Latest news with #China-aligned
Mid East Info
22-05-2025
- Business
- Mid East Info
ESET Research APT Report: Russian cyberattacks in Ukraine intensify; Sandworm unleashes new destructive wiper
ESET has released its latest advanced persistent threat (APT) report. Russian APT groups intensified attacks against Ukraine and the EU, exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities and deploying wipers. China-aligned groups like Mustang Panda and DigitalRecyclers continued their espionage campaigns targeting the EU government and maritime sectors. North Korea-aligned groups expanded their financially motivated campaigns using fake job listings and social engineering. ESET Research has released its latest APT Activity Report, which highlights activities of select APT groups that were documented by ESET researchers from October 2024 through March 2025. During the monitored period, Russia-aligned threat actors, notably Sednit and Gamaredon, maintained aggressive campaigns primarily targeting Ukraine and EU countries. Ukraine was subjected to the greatest intensity of cyberattacks against the country's critical infrastructure and governmental institutions. The Russia-aligned Sandworm group intensified destructive operations against Ukrainian energy companies, deploying a new wiper named ZEROLOT. China-aligned threat actors continued engaging in persistent espionage campaigns with a focus on European organizations. Gamaredon remained the most prolific actor targeting Ukraine, enhancing malware obfuscation and introducing PteroBox, a file stealer leveraging Dropbox. 'The infamous Sandworm group concentrated heavily on compromising Ukrainian energy infrastructure. In recent cases, it deployed the ZEROLOT wiper in Ukraine. For this, the attackers abused Active Directory Group Policy in the affected organizations,' says ESET Director of Threat Research Jean-Ian Boutin. Sednit refined its exploitation of cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in webmail services, expanding Operation RoundPress from Roundcube to include Horde, MDaemon, and Zimbra. ESET discovered that the group successfully leveraged a zero-day vulnerability in MDaemon Email Server (CVE-2024-11182) against Ukrainian companies. Several Sednit attacks against defense companies located in Bulgaria and Ukraine used spearphishing email campaigns as a lure. Another Russia-aligned group, RomCom, demonstrated advanced capabilities by deploying zero-day exploits against Mozilla Firefox (CVE 2024 9680) and Microsoft Windows (CVE 2024 49039). In Asia, China-aligned APT groups continued their campaigns against governmental and academic institutions. At the same time, North Korea-aligned threat actors significantly increased their operations directed at South Korea, placing particular emphasis on individuals, private companies, embassies, and diplomatic personnel. Mustang Panda remained the most active, targeting governmental institutions and maritime transportation companies via Korplug loaders and malicious USB drives. DigitalRecyclers continued targeting EU governmental entities, employing the KMA VPN anonymization network and deploying the RClient, HydroRShell, and GiftBox backdoors. PerplexedGoblin used its new espionage backdoor, which ESET named NanoSlate, against a Central European government entity, while Webworm targeted a Serbian government organization using SoftEther VPN, emphasizing the continued popularity of this tool among China-aligned groups. Elsewhere in Asia, North Korea-aligned threat actors were particularly active in financially motivated campaigns. DeceptiveDevelopment significantly broadened its targeting, using fake job listings primarily within the cryptocurrency, blockchain, and finance sectors. The group employed innovative social engineering techniques to distribute the multiplatform WeaselStore malware. The Bybit cryptocurrency theft, attributed by the FBI to TraderTraitor APT group, involved a supply-chain compromise of Safe{Wallet} that caused losses of approximately USD 1.5 billion. Meanwhile, other North Korea-aligned groups saw fluctuations in their operational tempo: In early 2025, Kimsuky and Konni returned to their usual activity levels after a noticeable decline at the end of 2024, shifting their targeting away from English-speaking think tanks, NGOs, and North Korea experts to focus primarily on South Korean entities and diplomatic personnel; and Andariel resurfaced, after a year of inactivity, with a sophisticated attack against a South Korean industrial software company. Iran-aligned APT groups maintained their primary focus on the Middle East region, predominantly targeting governmental organizations and entities within the manufacturing and engineering sectors in Israel. Additionally, ESET observed a significant global uptick in cyberattacks against technology companies, largely attributed to increased activity by North Korea-aligned DeceptiveDevelopment. 