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BambooToken Malware Uses MQTT to Control Windows and Linux Systems

Lumen uncovers BambooToken, a stealthy multi-platform malware using MQTT C2 and Tendyron DLL sideloading to compromise Asian and South American organizations.

Lumen Black Lotus Labs disclosed BambooToken, a previously undocumented malware family active since at least February 2023 that controls Windows and (since December 2025) Linux hosts via the MQTT protocol for C2. The malware sideloads a rogue OnKeyToken_KEB.dll via Tendyron's OnKey PKI token software, gathers host details, and uses a WMI-based plugin to enumerate installed antivirus products and exfiltrate them to C2 domains proxied through Cloudflare. A dozen compromised entities were detected across Asia and South America, and DLL sideloading plus SoftEther VPN usage suggests a China nexus.

The Hacker News · 1d agoMalware in the wild 2 sources

US takes down alleged Chinese hacking tools used against Federal Reserve, DOJ and Senate

DOJ takes down QScan and QTRouter Chinese obfuscation platforms used to breach Federal Reserve, DOE, DOJ, and Senate since 2018.

The DOJ and FBI seized domains hard-coded into QScan and QTRouter, platforms run by Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology Company and used by China's Ministry of State Security and PLA. QScan automatically infected IoT devices worldwide which were absorbed into QTRouter, allowing attackers to disguise intrusions as originating from other countries or local sources. Victims included the Federal Reserve, Department of Energy, DOJ, US Senate, NASA, HHS, NIH, plus hospitals, telecoms, power companies, financial institutions, and defense contractors. The FBI investigated QTFY since 2018, tracing a 2019 NASA incident through Pulse Secure VPN exploitation.

The Record · 21d agoThreat actor in the wild

Us Thwarts Volt Typhoon Espionage

US thwarts an espionage operation by Chinese state-linked threat actor Volt Typhoon, according to the headline.

The headline indicates US authorities disrupted espionage activity attributed to Volt Typhoon, the Chinese state-sponsored group known for targeting critical infrastructure. No article text is available, so details on scope, victims, or method are unavailable.

Infosecurity Magazine · 29d agoThreat actor in the wild

Srsly Risky Biz: China's Private Sector Botnets Are Worth Disrupting

DoJ seized domains of Chinese espionage botnet platforms QScan and QTRouter, run by private firm QTFY for MSS and PLA targeting.

The US Department of Justice disrupted QScan, a distributed vulnerability scanning system with nearly a decade of internet scanning data, and QTRouter, a covert communications platform routing traffic through compromised IoT devices, operated by QTFY under Chinese company Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology. FBI and NSA advisories say QTFY customers include China's Ministry of State Security and the People's Liberation Army, targeting federal agencies, the US Senate, hospitals, telecoms and financial institutions. This is the third Chinese state-backed botnet disrupted since December 2023, following the KV botnet (Volt Typhoon) and Raptor Train (Flax Typhoon), and a sister network, JDY, has more than doubled since the KV disruption. Separately, the Qilin ransomware group claimed a breach of the ATF's CALEA system, briefly publishing 6.3 GB of case folders and forensic data.

Risky Business News · 13d agoThreat actor1

FBI takes down China-linked hacking network behind attacks on NASA, DOJ and U.S. Senate

FBI seized domains disabling QScan and QTRouter malware run by China-linked QTFY group behind intrusions at NASA, DOJ, Senate and other agencies.

The Justice Department and FBI seized domains hard-coded into two malware tools, QScan and QTRouter, operated by a Chinese state-sponsored group called QTFY, tied to a Nanjing-based company that sold hacking services to China's Ministry of State Security and the PLA. QScan infected IoT devices worldwide while QTRouter combined them with commercial proxies and rented servers to build an obfuscation network that masked attack origins. Victims include NASA, the Federal Reserve, the Departments of Energy and Justice, HHS, NIH, and the U.S. Senate. The FBI and NSA published a joint advisory with indicators of compromise, the latest in operations against Mustang Panda, Flax Typhoon, and Volt Typhoon infrastructure.

