All news with #china nexus tag

🔒 The open-source editor Notepad++ was the target of a sophisticated supply‑chain attack after threat actors compromised its shared hosting provider and redirected selective update traffic to malicious servers between June and December 2025. Researchers say the campaign is likely Chinese state‑sponsored; Rapid7 identified a custom backdoor called Chrysalis and observed Cobalt Strike and Metasploit activity. Notepad++ has migrated hosting and improved its WinGup updater to verify certificates and signatures, with enforcement planned in forthcoming releases.

🔒 Rapid7 attributes a late-2025 compromise of the infrastructure hosting Notepad++ to the China-linked actor known as Lotus Blossom. Attackers delivered a previously undocumented backdoor, Chrysalis, via a malicious NSIS installer after hijacking update requests beginning in June 2025; access was terminated on December 2, 2025. Notepad++ patched updater verification in version 8.8.9, migrated hosting, rotated credentials, and responders have published indicators and mitigations.

🔒 Notepad++ developers say Chinese state-sponsored actors hijacked the project's update delivery last year, intercepting and selectively redirecting update requests to malicious servers by exploiting insufficient verification in older WinGUp updaters. The compromise began in June 2025 after a hosting provider breach and persisted until Dec 2, 2025, when the provider terminated access. The project migrated hosting, rotated credentials, patched the updater to verify certificates and signatures, and urges users to change SSH/FTP/MySQL credentials, review WordPress accounts, and update software.

🔒 A former Google engineer, Linwei Ding, was convicted by a US federal jury on 14 counts, including economic espionage and theft of trade secrets, after allegedly exfiltrating over 2,000 pages of sensitive AI technical documents. Prosecutors say he copied data into Apple Notes, converted it to PDFs, and uploaded the materials to a personal Google Cloud account to evade DLP controls. The stolen IP involved custom TPU and GPU orchestration software and SmartNIC designs intended for AI supercomputers, and the DoJ alleges Ding planned to support Chinese state-affiliated entities.

🔒 A U.S. jury has convicted Linwei Ding, a former software engineer at Google, for stealing confidential AI supercomputer information and covertly sharing it with China-based technology firms. Prosecutors say Ding exfiltrated more than 2,000 pages of proprietary material — including details about TPU and GPU systems, orchestration software, and SmartNIC networking — by uploading files to his personal cloud account between May 2022 and April 2023. He later founded Shanghai Zhisuan Technology Co., sought government talent programs, and was convicted on multiple counts of economic espionage and trade secret theft after an 11-day San Francisco trial.

🔍 Cisco Talos has uncovered a late-2025 to early-2026 campaign by a China-linked actor tracked as UAT-8099 targeting vulnerable IIS servers across Asia, notably Thailand and Vietnam. The actor uses web shells, PowerShell, and red-team utilities to deploy GotoHTTP and maintain persistence via hidden accounts. Infections deliver the BadIIS SEO-fraud malware family, hijacking crawlers and injecting malicious redirects to manipulate search rankings.

🚨 Kaspersky reports that China-linked Mustang Panda used an updated COOLCLIENT backdoor in 2025 to exfiltrate data from government targets across Myanmar, Mongolia, Malaysia, and Russia. The implant was deployed as a secondary backdoor alongside PlugX and LuminousMoth, delivered via encrypted loaders and abusing DLL side-loading of legitimately signed binaries. COOLCLIENT harvests keystrokes, clipboard data, files, and HTTP proxy credentials, can establish reverse tunnels, and loads in-memory plugins; recent waves also incorporated browser credential stealers and a previously unseen rootkit.

🛡️ Zscaler ThreatLabz identified two Pakistan-linked campaigns, codenamed Gopher Strike and Sheet Attack, that targeted Indian government entities in September 2025. Gopher Strike relied on tailored phishing PDFs that display a fake update prompt and selectively deliver an ISO payload only to requests originating from India and Windows User-Agents. Sheet Attack abused legitimate services such as Google Sheets, Firebase, and email for command-and-control. The intrusions deploy Golang tools — GOGITTER, GITSHELLPAD, and GOSHELL — to maintain persistence, execute commands, and stage a Cobalt Strike Beacon.

🔎 Zscaler ThreatLabz in September 2025 uncovered two Pakistan-linked campaigns, codenamed Gopher Strike and Sheet Attack, aimed at Indian government entities. Gopher Strike used phishing PDFs with a fake Adobe update that conditionally delivers an ISO to Indian Windows hosts, deploying a Golang downloader, GOGITTER, which establishes VBScript-based persistence and scheduled-task execution. Sheet Attack abused legitimate services such as Google Sheets, Firebase and email for command-and-control, while a lightweight backdoor, GITSHELLPAD, and a padded loader, GOSHELL, were used to ultimately deliver Cobalt Strike.

🔍 PeckBirdy is a previously undocumented, JScript-based command-and-control framework active since 2023 that researchers have linked to China-aligned APT activity across Asia. Trend Micro observed the framework used in multiple roles — watering-hole controller, reverse shell and C2 server — deployed via living-off-the-land binaries and browser-based social engineering. Modular implants such as HOLODONUT and MKDOOR extend capabilities with in-memory execution and attempts to evade Microsoft Defender, complicating detection and response.

