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Category — APT37
North Korea's APT37 Uses Facebook Social Engineering to Deliver RokRAT Malware

North Korea's APT37 Uses Facebook Social Engineering to Deliver RokRAT Malware

Apr 13, 2026 Social Engineering / Threat Intelligence
The North Korean hacking group tracked as APT37 (aka ScarCruft) has been attributed to a fresh multi-stage, social engineering campaign in which threat actors approached targets on Facebook and added them as friends on the social media platform, turning the trust-building exercise into a delivery channel for a remote access trojan called RokRAT . "The threat actor used two Facebook accounts with their location set to Pyongyang and Pyongsong, North Korea, to identify and screen targets," the Genians Security Center (GSC) said in a technical breakdown of the campaign. "After building trust through friend requests, the actor moved the conversation to Messenger and used specific topics to lure targets as part of the initial social engineering stage of the attack." Central to the attack is the use of what the GSC describes as pretexting, a tactic where the threat actors aim to trick unsuspecting users into installing a dedicated PDF viewer, claiming the software...
ScarCruft Uses RokRAT Malware in Operation HanKook Phantom Targeting South Korean Academics

ScarCruft Uses RokRAT Malware in Operation HanKook Phantom Targeting South Korean Academics

Sep 01, 2025 Malware / Blockchain
Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new phishing campaign undertaken by the North Korea-linked hacking group called ScarCruft (aka APT37) to deliver a malware known as RokRAT. The activity has been codenamed Operation HanKook Phantom by Seqrite Labs, stating the attacks appear to target individuals associated with the National Intelligence Research Association, including academic figures, former government officials, and researchers. "The attackers likely aim to steal sensitive information, establish persistence, or conduct espionage," security researcher Dixit Panchal said in a report published last week. The starting point of the attack chain is a spear-phishing email containing a lure for "National Intelligence Research Society Newsletter—Issue 52," a periodic newsletter issued by a South Korean research group focused on national intelligence, labour relations, security, and energy issues. The digital missive contains a ZIP archive attachment that...
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