TIDRONE Espionage Group Targets Taiwan Drone Makers in Cyber Campaign
Sep 09, 2024
Cyber Attack / Threat Intelligence
A previously undocumented threat actor with likely ties to Chinese-speaking groups has predominantly singled out drone manufacturers in Taiwan as part of a cyber attack campaign that commenced in 2024. Trend Micro is tracking the adversary under the moniker TIDRONE , stating the activity is espionage-driven given the focus on military-related industry chains. The exact initial access vector used to breach targets is presently unknown, with Trend Micro's analysis uncovering the deployment of custom malware such as CXCLNT and CLNTEND using remote desktop tools like UltraVNC. An interesting commonality observed across different victims is the presence of the same enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, raising the possibility of a supply chain attack. The attack chains subsequently go through three different stages that are designed to facilitate privilege escalation by means of a User Account Control ( UAC ) bypass, credential dumping, and defense evasion by disabling ant...