Help Net Security · 21d agoThreat actor in the wild

'Breeze Comet' Tears Into Brazilian & Global Financial Systems

Threat group 'Breeze Comet' is attacking Brazil's financial systems and reportedly stealing funds directly, per Dark Reading threat intelligence.

Dark Reading reports that 'Breeze Comet', described as Brazil's most sophisticated threat group, is compromising the country's financial systems. The activity is financially motivated, with funds reportedly moved directly to the attackers. The campaign reportedly extends to global financial systems, though technical details, victims and attribution evidence were not disclosed in the excerpt.

Dark Reading · 13d agoThreat actor in the wild

FBI Seizes China-Linked Hacking Platforms QScan and QTRouter Used Against Critical Infrastructure

FBI seizes China-linked QScan and QTRouter hacking platforms used by QTFY to obfuscate intrusions against US federal agencies.

The DOJ and FBI seized domains hard-coded into QScan and QTRouter, two platforms operated by China-based Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology Company on behalf of state-sponsored group QTFY. QScan automatically infected thousands of IoT devices which were added to QTRouter, an obfuscation network routing malicious traffic through compromised and proxy devices outside China. Targets included NASA, the Federal Reserve, Departments of Energy, Justice, and HHS, NIH, and the US Senate, exploiting flaws in Fortinet SSL-VPN, Citrix ADC, Microsoft Exchange, F5 BIG-IP, Log4j, and others.

Security Affairs · 21d agoThreat actor in the wild

China Is Strapping ‘Digital Bombs’ to Civilian Infrastructure—Is the US Ready?

WIRED examines Volt Typhoon pre-positioning 'digital bombs' in US civilian infrastructure via a war game simulation discussion.

WIRED's Uncanny Valley podcast features reporter Andy Greenberg discussing a war game simulating a cyberattack by Chinese hacking group Volt Typhoon. The episode examines Volt Typhoon's practice of planting persistent access in US civilian infrastructure that could be activated during conflict, and questions whether the US is prepared.

WIRED · Security · 27d agoThreat actor

WindRelay Malware Pairs With SpyNote RAT in Live-Call Scam

New WindRelay Android NFC-relay malware paired with SpyNote RAT enables real-time card cloning during live scam calls.

Infosecurity Magazine reports on WindRelay, a new Android NFC relay malware that was used together with the SpyNote RAT. The malware let a fraudster relay a victim's contactless card data in real time during a live social-engineering call, enabling the card to be cloned mid-call. The attack combines mobile RAT infection with near-field-communication relaying to defeat contactless payment protections.

Infosecurity Magazine · Aug 12, 2026Malware in the wild

Analysis of Smoke Loader in New Tsunami Campaign

Fake Japanese Meteorological Agency tsunami warning emails delivered Smoke Loader and AzoRult malware to steal credentials from targets in Japan.

A fake tsunami warning email impersonating Japan's Meteorological Agency asked recipients to click a link on a registered fake agency domain, delivering the commodity loader Smoke Loader to targets in Japan. Smoke Loader, active since 2011, is modular, and its payloads have included banking trojans, ransomware, cryptominers, password stealers, and PoS malware; the campaign later also deployed AzoRult. New samples add junk-jump obfuscation, encrypted network traffic and payload files, a unique machine ID used for tracking and encryption, and PROPagate injection into explorer.exe, with persistence via a Startup folder shortcut and RC4-encrypted C2 communication.

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

Chaotic Eclipse Releases GenDigital Avast Antivirus ZeroDay PrettyPrague

Researcher Chaotic Eclipse released PrettyPrague, a PoC zero-day privilege escalation exploit against fully patched GenDigital Avast Antivirus.

Security researcher Chaotic Eclipse (also known as INFINITE NIGHTMARE or MSNightmare) published a PoC named PrettyPrague exploiting a zero-day privilege escalation flaw in Avast Antivirus. The PoC abuses a flaw in the Avast Sandbox to dump the Windows SAM database and spawn a SYSTEM-level shell, reportedly working on fully patched Avast and patched Windows 11 25H2. The researcher believes the flaw may also affect other GenDigital products such as AVG and Norton. It follows his recent HardBreacher PoC for a Kaspersky Endpoint Security privilege escalation flaw.