'The highlighted operations are representative of the broader threat landscape that we investigated during this period. They illustrate the key trends and developments, and contain only a small fraction of the cybersecurity intelligence data provided to customers of ESET APT reports,' adds Boutin. Intelligence shared in the private reports is primarily based on proprietary ESET telemetry data and has been verified by ESET researchers, who prepare in-depth technical reports and frequent activity updates detailing activities of specific APT groups. These threat intelligence analyses, known as ESET APT Reports PREMIUM, assist organizations tasked with protecting citizens, critical national infrastructure, and high-value assets from criminal and nation-state-directed cyberattacks. More information about ESET APT Reports PREMIUM and its delivery of high-quality, actionable tactical and strategic cybersecurity threat intelligence is available at the ESET Threat Intelligence page. Make sure to follow ESET Research on Twitter (today known as X), BlueSky, and Mastodon for the latest news from ESET Research. About ESET ESET® provides cutting-edge digital security to prevent attacks before they happen. By combining the power of AI and human expertise, ESET stays ahead of emerging global cyberthreats, both known and unknown— securing businesses, critical infrastructure, and individuals. Whether it's endpoint, cloud or mobile protection, our AI-native, cloud-first solutions and services remain highly effective and easy to use. ESET technology includes robust detection and response, ultra-secure encryption, and multifactor authentication. With 24/7 real-time defense and strong local support, we keep users safe and businesses running without interruption. The ever-evolving digital landscape demands a progressive approach to security: ESET is committed to world-class research and powerful threat intelligence, backed by R&D centers and a strong global partner network. For more information, visit or follow our social media, podcasts and blogs.
Channel Post MEA
21-05-2025
- Channel Post MEA
ESET APT Report Unveils Intensified Russian Cyberattacks on Ukraine
ESET Research has released its latest APT Activity Report, which highlights activities of select APT groups that were documented by ESET researchers from October 2024 through March 2025. During the monitored period, Russia-aligned threat actors, notably Sednit and Gamaredon, maintained aggressive campaigns primarily targeting Ukraine and EU countries. Ukraine was subjected to the greatest intensity of cyberattacks against the country's critical infrastructure and governmental institutions. The Russia-aligned Sandworm group intensified destructive operations against Ukrainian energy companies, deploying a new wiper named ZEROLOT. China-aligned threat actors continued engaging in persistent espionage campaigns with a focus on European organizations. Gamaredon remained the most prolific actor targeting Ukraine, enhancing malware obfuscation and introducing PteroBox, a file stealer leveraging Dropbox. 'The infamous Sandworm group concentrated heavily on compromising Ukrainian energy infrastructure. In recent cases, it deployed the ZEROLOT wiper in Ukraine. For this, the attackers abused Active Directory Group Policy in the affected organizations,' says ESET Director of Threat Research Jean-Ian Boutin. Sednit refined its exploitation of cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in webmail services, expanding Operation RoundPress from Roundcube to include Horde, MDaemon, and Zimbra. ESET discovered that the group successfully leveraged a zero-day vulnerability in MDaemon Email Server (CVE-2024-11182) against Ukrainian companies. Several Sednit attacks against defense companies located in Bulgaria and Ukraine used spearphishing email campaigns as a lure. Another Russia-aligned group, RomCom, demonstrated advanced capabilities by deploying zero-day exploits against Mozilla Firefox (CVE 2024 9680) and Microsoft Windows (CVE 2024 49039). In Asia, China-aligned APT groups continued their campaigns against governmental and academic institutions. At the same time, North Korea-aligned threat actors significantly increased their operations directed at South Korea, placing particular emphasis on individuals, private companies, embassies, and diplomatic personnel. Mustang Panda remained the most active, targeting governmental institutions and maritime transportation companies via Korplug loaders and malicious USB drives. DigitalRecyclers continued targeting EU governmental entities, employing the KMA VPN anonymization network and deploying the RClient, HydroRShell, and GiftBox backdoors. PerplexedGoblin used its new espionage backdoor, which ESET named NanoSlate, against a Central European government entity, while Webworm targeted a Serbian government organization using SoftEther VPN, emphasizing the continued popularity of this tool among China-aligned groups. Elsewhere in Asia, North Korea-aligned threat actors were particularly active in financially motivated campaigns. DeceptiveDevelopment significantly broadened its targeting, using fake job listings primarily within the cryptocurrency, blockchain, and finance sectors. The group employed innovative social engineering techniques to distribute the multiplatform WeaselStore malware. The Bybit cryptocurrency theft, attributed by the FBI to TraderTraitor APT group, involved a supply-chain compromise of Safe{Wallet} that caused losses of approximately USD 1.5 billion. Meanwhile, other North Korea-aligned groups saw fluctuations in their operational tempo: In early 2025, Kimsuky and Konni returned to their usual activity levels after a noticeable decline at the end of 2024, shifting their targeting away from English-speaking think tanks, NGOs, and North Korea experts to focus primarily on South Korean entities and diplomatic personnel; and Andariel resurfaced, after a year of inactivity, with a sophisticated attack against a South Korean industrial software company. Iran-aligned APT groups maintained their primary focus on the Middle East region, predominantly targeting governmental organizations and entities within the manufacturing and engineering sectors in Israel. Additionally, ESET observed a significant global uptick in cyberattacks against technology companies, largely attributed to increased activity by North Korea-aligned DeceptiveDevelopment. 