🛡️ Trend Micro researchers uncovered PeckBirdy, a JScript-based command-and-control framework used by China-aligned APTs since 2023 to target gambling sites, government portals, and private organizations across Asia. The flexible framework executes via living-off-the-land binaries (LOLBins) and supports browsers, MSHTA, WScript, Classic ASP, Node.js, and .NET execution paths. Operators relied on watering‑hole injections and fake Google Chrome update pages to deliver staged scripts and deploy modular backdoors such as HOLODONUT and MKDOOR. Detection is complicated by dynamically generated, runtime-injected JavaScript and scarce persistent artifacts.

🔍 New analysis links the operators of the Badbox 2.0 Android TV botnet to named individuals and companies in China, following a screenshot allegedly obtained by the Kimwolf botmasters that shows authorized accounts. Open-source pivots on qq.com email addresses connect several accounts to developers and domains previously tied to Badbox activity. Google and the FBI are pursuing the operators while researchers warn that Kimwolf’s unauthorized access could let it push malware directly onto millions of infected streaming devices.

⚠️ Researchers from Koi found two malicious AI-style extensions on the VSCode Marketplace — ChatGPT – 中文版 and ChatMoss — that together have 1.5 million installs and silently transmit developer files to China-based servers. The extensions implement three distinct data-collection methods: real-time file reads and Base64 exfiltration via hidden webviews, a server-controlled file-harvest command that can steal up to 50 files, and a zero-pixel iframe that loads commercial analytics SDKs for fingerprinting and behavioral tracking. At publication both extensions were still available and Microsoft had not responded to inquiries.

🔒 The EU Commission has proposed a legal mechanism to ban network-equipment vendors it considers high-risk, a move widely seen as targeting Chinese firms such as Huawei and ZTE though the draft does not name specific companies. The plan would let Brussels require member states to replace prohibited technology in critical infrastructure within three years. It would also strengthen ENISA with additional staff and funding to coordinate EU-wide cybersecurity and ransomware defenses.

🔒 Cisco Talos describes an actor tracked as UAT-8837, active since at least 2025, that targeted North American critical infrastructure to gain initial access. The group exploited both compromised credentials and a Sitecore ViewState deserialization zero-day (CVE-2025-53690), with Mandiant linking the flaw to deployment of the WeepSteel reconnaissance backdoor. Post-compromise activity focused on credential theft, Active Directory enumeration, and use of living-off-the-land utilities and open-source tools to evade detection.

🛡️ A targeted campaign used political lures and a ZIP archive to deliver a DLL side-loading chain that installs the backdoor LOTUSLITE (kugou.dll), aimed at U.S. government and policy organizations. Acronis researchers attributed the activity with moderate confidence to the Chinese-linked Mustang Panda cluster and observed registry persistence, WinHTTP C2 communications, and remote CMD tasking. It remains unclear whether intended targets were successfully compromised.

🔒 Cisco has released a fix for a maximum‑severity AsyncOS zero‑day (CVE-2025-20393) that has been exploited since November 2025. The flaw impacts Cisco Secure Email Gateway and Secure Email and Web Manager appliances with non-standard configurations when the Spam Quarantine feature is exposed to the internet, permitting arbitrary command execution as root. Cisco Talos links the intrusions to a Chinese-nexus actor tracked as UAT-9686, which deployed persistence and tunneling implants and a log-wiping utility. CISA has added the vulnerability to its known exploited vulnerabilities catalog and ordered federal remediation under BOD 22-01.

⚠️ Cisco Talos says a China-aligned advanced persistent threat tracked as UAT-8837 has been leveraging a critical Sitecore zero-day (CVE-2025-53690, CVSS 9.0) to gain initial access to North American critical infrastructure. The actor uses both exploit-based access and compromised credentials, then deploys open-source tools for credential harvesting, Active Directory reconnaissance, and persistent remote access. Observed artifacts include GoTokenTheft, EarthWorm, DWAgent, SharpHound, Impacket, Rubeus, and Certipy, raising supply chain and OT exposure concerns.

🔒 Cisco has released patches for a maximum-severity remote command execution vulnerability (CVE-2025-20393, CVSS 10.0) in AsyncOS that affects Cisco Secure Email Gateway and Secure Email and Web Manager. The defect stems from insufficient validation of HTTP requests in the Spam Quarantine feature and can allow arbitrary commands to run as root when the feature is enabled and reachable from the internet. Cisco says a China-nexus APT tracked as UAT-9686 exploited the bug in the wild, deploying tunneling tools, a log-cleaner and a Python backdoor, and that fixes remove persistence artifacts. Administrators should apply the provided fixed releases and follow the vendor's hardening guidance to restrict access and monitor for anomalous activity.

🔮 Cisco Talos outlines expectations for cybersecurity in 2026, warning of continued geopolitical-driven campaigns such as infostealers, phishing, and proxy-enabled destructive operations. The briefing highlights the growing risk posed by inadequately governed generative AI agents that could cause breaches or mimic insider threats through flawed design or prompt manipulation. Talos also emphasizes that familiar weaknesses — unpatched systems, leaked credentials, and absent MFA — will remain primary enablers of intrusion. The advisory specifically flags UAT-8837, a medium-confidence China-nexus APT targeting critical infrastructure since 2025, and urges patching, credential hygiene, and proactive hunting.