Security Affairs · 15d agoExploit / PoC

The long tail of Clop’s PTC hack is just beginning to emerge

Clop mass-exploited CVE-2026-12569 in PTC Windchill and FlexPLM in early June, claiming data theft from dozens of large organizations.

Clop began sending extortion emails in mid-July after exploiting CVE-2026-12569 in PTC Windchill and FlexPLM, likely as a zero-day in early June before PTC's June 17 disclosure and patch. Confirmed victims include Toast and Zebra, while GE, Philips and Shell are among claimed victims. CISA added the flaw, which allows unauthenticated remote code execution, to its KEV catalog on June 25. ReliaQuest said the group used a custom Windchill-specific web shell for credential theft and large-scale exfiltration, echoing its past MOVEit and Oracle E-Business Suite mass-exploitation campaigns.

CyberScoop · 28d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2026-125691

BambooToken: The Malware That Speaks MQTT to Stay Under the Radar

Lumen's Black Lotus Labs uncovered BambooToken, a Windows and Linux malware family using MQTT broker-based C2 and DLL sideloading across Asia since February 2023.

Lumen Black Lotus Labs identified BambooToken, a multiplatform malware family that exchanges commands through MQTT brokers so infected hosts never contact the C2 server directly, active from at least February 2023 through July 2026. The Windows variant sideloads via Tendyron's OnKey hardware-token software used in Chinese banking and government, or impersonates Kingsoft Office, without either vendor's signing certificate being compromised; a Linux build appeared by December 2025 with shell, file transfer, and system information commands. Victims include MikroTik and DrayTek routers in Singapore, Cambodia, and Vietnam reached after internet-wide SNMP scanning, and Lumen cannot attribute the family to any known actor.

Security Affairs · 6h agoMalware in the wild

Claude's new system prompt really doesn't want to reproduce song lyrics

Anthropic published updated Claude consumer system prompts, including changes steering the model away from reproducing song lyrics, likely over copyright concerns.

Anthropic publishes system prompts for Claude.ai and Claude mobile apps, including historic revisions, and has reorganized them into an index with per-model pages such as the Haiku 4.5 page showing the original October 15, 2025 prompt and an updated January 18, 2026 version. The latest consumer prompt strongly discourages reproducing song lyrics, a behavioral constraint likely tied to copyright considerations. Prompts for Claude Cowork and Claude Code are not included in the published set.

Simon Willison · 14d agoAI safety & security

Storm-1175 Replaces Medusa With New StormEncryptor Ransomware

Microsoft reports China-linked ransomware group Storm-1175 switched from Medusa to a new C++ strain, StormEncryptor, likely exploiting N-able flaw CVE-2026-18577.

Microsoft Threat Intelligence reports that the financially motivated, China-linked group Storm-1175 began deploying a new ransomware strain called StormEncryptor on August 2, 2026, replacing its previous Medusa ransomware. StormEncryptor is written in C++, appends the .encrypted extension to files, and drops a !!!README_FIRST!!!.txt ransom note in each scanned directory. Microsoft assesses the group is likely exploiting CVE-2026-18577, an authentication bypass in N-able disclosed on August 2, 2026 and added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog the next day. Since 2023, Storm-1175 has exploited more than 16 vulnerabilities in products including Microsoft Exchange, Ivanti, ConnectWise ScreenConnect, JetBrains TeamCity, SimpleHelp, CrushFTP, and GoAnywhere MFT, often moving from initial access to data theft and ransomware deployment within days.

Security Affairs · Aug 13, 2026Ransomware in the wildCVE-2026-18577CVE-2026-1731CVE-2023-21529+15 CVEs1

Clop-Linked Windchill Web Shell Decrypts Credentials and Maps Engineering Data

ReliaQuest details a bespoke JSP web shell that Clop deploys on hacked PTC Windchill and FlexPLM servers after exploiting CVE-2026-12569.

ReliaQuest analyzed a custom Java web shell planted on vulnerable PTC Windchill and FlexPLM servers following exploitation of CVE-2026-12569 (CVSS 9.3). The implant decrypts Windchill keystore credentials including the LDAP manager password, enumerates the file vault for engineering data, and loads attacker-supplied Java classes in memory for post-exploitation. Commands let operators read and delete files, exfiltrate results, and deliver follow-on payloads such as ransomware. Ransom-ISAC, eCrime.ch and Defused previously attributed the campaign to the Clop data-theft extortion group.