'The highlighted operations are representative of the broader threat landscape that we investigated during this period. They illustrate the key trends and developments, and contain only a small fraction of the cybersecurity intelligence data provided to customers of ESET APT reports,' adds Boutin. Intelligence shared in the private reports is primarily based on proprietary ESET telemetry data and has been verified by ESET researchers, who prepare in-depth technical reports and frequent activity updates detailing activities of specific APT groups. These threat intelligence analyses, known as ESET APT Reports PREMIUM, assist organizations tasked with protecting citizens, critical national infrastructure, and high-value assets from criminal and nation-state-directed cyberattacks. More information about ESET APT Reports PREMIUM and its delivery of high-quality, actionable tactical and strategic cybersecurity threat intelligence is available at the ESET Threat Intelligence page. 0 0
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Yahoo
ESET Research APT Report: Russian cyberattacks in Ukraine intensify; Sandworm unleashes new destructive wiper
ESET APT Report ESET has released its latest advanced persistent threat (APT) report. Russian APT groups intensified attacks against Ukraine and the EU, exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities and deploying wipers. China-aligned groups like Mustang Panda and DigitalRecyclers continued their espionage campaigns targeting the EU government and maritime sectors. North Korea-aligned groups expanded their financially motivated campaigns using fake job listings and social engineering. BRATISLAVA, Slovakia, May 20, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ESET Research has released its latest APT Activity Report, which highlights activities of select APT groups that were documented by ESET researchers from October 2024 through March 2025. During the monitored period, Russia-aligned threat actors, notably Sednit and Gamaredon, maintained aggressive campaigns primarily targeting Ukraine and EU countries. Ukraine was subjected to the greatest intensity of cyberattacks against the country's critical infrastructure and governmental institutions. The Russia-aligned Sandworm group intensified destructive operations against Ukrainian energy companies, deploying a new wiper named ZEROLOT. China-aligned threat actors continued engaging in persistent espionage campaigns with a focus on European organizations. Gamaredon remained the most prolific actor targeting Ukraine, enhancing malware obfuscation and introducing PteroBox, a file stealer leveraging Dropbox. 'The infamous Sandworm group concentrated heavily on compromising Ukrainian energy infrastructure. In recent cases, it deployed the ZEROLOT wiper in Ukraine. For this, the attackers abused Active Directory Group Policy in the affected organizations,' says ESET Director of Threat Research Jean-Ian Boutin. Sednit refined its exploitation of cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in webmail services, expanding Operation RoundPress from Roundcube to include Horde, MDaemon, and Zimbra. ESET discovered that the group successfully leveraged a zero-day vulnerability in MDaemon Email Server (CVE-2024-11182) against Ukrainian companies. Several Sednit attacks against defense companies located in Bulgaria and Ukraine used spearphishing email campaigns as a lure. Another Russia-aligned group, RomCom, demonstrated advanced capabilities by deploying zero-day exploits against Mozilla Firefox (CVE 2024 9680) and Microsoft Windows (CVE 2024 49039). In Asia, China-aligned APT groups continued their campaigns against governmental and academic institutions. At the same time, North Korea-aligned threat actors significantly increased their operations directed at South Korea, placing particular emphasis on individuals, private companies, embassies, and diplomatic personnel. Mustang Panda remained the most active, targeting governmental institutions and maritime transportation companies via Korplug loaders and malicious USB drives. DigitalRecyclers continued targeting EU governmental entities, employing the KMA VPN anonymization network and deploying the RClient, HydroRShell, and GiftBox backdoors. PerplexedGoblin used its new espionage backdoor, which ESET named NanoSlate, against a Central European government entity, while Webworm targeted a Serbian government organization using SoftEther VPN, emphasizing the continued popularity of this tool among China-aligned groups. Elsewhere in Asia, North Korea-aligned threat actors were particularly active in financially motivated campaigns. DeceptiveDevelopment significantly broadened its targeting, using fake job listings primarily within the cryptocurrency, blockchain, and finance sectors. The group employed innovative social engineering