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Unit 42 Researchers Discover Multiple Espionage Operations Targeting Southeast Asian Government

Unit 42 attributes three espionage clusters targeting a Southeast Asian government to Stately Taurus, Alloy Taurus, and Gelsemium APTs.

Unit 42 investigated espionage attacks starting in late 2022 against multiple governmental entities in a Southeast Asian country, including critical infrastructure, public healthcare, financial administrators, and ministries. Analysis revealed three distinct clusters: CL-STA-0044 attributed to Stately Taurus (Mustang Panda), CL-STA-0045 to Alloy Taurus (GALLIUM), and CL-STA-0046 to Gelsemium. The first cluster used a ToneShell backdoor variant, ShadowPad, China Chopper web shells, Impacket, and credential dumping tools across roughly Q1 2021 to Q3 2023. All three operated with distinct tools, infrastructure, and long-term surveillance tradecraft consistent with APTs.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Threat actor in the wild

Keys to the Kingdom: Erlang/OTP SSH Vulnerability Analysis and Exploits Observed in the Wild

Attackers actively exploit CVE-2025-32433, a CVSS 10.0 unauthenticated RCE in Erlang/OTP SSH, heavily targeting OT and critical infrastructure networks.

CVE-2025-32433 enables unauthenticated RCE in Erlang/OTP's SSH daemon via SSH connection protocol messages (codes >= 80) processed before authentication, affecting versions before OTP-27.3.3, OTP-26.2.5.11 and OTP-25.3.2.20. Unit 42 recorded a spike in exploitation between May 1-9, 2025, with 70% of detections on firewalls protecting OT networks, disproportionately affecting healthcare, agriculture, media and high technology. Observed payloads bind TCP-connected shells or launch Bash reverse shells to hosts like 146.103.40.203:6667, with randomized DNS lookups under dns.outbound.watchtowr.com indicating OAST-driven blind RCE validation.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Exploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2025-32433

CVE-2022-22965: Spring Core Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Exploited In the Wild (SpringShell) (Updated)

Attackers actively exploit Spring Framework RCE CVE-2022-22965 (SpringShell, CVSS 9.8) to deploy webshells; patches 5.3.18/5.2.20 shipped March 31, 2022.

CVE-2022-22965 enables unauthenticated remote code execution in the widely used Spring Framework (CVSS 9.8), which Unit 42 has observed being exploited in the wild. The flaw stems from getCachedIntrospectionResults exposing the class object during parameter binding, letting attackers manipulate the class loader to modify Tomcat logging and upload a JSP webshell. Public PoCs require JDK 9+, Tomcat, WAR packaging, and spring-webmvc or spring-webflux dependencies on Spring 5.3.0-5.3.17, 5.2.0-5.2.19, or older. Fixes shipped in Spring Framework 5.3.18 and 5.2.20; the related Spring Cloud Function flaw CVE-2022-22963 was patched March 29, 2022.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Exploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2022-22965CVE-2022-22963CVE-2010-16221

GTIG AI Threat Tracker: From Prompting to Autonomy – The Evolution of Adversarial AI

GTIG's Q2 2026 tracker shows adversaries adopting agentic AI workflows, including credential harvesting in under six hours and supply chain attacks by UNC6780.

Google Threat Intelligence Group's Q2 2026 report documents adversaries moving from basic prompting to agentic AI workflows and automation, including a cloud compromise followed by agent-enabled mass credential harvesting executed in under six hours. It tracks financially motivated actor UNC6780 (TeamPCP) conducting large-scale open source supply chain compromises across PyPI, npm, and Docker Hub since March 2026, deploying credential stealers. The report also highlights growing targeting of proprietary AI models, source code, prompts, and API credentials, plus LLMJacking practices where adversaries steal developer credentials or hijack cloud infrastructure to run unauthorized AI workloads.

Google Threat Intelligence · 8d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Counterfeit installers to system compromise: Tracking a deceptive software download campaign

Microsoft tracks a counterfeit software-installer campaign compromising multinationals' China operations, moderately linked to the Silver Fox (Yinhu) actor.

Microsoft Defender Experts is tracking an active campaign using spoofed software download sites for brands such as Razer, Kaspersky, Microsoft Edge, Calibre, and Baidu Netdisk on .com.cn and .hl.cn domains, delivering installer archives whose hashes change per download, indicating server-side payload generation. The implants establish persistence, weaken security protections, and communicate with attacker-controlled infrastructure, with confirmed compromises across healthcare, manufacturing, gaming, technology, logistics, government, and education. Microsoft assesses with moderate confidence that the activity matches the publicly reported Silver Fox (Yinhu) fake software campaign; it has not attributed it to a nation-state actor.

Microsoft Security Blog · 15d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Another Apache Log4j Vulnerability Is Actively Exploited in the Wild (CVE-2021

Apache Log4j 2 RCE CVE-2021-44228 is actively exploited via crafted JNDI lookups; Palo Alto Unit 42 urges upgrading to Log4j 2.17.1.

Unit 42 details CVE-2021-44228, an easily exploited remote code execution flaw in Apache Log4j 2 where attacker-supplied JNDI lookups in logged user input cause payload download and execution. Massive internet-wide scanning for unpatched systems has begun, with observed follow-on activity including information stealing, Cobalt Strike delivery, and coinmining. The recommended fix is Log4j 2.17.1, which also patches CVE-2021-45046, CVE-2021-45105, and CVE-2021-44832. Widely used Java software including Apache Struts, Solr, Druid, Flink, ElasticSearch, and Spring Boot is affected.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Exploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2021-44228CVE-2021-45046CVE-2021-45105+3 CVEs