18 May, 2025

Chinese cyberspies backdoor Juniper routers for stealthy access

Chinese hackers are deploying custom backdoors on Juniper Networks Junos OS MX routers that have reached end-of-life (EoL) and no longer receive security updates. The backdoors are primarily variants of the TinyShell malware, an open-source tool that facilitates data exchange and command execution on Linux systems, and which has been used by multiple threat groups over the years. […]

4 mins read

Silk Typhoon hackers now target IT supply chains to breach networks

Microsoft warns that Chinese cyber-espionage threat group ‘Silk Typhoon’ has shifted its tactics, now targeting remote management tools and cloud services in supply chain attacks that give them access to downstream customers. The tech giant has confirmed breaches across multiple industries, including government, IT services, healthcare, defense, education, NGOs, and energy. “They [Silk Typhoon] exploit […]

3 mins read

US charges Chinese hackers linked to critical infrastructure breaches

The US Justice Department has charged Chinese state security officers along with APT27 and i-Soon hackers for network breaches and cyberattacks that have targeted victims globally since 2011. Their victim list includes US federal and state government agencies, foreign ministries of multiple governments in Asia, U.S.-based dissidents, as well as a prominent religious organization in […]

3 mins read

Belgium probes if Chinese hackers breached its intelligence service

​The Belgian federal prosecutor’s office is investigating whether Chinese hackers were behind a breach of the country’s State Security Service (VSSE). Chinese state-backed attackers reportedly gained access to VSSE’s external email server between 2021 and May 2023, siphoning around 10% of all emails sent and received by the agency’s staff. The compromised server was only […]

3 mins read

New NailaoLocker ransomware used against EU healthcare orgs

A previously undocumented ransomware payload named NailaoLocker has been spotted in attacks targeting European healthcare organizations between June and October 2024. The attacks exploited CVE-2024-24919, a Check Point Security Gateway vulnerability, to gain access to targeted networks and deploy the ShadowPad and PlugX malware, two families tightly associated with Chinese state-sponsored threat groups. Orange Cyberdefense CERT links […]

3 mins read

Chinese hackers abuse Microsoft APP-v tool to evade antivirus

The Chinese APT hacking group “Mustang Panda” has been spotted abusing the Microsoft Application Virtualization Injector utility as a LOLBIN to inject malicious payloads into legitimate processes to evade detection by antivirus software. This technique was discovered by threat researchers at Trend Micro, who track the threat group as Earth Preta, reporting that they have verified over […]

4 mins read

Chinese espionage tools deployed in RA World ransomware attack

A China-based threat actor, tracked as Emperor Dragonfly and commonly associated with cybercriminal endeavors, has been observed using in a ransomware attack a toolset previously attributed to espionage actors. The hackers deployed the RA World ransomware against an Asian software and services company and demanded an initial ransom payment of $2 million. Researchers from Symantec’s Threat Hunter Team observed […]

2 mins read

Chinese cyberspies use new SSH backdoor in network device hacks

A Chinese hacking group is hijacking the SSH daemon on network appliances by injecting malware into the process for persistent access and covert operations. The newly identified attack suite has been used in attacks since mid-November 2024, attributed to the Chinese Evasive Panda, aka DaggerFly, cyber-espionage group. As per the findings of Fortinet’s Fortiguard researchers, the attack […]

3 mins read

DeepSeek AI tools impersonated by infostealer malware on PyPI

Threat actors are taking advantage of the rise in popularity of the DeepSeek to promote two malicious infostealer packages on the Python Package Index (PyPI), where they impersonated developer tools for the AI platform. The packages were named “deepseeek” and “deepseekai” after the Chinese artificial intelligence startup, developer of the R1 large-language model that recently saw […]

2 mins read

Backdoor found in two healthcare patient monitors, linked to IP in China

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is warning that Contec CMS8000 devices, a widely used healthcare patient monitoring device, include a backdoor that quietly sends patient data to a remote IP address and downloads and executes files on the device. Contec is a China-based company that specializes in healthcare technology, offering a range of […]

5 mins read