techniques to distribute the multiplatform WeaselStore malware. The Bybit cryptocurrency theft, attributed by the FBI to TraderTraitor APT group, involved a supply-chain compromise of Safe{Wallet} that caused losses of approximately USD 1.5 billion. Meanwhile, other North Korea-aligned groups saw fluctuations in their operational tempo: In early 2025, Kimsuky and Konni returned to their usual activity levels after a noticeable decline at the end of 2024, shifting their targeting away from English-speaking think tanks, NGOs, and North Korea experts to focus primarily on South Korean entities and diplomatic personnel; and Andariel resurfaced, after a year of inactivity, with a sophisticated attack against a South Korean industrial software company. Iran-aligned APT groups maintained their primary focus on the Middle East region, predominantly targeting governmental organizations and entities within the manufacturing and engineering sectors in Israel. Additionally, ESET observed a significant global uptick in cyberattacks against technology companies, largely attributed to increased activity by North Korea-aligned DeceptiveDevelopment. 'The highlighted operations are representative of the broader threat landscape that we investigated during this period. They illustrate the key trends and developments, and contain only a small fraction of the cybersecurity intelligence data provided to customers of ESET APT reports,' adds Boutin. Intelligence shared in the private reports is primarily based on proprietary ESET telemetry data and has been verified by ESET researchers, who prepare in-depth technical reports and frequent activity updates detailing activities of specific APT groups. These threat intelligence analyses, known as ESET APT Reports PREMIUM, assist organizations tasked with protecting citizens, critical national infrastructure, and high-value assets from criminal and nation-state-directed cyberattacks. More information about ESET APT Reports PREMIUM and its delivery of high-quality, actionable tactical and strategic cybersecurity threat intelligence is available at the ESET Threat Intelligence page. Make sure to follow ESET Research on Twitter (today known as X), BlueSky, and Mastodon for the latest news from ESET Research. About ESET ESET® provides cutting-edge digital security to prevent attacks before they happen. By combining the power of AI and human expertise, ESET stays ahead of emerging global cyberthreats, both known and unknown — securing businesses, critical infrastructure, and individuals. Whether it's endpoint, cloud, or mobile protection, our AI-native, cloud-first solutions and services remain highly effective and easy to use. ESET technology includes robust detection and response, ultra-secure encryption, and multifactor authentication. With 24/7 real-time defense and strong local support, we keep users safe and businesses running without interruption. The ever-evolving digital landscape demands a progressive approach to security: ESET is committed to world-class research and powerful threat intelligence, backed by R&D centers and a strong global partner network. For more information, visit or follow our social media, podcasts and blogs. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at: CONTACT: Media contact: Jessica Beffa 720-413-4938Sign in to access your portfolio
Epoch Times
02-05-2025
- Business
- Epoch Times
China Uses Tariff War as a Smokescreen to Make Its Move in the Civil Airline Market
Commentary In a move rarely seen, China rejected and returned two Boeing 737 civil airliners that were already at the Boeing pre-delivery facility in the country that performs final finishing of the aircraft. The Boeing 737 Completion and Delivery Center is located in Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province. The completion center is a joint venture between Boeing and Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd. According to the The top three Chinese airlines—Air China, China Eastern Airlines, and China Southern Airlines—had planned to take delivery of Tariffs Gave China the Pretense to Trigger Its Civil Airliner Takeover Plan In July 2024, The Epoch Times reported that Boeing and Airbus were in the crosshairs of the Chinese economic sector takeover plan. The second-largest aircraft lessor in the world, An important red flag of concern has been attached to Comac by the U.S. Department of Defense, which It is interesting that in the South China Morning Post on March 25, in advance of the tariff focus by the Trump administration, Related Stories 4/24/2025 4/23/2025 Even in advance of the current Tariff clashes, China was appearing to make its breakout move. Comac Aircraft Certification by US/European Authorities a Bridge Too Far A significant issue for Comac is the Western certification of their aircraft. The certification process requires transparency and visibility in many areas that Comac would likely be averse to cooperating with. The current certification progress of the C919 and other Comac aircraft by the U.S. Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) and its European equivalent, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), is lagging. Steven Udvar-Hazy, the executive chairman of one of the giants of commercial airliner leasing, Air Lease, There is a concerning intersection of Comac with Boeing. In Italy, the Alenia facility outside Naples participates in the production of the Boeing 787, producing about a ' On Oct. 26, 2018, China, through Comac, Is There Enough BRICS Market Share to Make the Chinese Airliners Viable? The certification process is likely too difficult for Comac to achieve in the Western-aligned nations. The question is, is there enough market share in the Chinese, Russian, North Korean, Iranian, Venezuelan, and South African airline companies to make the Comac challenge to Boeing and Airbus a reality? Possibly. The success of Airbus and Boeing is astonishing. There is an This Airbus/Boeing success is potentially an incentive for China-aligned nations to obtain non-Western certified Comac aircraft. This may mean that their aircraft can only fly to and from China-aligned nations, but that may be good enough for those countries that choose to side with China. Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Yahoo
ESET Research analyzes tools from the China-aligned TheWizards group, with targets across Asia and the Middle East
Geographical distribution of the victims ESET discovered and analyzed both Spellbinder and WizardNet, tools used by the China-aligned TheWizards APT group. Spellbinder is used by the TheWizards to conduct local adversary-in-the-middle attacks and to redirect traffic from updating applications to an attacker-controlled server. That server delivers WizardNet, TheWizards' signature backdoor, which is being deployed by legitimate Chinese software update mechanisms to victims' machines. ESET also details the links between TheWizards and the Chinese company Dianke Network Security Technology, also known as UPSEC. SAN DIEGO, April 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ESET researchers have analyzed Spellbinder, a lateral movement tool used to perform adversary-in-the-middle attacks by the China-aligned threat actor TheWizards. Spellbinder enables adversary-in-the-middle attacks through IPv6 stateless address autoconfiguration spoofing, which allows the attackers to redirect the update protocols of legitimate Chinese software to malicious servers. Then the legitimate software is tricked into downloading and executing the malicious components that launch the backdoor WizardNet. TheWizards has been constantly active since at least 2022 until the present and, according to ESET telemetry, targets individuals, gambling companies, and unknown entities in the Philippines, Cambodia, the United Arab Emirates, mainland China, and Hong Kong. 'We initially discovered and analyzed this tool in 2022, and observed a new version with a few changes that was deployed to compromised machines in 2023 and 2024,' says ESET researcher Facundo Muñoz, who analyzed Spellbinder and WizardNet. 'Our research led us to discover a tool used by the attackers that is designed to perform adversary-in-the-middle attacks using IPv6 SLAAC spoofing to intercept and reply to packets in a network, allowing the attackers to redirect traffic and serve malicious updates to legitimate Chinese software,' explains Muñoz. The final payload in the attack is a backdoor that we named WizardNet – a modular implant that connects to a remote controller to receive and execute .NET modules on the compromised machine. ESET researchers have focused on one of the latest cases, in 2024, in which the update of Tencent QQ software was hijacked. The malicious server that issues the update instructions is still active. This variant of WizardNet supports five commands, three of which allow it to execute .NET modules in memory, thus extending its functionality on the compromised system. TheWizards and the Chinese company Dianke Network Security Technology (also known as UPSEC) – supplier of the DarkNights backdoor (also known as DarkNimbus), appear to be linked. According to NCSC UK, this malicious backdoor also has Tibetan and Uyghur communities among its primary targets. While TheWizards uses a different backdoor – the WizardNet, the hijacking server is configured to serve DarkNights to updating applications running on Android devices. For a more detailed analysis and technical breakdown of TheWizards' tools, check out the latest ESET Research blogpost 'TheWizards APT group uses SLAAC spoofing to perform adversary-in-the-middle attacks' on Make sure to follow ESET Research on Twitter (today known as X), BlueSky, and Mastodon for the latest news from ESET Research. About ESET ESET® provides cutting-edge digital security to prevent attacks before they happen. By combining the power of AI and human expertise, ESET stays ahead of emerging global cyberthreats, both known and unknown — securing businesses, critical infrastructure and individuals. Whether it's endpoint, cloud or mobile protection, our AI-native, cloud-first solutions and services remain highly effective and easy to use. ESET technology includes robust detection and response, ultra-secure encryption and multifactor authentication. With 24/7 real-time defense and strong local support, we keep users safe and businesses running without interruption. The ever-evolving digital landscape demands a progressive approach to security: ESET is committed to world-class research and powerful threat intelligence, backed by R&D centers and a strong global partner network. For more information, visit or follow our social media, podcasts and blogs. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at CONTACT: Media contact: Jessica Beffa 720-413-4938
