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Pakistan

0 mentions in 7 days · 4 in 30 days · 7 total · first seen Aug 15, 2026 · last 22d ago

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Operation QUICSILVER Targets Myanmar Government and IT with QUICAgent Backdoor

Seqrite Labs details Operation QUICSILVER, a China-nexus espionage campaign targeting Myanmar government and IT with graduation-invite lures deploying QUICAgent backdoor.

Seqrite Labs reported Operation QUICSILVER, a cyber espionage campaign against Myanmar's government and IT sectors attributed with moderate confidence to a China-nexus actor. Since April 2026, attacks used fake Belgian-Myanmar holiday and Burmese graduation ceremony invitation lures delivered via VHD/LNK files that abuse ftp.exe (LOLBAS) to assemble and launch QUICAgent, a Go backdoor communicating over QUIC on UDP 443 with five commands and Startup-folder persistence. Separately, China-linked Mustang Panda was observed using an updated COOLCLIENT backdoor with a signed kernel-mode driver across Myanmar, Mongolia, Pakistan, and Russia.

The Hacker NewsAug 24, 11:51 UTC · 22d agoThreat actor in the wild

Risky Bulletin: Academics find source code overlaps between Geedge and China's Great Firewall

Academics linked Chinese vendor Geedge Networks' Tiangou Secure Gateway source code to one of the Great Firewall's three traffic filtering capabilities.

US researchers presenting at USENIX Security reconstructed Geedge Networks' Tiangou Secure Gateway firmware from over 100,000 leaked files, including Git repositories with commit history, and matched its filtering behavior to sections of China's Great Firewall. They found only 1 of 3 characterized DNS injectors matched Geedge code, noted the system relies on memory-unsafe C components and copied third-party code, and said its bugs could aid future circumvention tools. Geedge also exports censorship tools to Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Pakistan, and Myanmar. The newsletter additionally rounds up multiple breaches.

Risky Business NewsAug 21, 02:55 UTC · 25d agoResearch2

Patchwork Continues to Deliver BADNEWS to the Indian Subcontinent

Unit 42 details Patchwork APT campaigns against the Indian subcontinent using EPS exploits and an updated BADNEWS backdoor targeting Pakistani military and nuclear interests.

Unit 42 observed the Patchwork group (also known as Dropping Elephant and Monsoon) conducting campaigns against targets in the Indian subcontinent using weaponized documents that exploit CVE-2015-2545 and CVE-2017-0261. The documents deliver an updated BADNEWS backdoor that grants attackers full control of victim machines, using dead drop resolvers on legitimate third-party websites for C2 and HTTP for communications. Lures referenced Pakistan Army promotions, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and the Ministry of the Interior, and in late January 2018 the group shifted from CVE-2017-0261 to the older CVE-2015-2545.

Palo Alto Unit 42Aug 17, 13:24 UTC · 29d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2015-2545 CVE-2017-0261

Multiple ArtraDownloader Variants Used by BITTER to Target Pakistan

BITTER used three ArtraDownloader variants since 2015 to target Pakistan, China, and Saudi Arabia, deploying BitterRAT and exploiting CVE-2017-11882 in one wave.

Palo Alto Unit 42 documents ArtraDownloader, a previously unreported downloader family used by the suspected South Asian group BITTER, with three variants and roughly 80 unique samples dating back to February 2015. Between September 2018 and January 2019, BITTER used spearphishing documents hosted on compromised Pakistani websites to target Pakistan and, for the first time, Saudi Arabia; one RTF sample exploited the EQNEDT vulnerability CVE-2017-11882. The downloader retrieves BitterRAT over HTTP, uses simple registry keys for persistence, and byte-level string obfuscation. Infrastructure overlap with the previously reported MY24 InPage-exploit payload was also observed.

Palo Alto Unit 42Aug 17, 13:22 UTC · 29d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2017-11882

Mustang Panda Upgrades CoolClient With a Kernel Rootkit

Mustang Panda's updated CoolClient backdoor deploys a signed kernel driver to hide processes, files and network activity in Asian intrusions.

Kaspersky analysis shows Mustang Panda (HoneyMyte) upgraded its CoolClient espionage backdoor with a signed kernel-mode driver installed as a Windows service, communicating via IOCTL requests to hide processes, files and registry entries. In a Myanmar campaign the actor deployed PlugX first, then CoolClient via a fake Windows Defender directory and Sangfor defender.exe DLL sideloading, with scheduled task and AutoRun persistence and UAC bypass. The updated variant was observed in intrusions across Pakistan, Mongolia and Myanmar, with victims also in Russia including confirmed government entities.

Security AffairsAug 16, 17:18 UTC · Aug 16, 2026Threat actor in the wild1

Mustang Panda Adds Signed Windows Rootkit to CoolClient Backdoor for Stealth

Kaspersky reports Mustang Panda's updated CoolClient backdoor now deploys a signed kernel-mode Windows rootkit, hitting government victims in Myanmar, Mongolia, Pakistan, and Russia.

Kaspersky identified a new CoolClient variant attributed to HoneyMyte (Mustang Panda) that installs a digitally signed Windows kernel driver, msagent.sys, to hide and protect malicious processes, files, registry keys, and C2 network information. CoolClient is consistently deployed as a secondary backdoor after PlugX, with confirmed victims including government entities in Myanmar, Mongolia, Pakistan, and Russia. In a Myanmar campaign, PlugX was used to deploy CoolClient via a renamed Sangfor executable for DLL side-loading, a scheduled task for persistence, and RPC-based process creation with PPID spoofing. The driver, signed with a 2013 certificate issued to Nanjing Ranyi Technology, implements 33 IOCTL handlers, process hiding via unlinking, a filesystem minifilter, and registry callbacks.

