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Category — APT41
Winnti APT41 Targets Japanese Firms in RevivalStone Cyber Espionage Campaign

Winnti APT41 Targets Japanese Firms in RevivalStone Cyber Espionage Campaign

Feb 18, 2025 Malware / Network Security
The China-linked threat actor known as Winnti has been attributed to a new campaign dubbed RevivalStone that targeted Japanese companies in the manufacturing, materials, and energy sectors in March 2024. The activity, detailed by Japanese cybersecurity company LAC, overlaps with a threat cluster tracked by Trend Micro as Earth Freybug , which has been assessed to be a subset within the APT41 cyber espionage group. It's also monitored by Cybereason under the name  Operation CuckooBees , and by Symantec as Blackfly. APT41 has been described as a highly skilled and methodical actor with the ability to mount espionage attacks as well as poison the supply chain. Its campaigns are often designed with stealth in mind, leveraging a bevy of tactics to achieve its goals by using a custom toolset that not only bypasses security software installed in the environment, but also harvests critical information and establishes covert channels for persistent remote access. "The group...
New Glutton Malware Exploits Popular PHP Frameworks Like Laravel and ThinkPHP

New Glutton Malware Exploits Popular PHP Frameworks Like Laravel and ThinkPHP

Dec 16, 2024 Malware / Cybercrime
Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new PHP-based backdoor called Glutton that has been put to use in cyber attacks targeting China, the United States, Cambodia, Pakistan, and South Africa. QiAnXin XLab, which discovered the malicious activity in late April 2024, attributed the previously unknown malware with moderate confidence to the prolific Chinese nation-state group tracked Winnti (aka APT41). "Interestingly, our investigation revealed that Glutton's creators deliberately targeted systems within the cybercrime market," the company said . "By poisoning operations, they aimed to turn the tools of cybercriminals against them – a classic 'no honor among thieves' scenario." Glutton is designed to harvest sensitive system information, drop an ELF backdoor component, and perform code injection against popular PHP frameworks like Baota (BT), ThinkPHP, Yii, and Laravel. The ELF malware also shares "near-complete similarity" with a know...
Webinar: Learn How ASPM Transforms Application Security from Reactive to Proactive

Webinar: Learn How ASPM Transforms Application Security from Reactive to Proactive

Mar 07, 2025Software Security / AppSec
Are you tired of dealing with outdated security tools that never seem to give you the full picture? You're not alone. Many organizations struggle with piecing together scattered information, leaving your apps vulnerable to modern threats. That's why we're excited to introduce a smarter, unified approach: Application Security Posture Management (ASPM). ASPM brings together the best of both worlds by connecting your code insights with real-time runtime data. This means you get a clear, holistic view of your application's security. Instead of reacting to threats, ASPM helps you prevent them. Imagine reducing costly retrofits and emergency patches with a proactive, shift-left strategy—saving you time, money, and stress. Join Amir Kaushansky, Director of Product Management at Palo Alto Networks, as he walks you through how ASPM is changing the game. In this free webinar , you'll learn to: Close the Security Gaps: Understand why traditional AppSec tools fall short and how ASPM fills ...
APT41 Hackers Use ShadowPad, Cobalt Strike in Taiwanese Institute Cyber Attack

APT41 Hackers Use ShadowPad, Cobalt Strike in Taiwanese Institute Cyber Attack

Aug 02, 2024 Cyber Espionage / Malware
A Taiwanese government-affiliated research institute that specializes in computing and associated technologies was breached by nation-state threat actors with ties to China, according to new findings from Cisco Talos. The unnamed organization was targeted as early as mid-July 2023 to deliver a variety of backdoors and post-compromise tools like ShadowPad and Cobalt Strike. It has been attributed with medium confidence to a prolific hacking group tracked as APT41 . "The ShadowPad malware used in the current campaign exploited an outdated vulnerable version of Microsoft Office IME binary as a loader to load the customized second-stage loader for launching the payload," security researchers Joey Chen, Ashley Shen, and Vitor Ventura said . "The threat actor compromised three hosts in the targeted environment and was able to exfiltrate some documents from the network." Cisco Talos said it discovered the activity in August 2023 after detecting what it described we...
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Chinese-Linked LightSpy iOS Spyware Targets South Asian iPhone Users

