Azerbaijani Energy Firm Hit by Repeated Microsoft Exchange Exploitation

A threat actor with affiliations to China has been linked to a "multi-wave intrusion" targeting an unnamed Azerbaijani oil and gas company between late December 2025 and late February 2026, marking an expansion of its targeting. The activity has been attributed by Bitdefender with moderate-to-hig...

China-Linked Hackers Target Asian Governments, NATO State, Journalists, and Activists

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new China-aligned espionage campaign targeting government and defense sectors across South, East, and Southeast Asia, along with one European government belonging to NATO. Trend Micro has attributed the activity to a threat activity cluster it...

Knife Cutting the Edge: Disclosing a China-nexus gateway-monitoring AitM framework

Cisco Talos uncovered "DKnife," a fully featured gateway-monitoring and adversary-in-the-middle AitM framework comprising seven Linux-based implants that perform deep-packet inspection, manipulate traffic, and deliver malware via routers and edge devices. Based on the artifact metadata, DKnife ha...

China-Linked Ink Dragon Hacks Governments Using ShadowPad and FINALDRAFT Malware

The threat actor known as Jewelbug has been increasingly focusing on government targets in Europe since July 2025, even as it continues to attack entities located in Southeast Asia and South America. Check Point Research is tracking the cluster under the name Ink Dragon. It's also referenced by t...

ShadowPad Malware Actively Exploits WSUS Vulnerability for Full System Access

A recently patched security flaw in Microsoft Windows Server Update Services WSUS has been exploited by threat actors to distribute a malware known as ShadowPad. "The attacker targeted Windows Servers with WSUS enabled, exploiting CVE-2025-59287 for initial access," AhnLab Security Intelligence...

Chinese Threat Actors Exploit ToolShell SharePoint Flaw Weeks After Microsoft's July Patch

Threat actors with ties to China exploited the ToolShell security vulnerability in Microsoft SharePoint to breach a telecommunications company in the Middle East after it was publicly disclosed and patched in July 2025. Also targeted were government departments in an African country, as well as...

SentinelOne Uncovers Chinese Espionage Campaign Targeting Its Infrastructure and Clients

Cybersecurity company SentinelOne has revealed that a China-nexus threat cluster dubbed PurpleHaze conducted reconnaissance attempts against its infrastructure and some of its high-value customers. "We first became aware of this threat cluster during a 2024 intrusion conducted against an...

New SparrowDoor Backdoor Variants Found in Attacks on U.S. and Mexican Organizations

The Chinese threat actor known as FamousSparrow has been linked to a cyber attack targeting a trade group in the United States and a research institute in Mexico to deliver its flagship backdoor SparrowDoor and ShadowPad. The activity, observed in July 2024, marks the first time the hacking crew...

China-Linked Attackers Exploit Check Point Flaw to Deploy ShadowPad and Ransomware

A previously unknown threat activity cluster targeted European organizations, particularly those in the healthcare sector, to deploy PlugX and its successor, ShadowPad, with the intrusions ultimately leading to deployment of a ransomware called NailaoLocker in some cases. The campaign, codenamed...

Updated Shadowpad Malware Leads to Ransomware Deployment

In this blog, we discuss about how Shadowpad is being used to deploy a new undetected ransomware family. They deploy the malware exploiting weak passwords and bypassing multi-factor authentication...

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

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...

There is no real fix to the security issues recently found in GitHub and other similar software

A recently discovered security issue in GitHub and other, similar, control system products seem to fit into the classic "its a feature, not a bug" category. Security researchers last week published their findings into some research of how deleted forks in GitHub work, potentially leaving the door...

APT41 likely compromised Taiwanese government-affiliated research institute with ShadowPad and Cobalt Strike

Cisco Talos discovered a malicious campaign that compromised a Taiwanese government-affiliated research institute that started as early as July 2023, delivering the ShadowPad malware, Cobalt Strike and other customized tools for post-compromise activities. The activity conducted on the victim...

New Cross-Platform Malware 'Noodle RAT' Targets Windows and Linux Systems

A previously undocumented cross-platform malware codenamed Noodle RAT has been put to use by Chinese-speaking threat actors either for espionage or cybercrime for years. While this backdoor was previously categorized as a variant of Gh0st RAT and Rekoobe, Trend Micro security researcher Hara...

Stealthy BLOODALCHEMY Malware Targeting ASEAN Government Networks

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 R...

Two Chinese APT Groups Ramp Up Cyber Espionage Against ASEAN Countries

Two China-linked advanced persistent threat APT groups have been observed targeting entities and member countries affiliated with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ASEAN as part of a cyber espionage campaign over the past three months. This includes the threat actor known as Mustang Pand...

Attacks, Vulnerabilities and Actors 18 September to 24 September 2023

For a detailed threat digest, download the pdf file here Summary HiveForce Labs has recently made several significant discoveries related to cybersecurity threats. Over the past week, we identified a total of eight executed attacks, five instance of adversary activity, and eleven vulnerabilities...

New Report Uncovers 3 Distinct Clusters of China-Nexus Attacks on Southeast Asian Government

An unnamed Southeast Asian government has been targeted by multiple China-nexus threat actors as part of espionage campaigns targeting the region over extended periods of time. "While this activity occurred around the same time and in some instances even simultaneously on the same victims'...

Redfly Targets Critical Infrastructure in Asia with ShadowPad Trojan

Threat Level Attack Report For a detailed threat advisory, download the pdf file here Summary Redfly, an espionage group, targeted Asian critical infrastructure, compromising a national grid for six months using ShadowPad. This underscores a rising trend in such attacks, raising global concerns...

Earth Lusca's New SprySOCKS Linux Backdoor Targets Government Entities

The China-linked threat actor known as Earth Lusca has been observed targeting government entities using a never-before-seen Linux backdoor called SprySOCKS. Earth Lusca was first documented by Trend Micro in January 2022, detailing the adversary's attacks against public and private sector entiti...