The Hacker News · 28d agoThreat actor in the wildCVE-2026-12569

Researcher Releases FalconFlank PoC Showing Privilege Escalation in CrowdStrike Falcon

Researcher Chaotic Eclipse released FalconFlank, a zero-day privilege escalation PoC abusing CrowdStrike Falcon's Office macro remediation; CrowdStrike is investigating and issued a tech alert.

Researcher Chaotic Eclipse published FalconFlank, a proof-of-concept zero-day local privilege escalation in CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor that abuses the Microsoft Office malicious macros remediation feature, tested on fully updated Windows 11 25H2 and Windows Server 2025. CrowdStrike said it is investigating, advised disabling the Microsoft Office File Suspicious Macro Removal policy, and pointed customers to a FalconFlank tech alert, noting cloud anti-malware protection remains active. The article also covers related PoCs from the same researcher: HardBreacher against Kaspersky (fixed via update), ShieldBreak (CVE-2026-69414) against Microsoft Defender, an unpatched patch bypass of CVE-2026-50656, GreenSection against NVIDIA, and PrettyPrague against Avast, which Gen Digital patched in versions 26.7.11086 and 26.8.11125.

The Smishing Deluge: China-Based Campaign Flooding Global Text Messages

Unit 42 attributes a global smishing campaign with 194,000+ phishing domains impersonating tolls, banks, and couriers to the Smishing Triad.

Palo Alto Unit 42 attributes ongoing smishing texts about toll violations and package misdelivery to the Smishing Triad, targeting U.S. residents since April 2024. Researchers identified 194,345 FQDNs across 136,933 root domains registered since January 2024, mostly via Hong Kong registrar Dominet (HK) Limited with Chinese nameservers and hosting concentrated on U.S. cloud services. The decentralized campaign impersonates banking, cryptocurrency, e-commerce, healthcare, law enforcement, and social media services, and its scale points to a large phishing-as-a-service operation. Phishing pages harvest national ID numbers such as Social Security numbers, home addresses, payment details, and login credentials.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Phishing & fraud in the wild1

Introducing context-aware vulnerability discovery and remediation with Cloudflare Managed Defense and OpenAI Daybreak models

Cloudflare launches invitation-only Vulnerability Discovery and Remediation within Managed Defense, using OpenAI Daybreak models and WAF context to prioritize and patch vulnerabilities.

Cloudflare announced early access to Vulnerability Discovery and Remediation, an invitation-only service within Cloudflare Managed Defense. The service uses OpenAI Daybreak models, including GPT-5.6 Cyber, via the Daybreak Defense Network to hunt and validate vulnerabilities in customer-authorized codebases across Workers and proxied applications. Findings are prioritized using production traffic, WAF rule, and security event context, and proposed patches and WAF mitigations are automatically checked before customer review.

Cloudflare Blog · 13d agoTools

FalconFlank: CrowdStrike Falcon 0-Day PoC

A researcher published a working proof-of-concept for an alleged privilege escalation zero-day in CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor for Windows.

SOCRadar describes 'FalconFlank,' an alleged privilege escalation zero-day vulnerability in the CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor agent for Windows. The finding was published alongside working proof-of-concept code by a researcher. The available text does not state that exploitation has been observed in the wild, nor does it mention an assigned CVE.

SOCRadar · 13d agoVulnerability

BreezeBlue/Breeze-TTS-2 — new model trending #19 on Hugging Face

BreezeBlue open-weights Breeze TTS 2, a bilingual text-to-speech model it ranks #1 among open-weight models on the Artificial Analysis TTS leaderboard.

BreezeBlue released open weights and Apache 2.0-licensed PyTorch inference code for Breeze TTS 2 on 2026-08-25. The text-to-speech model supports English and Chinese, voice cloning, reference-free voice design, voice direction, and inline vocal events like (laugh) and (sigh). Reported performance includes #1 open-weight ranking on the Artificial Analysis Elo leaderboard, under 40 ms time-to-first-audio, a 0.32 real-time factor on an NVIDIA H100, and about 7.7 GiB GPU memory for eager inference.