Chinese-Linked LightSpy iOS Spyware Targets South Asian iPhone Users

Apr 15, 2024 Spyware / Mobile Security
Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a "renewed" cyber espionage campaign targeting users in South Asia with the aim of delivering an Apple iOS spyware implant called  LightSpy . "The latest iteration of LightSpy, dubbed 'F_Warehouse,' boasts a modular framework with extensive spying features," the BlackBerry Threat Research and Intelligence Team  said  in a report published last week. There is evidence to suggest that the campaign may have targeted India based on  VirusTotal   submissions  from within its borders. First documented in 2020 by Trend Micro and Kaspersky,  LightSpy  refers to an advanced iOS backdoor that's distributed via watering hole attacks through compromised news sites. A subsequent analysis from ThreatFabric in October 2023  uncovered  infrastructure and functionality overlaps between the malware and DragonEgg, a fully-featured Android spyware attributed to the Chinese nation-state group APT41 (aka Winnti)...
New "Earth Longzhi" APT Targets Ukraine and Asian Countries with Custom Cobalt Strike Loaders

New "Earth Longzhi" APT Targets Ukraine and Asian Countries with Custom Cobalt Strike Loaders

Nov 14, 2022
Entities located in East and Southeast Asia as well as Ukraine have been targeted at least since 2020 by a previously undocumented subgroup of  APT41 , a prolific Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT). Cybersecurity firm Trend Micro, which  christened  the espionage crew  Earth Longzhi , said the actor's long-running campaign can be split into two based on the toolset deployed to attack its victims. The first wave from May 2020 to February 2021 is said to have targeted government, infrastructure, and healthcare industries in Taiwan and the banking sector in China, whereas the succeeding set of intrusions from August 2021 to June 2022 infiltrated high-profile victims in Ukraine and several countries in Asia. This included defense, aviation, insurance, and urban development industries in Taiwan, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Ukraine. The victimology patterns and the targeted sectors overlap with attacks mounted by a distinct subordinate g...
China-backed APT41 Hackers Targeted 13 Organisations Worldwide Last Year

China-backed APT41 Hackers Targeted 13 Organisations Worldwide Last Year

Aug 18, 2022
The Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT) actor tracked as Winnti has targeted at least 13 organizations geographically spanning across the U.S, Taiwan, India, Vietnam, and China against the backdrop of four different campaigns in 2021. "The targeted industries included the public sector, manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, hospitality, education, as well as the media and aviation," cybersecurity firm Group-IB  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. This also included the attack on Air India that came to light in June 2021 as part of a campaign codenamed  ColunmTK . The other three campaigns have been assigned the monikers DelayLinkTK, Mute-Pond, and Gentle-Voice based on the domain names used in the attacks. APT41, also known as Barium, Bronze Atlas, Double Dragon, Wicked Panda, or Winnti, is a  prolific   Chinese   cyber threat group  that's known to carry out state-sponsored espionage activity in parallel with financially motivated...
FBI adds 5 Chinese APT41 hackers to its Cyber's Most Wanted List

FBI adds 5 Chinese APT41 hackers to its Cyber's Most Wanted List

Sep 16, 2020
The United States government today announced charges against 5 alleged members of a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group and 2 Malaysian hackers that are responsible for hacking more than 100 companies throughout the world. Named as APT41 and also known as 'Barium,' 'Winnti, 'Wicked Panda,' and 'Wicked Spider,' the cyber-espionage group has been operating since at least 2012 and is not just involved in strategic intelligence collection from valuable targets in many sectors, but also behind financially motivated attacks against online gaming industry. According to a press release published by the U.S. Justice Department, two of the five Chinese hackers—Zhang Haoran (张浩然) and Tan Dailin (谭戴林)—were charged back in August 2019, and the other three of them—Jiang Lizhi (蒋立志), Qian Chuan (钱川) and Fu Qiang (付强)—and two Malaysian co-conspirators were in separate indictments in August 2020. The later indicted three Chinese hackers are associated with a netw...
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