented strains of Android spyware called WyrmSpy and DragonEgg.
"Known for its exploitation of web-facing applications and infiltration of traditional endpoint devices, an established threat actor like APT 41 including mobile in its arsenal of malware shows how mobile endpoints are high-value
An unnamed Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agency in the U.S. detected anomalous email activity in mid-June 2023, leading to Microsoft's discovery of a new China-linked espionage campaign targeting two dozen organizations.
The details come from a joint cybersecurity advisory released by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation
Microsoft on Tuesday revealed that it repelled a cyber attack staged by a Chinese nation-state actor targeting two dozen organizations, some of which include government agencies, in a cyber espionage campaign designed to acquire confidential data.
The attacks, which commenced on May 15, 2023, entailed access to email accounts affecting approximately 25 entities and a small number of related
A Chinese nation-state group has been observed targeting Foreign Affairs ministries and embassies in Europe using HTML smuggling techniques to deliver the PlugX remote access trojan on compromised systems.
Cybersecurity firm Check Point said the activity, dubbed SmugX, has been ongoing since at least December 2022, adding it's part of a broader trend of Chinese adversaries shifting their focus
The Chinese cyber espionage actor known as Camaro Dragon has been observed leveraging a new strain of self-propagating malware that spreads through compromised USB drives.
"While their primary focus has traditionally been Southeast Asian countries, this latest discovery reveals their global reach and highlights the alarming role USB drives play in spreading malware," Check Point said in new
A Chinese-speaking phishing gang dubbed PostalFurious has been linked to a new SMS campaign that's targeting users in the U.A.E. by masquerading as postal services and toll operators, per Group-IB.
The fraudulent scheme entails sending users bogus text messages asking them to pay a vehicle trip fee to avoid additional fines. The messages also contain a shortened URL to conceal the actual
The Chinese nation-state group known as Camaro Dragon has been linked to yet another backdoor that's designed to meet its intelligence-gathering goals.
Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point, which dubbed the Go-based malware TinyNote, said it functions as a first-stage payload capable of "basic machine enumeration and command execution via PowerShell or Goroutines."
What the malware lacks in
A stealthy China-based group managed to establish a persistent foothold into critical infrastructure organizations in the U.S. and Guam without being detected, Microsoft and the "Five Eyes" nations said on Wednesday.
The tech giant's threat intelligence team is tracking the activity, which includes post-compromise credential access and network system discovery, under the name Volt Typhoon.
The
The rising geopolitical tensions between China and Taiwan in recent months have sparked a noticeable uptick in cyber attacks on the East Asian island country.
"From malicious emails and URLs to malware, the strain between China's claim of Taiwan as part of its territory and Taiwan's maintained independence has evolved into a worrying surge in attacks," the Trellix Advanced Research Center said
A Chinese state-sponsored hacking outfit has resurfaced with a new campaign targeting government, healthcare, technology, and manufacturing entities based in Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, and Fiji after more than six months of no activity.
Trend Micro attributed the intrusion set to a cyber espionage group it tracks under the name Earth Longzhi, which is a subgroup within APT41 (aka HOODOO
The Chinese nation-state group dubbed Alloy Taurus is using a Linux variant of a backdoor called PingPull as well as a new undocumented tool codenamed Sword2033.
That's according to findings from Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, which discovered recent malicious cyber activity carried out by the group targeting South Africa and Nepal.
Alloy Taurus is the constellation-themed moniker assigned to a
The advanced persistent threat (APT) group referred to as Evasive Panda has been observed targeting an international non-governmental organization (NGO) in Mainland China with malware delivered via update channels of legitimate applications like Tencent QQ.
The attack chains are designed to distribute a Windows installer for MgBot malware, ESET security researcher Facundo Muñoz said in a new
A Chinese nation-state group targeted an unnamed Taiwanese media organization to deliver an open source red teaming tool known as Google Command and Control (GC2) amid broader abuse of Google's infrastructure for malicious ends.
The tech giant's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) attributed the campaign to a threat actor it tracks under the geological and geographical-themed moniker HOODOO, which is
A Chinese state-sponsored threat activity group tracked as RedGolf has been attributed to the use of a custom Windows and Linux backdoor called KEYPLUG.
"RedGolf is a particularly prolific Chinese state-sponsored threat actor group that has likely been active for many years against a wide range of industries globally," Recorded Future told The Hacker News.
"The group has shown the ability to
An unknown Chinese state-sponsored hacking group has been linked to a novel piece of malware aimed at Linux servers.
French cybersecurity firm ExaTrack, which found three samples of the previously documented malicious software that date back to early 2022, dubbed it Mélofée.
The newest of the three artifacts is designed to drop a kernel-mode rootkit that's based on an open source project
A recent campaign undertaken by Earth Preta indicates that nation-state groups aligned with China are getting increasingly proficient at bypassing security solutions.
The threat actor, active since at least 2012, is tracked by the broader cybersecurity community under Bronze President, HoneyMyte, Mustang Panda, RedDelta, and Red Lich.
Attack chains mounted by the group commence with a
The zero-day exploitation of a now-patched medium-severity security flaw in the Fortinet FortiOS operating system has been linked to a suspected Chinese hacking group.
American cybersecurity company Mandiant, which made the attribution, said the activity cluster is part of a broader campaign designed to deploy backdoors onto Fortinet and VMware solutions and maintain persistent access to victim
High-profile government entities in Southeast Asia are the target of a cyber espionage campaign undertaken by a Chinese threat actor known as Sharp Panda since late last year.
The intrusions are characterized by the use of a new version of the Soul modular framework, marking a departure from the group's attack chains observed in 2021.
Israeli cybersecurity company Check Point said the "