The Hacker NewsAug 15, 00:00 UTC · Aug 15, 2026Threat actor in the wild1

New PATCHCORD Backdoor Targets Afghan Telecom and Indian Critical Infrastructure

Acronis links APT36 (Transparent Tribe) to new backdoors PATCHCORD and SHEETCORD targeting Afghan Telecom and Indian government, defense, and energy networks.

Acronis TRU described an ongoing Pakistan-aligned campaign attributed with moderate confidence to APT36, delivering a previously undocumented C/C++ backdoor named PATCHCORD via fake VPN installers impersonating Afghan Telecom (AFTEL) and telecom management tools. PATCHCORD persists by hijacking browser shortcuts for Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, registers with a single C2 server, and executes shellcode and arbitrary cmd.exe commands. Infrastructure analysis revealed SHEETCORD, a Go backdoor combining SHEETCREEP and PATCHCORD features that uses Google Sheets for C2 and a PowerShell-based remote execution, delivered via a fake site mimicking India's National Informatics Center. APT36 has used PATCHCORD since at least March 2026, including a variant with anti-analysis features used against India's energy sector, and the toolkit includes antnium, GateSentinel, SuperShell, and exploits for CVE-2024-6387.

The Hacker NewsAug 15, 00:00 UTC · Aug 15, 2026Threat actor in the wildCVE-2024-6387

Related CVEsby mentions

CVE-2017-118827.8100%
Memory Corruption RCE in Microsoft Office via Legacy Equation Editor
CVE-2017-11882 is a memory corruption vulnerability (CWE-119) in Microsoft Office, residing in the legacy Microsoft Equation Editor component (EQNEDT32.EXE), that allows remote code execution in the context of the current user. Attackers trigger it by persuading a user to open a crafted document, most commonly an RTF file or other Office document carrying a malicious embedded equation object, which overflows a buffer while the equation content is parsed. Successful exploitation lets the attacker run arbitrary code with the privileges of the signed-in user, a typical foothold for malware delivery and, per CISA, for ransomware operations. Any environment running affected Microsoft Office builds is exposed; the source data does not enumerate specific affected version ranges. The flaw is confirmed exploited in the wild: it was added to the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2021-11-03 with known ransomware use and holds a 99.9% EPSS score (percentile 100), though the source data lists no public PoC.
· Microsoft Office KEV ransomware PoC ×10mass
CVE-2017-02617.878%
Use-After-Free RCE in Microsoft Office 2010/2013/2016
CVE-2017-0261 is a use-after-free (CWE-416) remote code execution flaw in Microsoft Office 2010 SP2, 2013 SP1, and 2016, caused by improper handling of objects in memory. It is triggered by convincing a user to open a malicious document or email attachment, which corrupts memory and lets the attacker run arbitrary code with the victim's privileges (high impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability). Any user of the affected Office editions is exposed, and because the attack requires user interaction via a crafted file, email-borne targeting is the realistic attack path. The flaw was patched in Microsoft's May 2017 Patch Tuesday releases after being exploited as a zero day, with public reporting linking active exploitation to Russian APT groups. It is listed in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-03-03), and its EPSS score of 78.1% (100th percentile) reflects a very high likelihood of exploitation.
· Microsoft Office 2010 Service Pack 2 · Microsoft Office 2013 Service Pack 1 KEVmass
CVE-2015-2545—86%
Malformed EPS Image RCE in Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office fails to properly validate Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) images embedded in documents (CWE-20, improper input validation), and processing a specially crafted EPS image can allow arbitrary code execution. The flaw is triggered when a victim opens an Office document—typically delivered via email—that contains the malicious EPS image, with no user interaction beyond opening the file. Successful exploitation gives the attacker code execution with the privileges of the logged-in user, a technique espionage groups targeting embassies, government entities and the Indian subcontinent (e.g., Patchwork, Ke3chang-related campaigns) have used to deliver backdoors such as the BADNEWS RAT. Any organization running Microsoft Office builds that lack the relevant Office updates is affected, with historically exposed populations concentrated in government and diplomatic networks using legacy Office. The vulnerability is listed in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2022-03-03) and carries a very high EPSS (~86%), indicating active exploitation despite the fix being available since 2015.
· Microsoft Office KEVmass
CVE-2024-63878.1100%
A security regression (CVE-2006-5051) was discovered in OpenSSH's server (sshd).
A security regression (CVE-2006-5051) was discovered in OpenSSH's server (sshd). There is a race condition which can lead sshd to handle some signals in an unsafe manner. An unauthenticated, remote attacker may be able to trigger it by failing to authenticate within a set time period.
· sonicwall sma 6200 firmware · sonicwall sma 7200 firmware PoC ×7—

Appears with

threat actor Mustang Panda 3 malware PlugX 3 product CoolClient 3 vendor Kaspersky 3 malware CoolClient 2 threat actor HoneyMyte 2 malware ToneShell 2 product Microsoft Defender 2 vendor Sangfor 2 product PlugX 2 malware MY24 1 malware BitterRAT 1 malware BADNEWS 1 threat actor Monsoon 1 threat actor China-nexus threat actor 1 malware ArtraDownloader 1

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