All news with #cyber espionage tag

Operation SkyCloak: Tor-Enabled Backdoor Targets Defense

🔒 Attackers are deploying a persistent backdoor using OpenSSH and a customized Tor hidden service to target defense-related organizations in Russia and Belarus. The Operation SkyCloak campaign uses weaponized ZIP attachments and LNK-triggered PowerShell stagers that perform sandbox evasion and write an .onion hostname into the user's roaming profile. Persistence is established via scheduled tasks that run a renamed sshd.exe and a bespoke Tor binary using obfs4, enabling SSH, SFTP, RDP and SMB access over Tor.

China-linked APT41 Targets U.S. Trade Policy Networks

🔒 The House Select Committee on China warned of an ongoing series of targeted cyber-espionage campaigns tied to the PRC that aim at organizations involved in U.S.–China trade talks. Attackers impersonated Rep. John Robert Moolenaar in phishing emails that delivered malware via attachments and links, abusing cloud services and software to conceal activity. The campaign, attributed to APT41, affected trade groups, law firms, think tanks, U.S. government agencies and at least one foreign government.