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Cortex XDR™ Detects New Phishing Campaign Installing NetSupport Manager RAT
Cortex XDR threat hunters uncovered a phishing campaign delivering the NetSupport Manager RAT via a fake password-protected NortonLifelock Word document.
Unit 42 identified a January 2020 phishing campaign using a Microsoft Word document disguised as a password-protected NortonLifelock file. Enabling macros triggered an obfuscated command that built alpaca.bat in the temp directory, which used msiexec to download an MSI payload from quickwaysignstx.com, filtered on the Windows Installer user-agent string. The payload installed a PowerShell script and the campaign, which has delivered NetSupport Manager RAT since at least 2018, showed related activity dating back to early November 2019.
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AI agents help compress ransomware intrusion to under 10 hours, raising stakes for CISOs
Unit 42 reports AI agents compressed a ransomware intrusion from weeks to under 10 hours, using 50+ MITRE ATT&CK techniques against an enterprise network.
Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 investigated a ransomware incident where AI agents moved through an enterprise network in under 10 hours, work that would have taken human operators roughly two weeks. The attacker entered via a public-facing API endpoint, used automated reconnaissance to map microservices, searched source-code repositories for credentials, and accessed a secrets-management system. They hijacked enterprise code workflows to exfiltrate cloud access keys, attempted Terraform backdoors (blocked by branch protections), and used stolen credentials to access the victim's own AI services as attack infrastructure. Over 50 MITRE ATT&CK techniques were observed; the actor confirmed using frontier AI models and agentic frameworks during negotiations.
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Persistent Attempts at Cyberespionage Against Southeast Asian Government Target Have Links to Alloy Taurus
Alloy Taurus (GALLIUM) compromised Southeast Asian government networks from 2022 to 2023 using Exchange web shells and undocumented .NET backdoors Reshell and Zapoa.
Unit 42 tracked persistent multiwave intrusions at a Southeast Asian government starting in early 2022 and continuing through 2023, attributing the activity with moderate confidence to Alloy Taurus (aka GALLIUM), a Chinese state-aligned espionage group. Attackers exploited Exchange Server vulnerabilities to deploy web shells including China Chopper, then ran reconnaissance with Fscan and WebScan, created administrative accounts, and installed undocumented .NET backdoors named Reshell and Zapoa. They established resilience by installing SoftEther VPN, brute-forced Active Directory credentials with Kerbrute, and dumped credential stores with GoDumpLsass and LsassUnhooker. The campaign reflects long-term espionage tradecraft to maintain a foothold.
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