ShadowPad | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered that the malware known as  BLOODALCHEMY  used in attacks targeting government organizations in Southern and Southeastern Asia is in fact an updated version of Deed RAT, which is believed to be a successor to ShadowPad. "The origin of BLOODALCHEMY and Deed RAT is ShadowPad and given the history of ShadowPad being utilized in numerous APT campaigns, it is crucial to pay special attention to the usage trend of this malware," Japanese company ITOCHU Cyber & Intelligence  said . BLOODALCHEMY was  first documented  by Elastic Security Labs in October 2023 in connection with a campaign mounted by an intrusion set it tracks as REF5961 targeting the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries. A barebones x86 backdoor written in C, it's injected into a signed benign process ("BrDifxapi.exe") using a technique called DLL side-loading, and is capable of overwriting the toolset, gathering host information, load

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered what they say is malicious cyber activity orchestrated by two prominent Chinese nation-state hacking groups targeting 24 Cambodian government organizations. "This activity is believed to be part of a long-term espionage campaign," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 researchers  said  in a report last week. "The observed activity aligns with geopolitical goals of the Chinese government as it seeks to leverage their strong relations with Cambodia to project their power and expand their naval operations in the region." Targeted organizations span defense, election oversight, human rights, national treasury and finance, commerce, politics, natural resources, and telecommunications sectors. The assessment stems from the persistent nature of inbound network connections originating from these entities to a China-linked adversarial infrastructure that masquerades as cloud backup and storage services over a "period of several month

As a vCISO, you are responsible for your client's cybersecurity strategy and risk governance. This incorporates multiple disciplines, from research to execution to reporting. Recently, we published a comprehensive playbook for vCISOs, "Your First 100 Days as a vCISO – 5 Steps to Success" , which covers all the phases entailed in launching a successful vCISO engagement, along with recommended actions to take, and step-by-step examples.  Following the success of the playbook and the requests that have come in from the MSP/MSSP community, we decided to drill down into specific parts of vCISO reporting and provide more color and examples. In this article, we focus on how to create compelling narratives within a report, which has a significant impact on the overall MSP/MSSP value proposition.  This article brings the highlights of a recent guided workshop we held, covering what makes a successful report and how it can be used to enhance engagement with your cyber security clients.

As many as 85 command-and-control (C2) servers have been  discovered  supported by the ShadowPad malware since September 2021, with infrastructure detected as recently as October 16, 2022. That's according to VMware's Threat Analysis Unit (TAU), which  studied  three ShadowPad variants using TCP, UDP, and HTTP(S) protocols for C2 communications. ShadowPad , seen as a successor to  PlugX , is a modular malware platform privately shared among multiple Chinese state-sponsored actors since 2015. Taiwanese cybersecurity firm TeamT5, earlier this May, disclosed details of another China-nexus modular implant named  Pangolin8RAT , which is believed to be the successor of the PlugX and ShadowPad malware families, linking it to a threat group dubbed Tianwu. An analysis of the three ShadowPad artifacts, which have been previously put to use by  Winnti ,  Tonto Team , and an emerging threat cluster codenamed  Space Pirates , made it possible to discover the C2 servers by scanning th

Entities located in Afghanistan, Malaysia, and Pakistan are in the crosshairs of an attack campaign that targets unpatched Microsoft Exchange Servers as an initial access vector to deploy the ShadowPad malware. Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, which first detected the activity in mid-October 2021,  attributed  it to a previously unknown Chinese-speaking threat actor. Targets include organizations in the telecommunications, manufacturing, and transport sectors. "During the initial attacks, the group exploited an MS Exchange vulnerability to deploy ShadowPad malware and infiltrated  building automation systems  of one of the victims," the company said. "By taking control over those systems, the attacker can reach other, even more sensitive systems of the attacked organization." ShadowPad , which emerged in 2015 as the successor to PlugX, is a privately sold modular malware platform that has been put to use by many Chinese espionage actors over the years.  W

A Chinese-aligned cyberespionage group has been observed striking the telecommunication sector in Central Asia with versions of malware such as ShadowPad and PlugX. Cybersecurity firm SentinelOne tied the intrusions to an actor it tracks under the name "Moshen Dragon," with tactical overlaps between the collective and another threat group referred to as Nomad Panda (aka  RedFoxtrot ). "PlugX and ShadowPad have a well-established history of use among Chinese-speaking threat actors primarily for espionage activity," SentinelOne's Joey Chen  said . "Those tools have flexible, modular functionality and are compiled via shellcode to easily bypass traditional endpoint protection products." ShadowPad , labeled a "masterpiece of privately sold malware in Chinese espionage," emerged as a successor to PlugX in 2015, even as variants of the latter have continually popped up as part of different campaigns associated with Chinese threat actors. Alth

China-linked adversaries have been attributed to an ongoing onslaught against Indian power grid organizations, one year after a  concerted campaign  targeting critical infrastructure in the country came to light. Most of the intrusions involved a modular backdoor named  ShadowPad , according to Recorded Future's Insikt Group, a sophisticated remote access trojan which has been  dubbed  a "masterpiece of privately sold malware in Chinese espionage." "ShadowPad continues to be employed by an ever-increasing number of People's Liberation Army (PLA) and Ministry of State Security (MSS)-linked groups, with its origins linked to known MSS contractors first using the tool in their own operations and later likely acting as a digital quartermaster," the researchers  said . The goal of the sustained campaign, the cybersecurity company said, is to facilitate intelligence gathering pertaining to critical infrastructure systems in preparation for future contingency

ShadowPad, an infamous Windows backdoor that allows attackers to download further malicious modules or steal data, has been put to use by five different Chinese threat clusters since 2017. "The adoption of ShadowPad significantly reduces the costs of development and maintenance for threat actors," SentinelOne researchers Yi-Jhen Hsieh and Joey Chen  said  in a detailed overview of the malware, adding "some threat groups stopped developing their own backdoors after they gained access to ShadowPad." The American cybersecurity firm dubbed ShadowPad a "masterpiece of privately sold malware in Chinese espionage." A successor to PlugX and a modular malware platform since 2015,  ShadowPad  catapulted to widespread attention in the wake of supply chain incidents targeting  NetSarang ,  CCleaner , and  ASUS , leading the operators to shift tactics and update their defensive measures with advanced anti-detection and persistence techniques. More recently, atta