Hugging Face trending models · 22d agoModel release

CVE-2026-82439: Apache Storm DRPC: Unauthenticated Unbounded Memory Growth in DRPC

Unauthenticated DRPC requests to Apache Storm 3.0.0 cause unbounded memory growth in the function-name queue map, enabling DoS.

CVE-2026-82439 (severity: important) affects Apache Storm DRPC (storm-server) versions 3.0.0 before 3.1.0. The DRPC server maintained a map from function name to request queue, creating an entry on first sight of a name, but no code path ever removed entries: request cleanup removed requests from queues but the queue objects and map entries persisted. An unauthenticated attacker could send requests for arbitrary function names to drive unbounded memory growth and crash the server.

oss-security · 3d agoVulnerabilityCVE-2026-82439

Financially Motivated Threat Actor BREEZE COMET Targets Brazil

Google Threat Intelligence details BREEZE COMET, a financially motivated group manipulating Brazilian payment systems and banking software to conduct fraudulent transfers since 2024.

Mandiant and Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) track this activity as BREEZE COMET (formerly UNC5669), active since 2024 against Brazilian financial services, retail, and eCommerce organizations. The actor specializes in manipulating payment systems and banking software to conduct fraudulent transfers. The activity overlaps with operations publicly reported as Plump Spider and SHADOW-AETHER-064. The report details the group's tactics, toolkit, mitigations, and detections for this active and developing threat.

Google Threat Intelligence · 15d agoThreat actor in the wild

Researcher Publishes CrowdStrike Privilege Escalation Zero Day

Researcher NightmareEclipse published FalconFlank, a zero-day local privilege escalation in CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor abusing its Office malicious macro remediation feature.

A researcher known as Nightmare Eclipse published details of FalconFlank, a zero-day privilege escalation that abuses the Microsoft Office malicious macro removal feature in CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor, verified working on fully updated Windows 11 25H2 and Windows Server 2025 with Falcon Phase 3 Optimal Protection. CrowdStrike urged customers to disable the Office File Suspicious Macro Removal policy while it investigates, noting customers remain protected via Cloud Anti-malware for Microsoft Office Files; no CVE has been assigned. The same researcher previously released the Exploitarium dump of over 30 PoC exploits, and researcher Kevin Beaumont confirmed FalconFlank works.

Infosecurity Magazine · 9d agoExploit / PoC

Australia Warns of Active Exploitation of Critical TeamCity Server Flaw

Australian officials warn of active exploitation of a critical JetBrains TeamCity flaw and urge customers to patch immediately.

Australian authorities warn that a critical vulnerability in JetBrains TeamCity is being actively exploited and urge customers to apply patches. The alert follows a similar warning from the US government. TeamCity is a widely deployed CI/CD server whose past flaws have been leveraged in large-scale exploitation campaigns.

Infosecurity Magazine · 22d agoExploit / PoC in the wild

Mantax OTAX Android Ransomware Spies on Users, Steals OTPs and Encrypts Files

New Android malware family Mantax OTAX combines ransomware, spyware, and OTP theft via sideloaded APKs, linked to Indonesian threat actors.

Researchers at zLabs and Zimperium analyzed Mantax OTAX, an aggressive Android malware strain distributed as sideloaded APKs through phishing and messaging lures on third-party file-sharing services. The malware requests device-administrator and Accessibility permissions to steal lock-screen PINs, intercept SMS one-time passwords, harvest contacts and history, capture screens via MediaProjection, and silently photograph victims, while encrypting files with AES and writing .enc files on Android 9 and older. Its C2 uses HTTPS at apimantax[.]otax[.]fun with the active domain fetched dynamically from a GitHub repository, and a newer version adds WebSocket communication, app blocking, video overlays, and text-to-speech harassment. A Firebase misconfiguration exposed extortion conversations and victim data, and Android 10+ Scoped Storage limits the encryption reach but not the surveillance capabilities.

GBHackersupdated · 5d agofirst · 5d agoMalware in the wild 6 sources1

CVE-2026-84179: Apache Storm Nimbus, Apache Storm UI: Disclosure of Unredacted Merged Daemon Configuration via the Topology Page

Apache Storm Nimbus/UI 3.0.0 leaks unredacted merged daemon configuration through the topology page, exposing secrets to UI users.

CVE-2026-84179 (severity: important) affects Apache Storm Nimbus (storm-server) and Storm UI (storm-webapp) versions 3.0.0 before 3.1.0. The getTopologyPageInfo function merged the Nimbus daemon configuration with topology configuration and returned it unredacted in the topology_conf field of TopologyPageInfo, which the Storm UI copied verbatim. This can expose sensitive daemon configuration values to topology users.

oss-security · 3d agoVulnerabilityCVE-2026-84179

m-a-p/YuE2-3B — new model trending #30 on Hugging Face

M-A-P released YuE2-3B, an open music generation model that outperforms Suno v5 on WildSongBench and runs locally on a 24GB GPU.

The M-A-P (multimodal-art-projection) team released YuE2-3B, an open-weights music generation model that turns lyrics and a style prompt into full songs with vocals and accompaniment. It uses an AR-NAR Mixture-of-Transformers backbone with symbolic planning and flow matching through a VAE, and supports editable scores (melody and chords, including ABC notation) plus agentic editing workflows. On 192 WildSongBench prompts it reports a SongBench average of 6.9632 (best-of-8) versus 6.8721 for Suno v5, claimed as state of the art among evaluated open and proprietary models. It runs 48 kHz stereo inference locally on a single 24GB NVIDIA GPU without quantization, with companion releases including YuE2-Vae, MERT-v2 encoders, the WildSongBench dataset, and SheetSage2.

Hugging Face trending models · 7d agoModel release1

Jackrong/Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-GGUF — new model trending #26 on Hugging Face

Community fine-tune Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash, built on Qwen3.8-27B, cuts agent reasoning latency with 12.8% faster decoding and 80.7% MTP acceptance.

Jackrong released Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash, a fine-tune of Qwen3.8-27B optimized for long-running agent workloads, reporting 12.8% faster decoding and 80.7% multi-token-prediction acceptance. Training used roughly 1.5 million teacher-scored SFT examples filtered to the top 10%, followed by reinforcement training with NVIDIA NeMo-RL and GSPO. The author notes an explicit trade-off: MMLU-Pro mixed-set scores are lower than the base model, and a known bug can produce incorrect Python indentation. Author-provided benchmarks have not been independently verified.

Hugging Face trending models · 12d agoModel release1

New Android malware relays bank cards to fraudsters while victims still hold them

Group-IB discovered WindRelay Android malware that streams NFC card data in real time, paired with SpyNote RAT, targeting Czechia, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

Group-IB identified WindRelay, an Android malware that uses NFC to communicate with victims' payment cards and relays the exchange live to attacker-controlled terminals. Fraudsters impersonate bank staff by phone, trick victims into installing a personalized SpyNote RAT, then silently deploy WindRelay to cash out using the victim-entered PIN. Researchers traced 23 samples on VirusTotal from November 2025 to July 2026, four C2 IPs, and campaigns against Czechia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. No affected apps were found on Google Play, and Google Play Protect detects known versions.

Help Net Security · Aug 17, 2026Malware in the wild

Cardinal RAT Sins Again, Targets Israeli Fin

Unit 42 documents updated Cardinal RAT attacks against Israeli FinTech firms, using BMP steganography, MD5-hash obfuscation, and process injection to hinder analysis and detection.

Unit 42 tracked a series of attacks using an updated Cardinal RAT (version 1.7.2) targeting the Israeli financial technology sector. The .NET loader hides a second-stage DLL inside an embedded BMP image decrypted with a single-byte XOR key, and the payload renames functions, methods, and variables to MD5 hashes for obfuscation. The malware installs a startup-folder LNK file and injects its final payload into RegSvcs.exe or RegAsm.exe, communicating with affiliatecollective[.]club over port 443. A possible relationship with the EVILNUM JavaScript malware used against similar organizations was also noted.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Malware1

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.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Threat actor in the wild1