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xHunt Campaign: New Watering Hole Identified for Credential Harvesting

Unit 42 tied the xHunt campaign to a watering hole on a Kuwait government website used to passively harvest visitors' NTLM credential hashes.

Palo Alto Unit 42 identified a Kuwait government organization's webpage injected with hidden HTML referencing image paths on domains (microsofte-update.com, learn-service.com) tied to xHunt/Hisoka C2 infrastructure. When visitors loaded the page, Windows would attempt SMB/NetBIOS authentication to the remote share, allowing the operators to capture NTLM hashes that could be cracked or relayed. Related DNS redirect activity on xHunt infrastructure in 2019 pointed to additional credential-harvesting interest against Kuwaiti government email servers.

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

KRBanker Targets South Korea Through Adware and Exploit Kits

Unit 42 details KRBanker banking trojan targeting South Korean bank users via KaiXin exploit kit and NEWSPOT adware, using pharming and process hollowing.

KRBanker (aka Blackmoon) is a banking trojan targeting online banking users in the Republic of Korea, with roughly 2,000 unique samples and 200+ pharming servers observed by Unit 42 over six months. It is distributed through the KaiXin exploit kit exploiting Adobe Flash CVE-2014-0569 and CVE-2015-3133, and through the NEWSPOT adware update channel that also delivers the Venik trojan. The trojan uses process hollowing, retrieves pharming server IPs from Qzone profile nickname fields, and abuses Proxy Auto-Config with a local proxy to redirect banking traffic to forged sites.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Malware in the wildCVE-2014-0569CVE-2015-3133

MILE TEA: Cyber Espionage Campaign Targets Asia Pacific Businesses and Government Agencies

Unit 42 names MILE TEA, a cyber-espionage campaign since 2011 targeting Japanese and Taiwanese businesses and government agencies with e-ticket phishing lures and Elirks-family malware.

Unit 42 tracks the MILE TEA espionage campaign, observed as early as 2011, targeting Japanese trading, petroleum, and mobile companies, a Beijing office of a Japanese public organization, and a Taiwanese government agency. The primary infection vector is spear-phishing emails with attachments, mostly custom executable installers posing as flight e-tickets, dropping Elirks, Micrass, or Logedrut as initial bridgehead malware. Elirks and Logedrut retrieve encrypted C2 addresses from attacker-posted blog articles, decoded with Base64 and TEA or DES ciphers. The campaign's focus shifted from Taiwan to Japan around 2013.

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

Banking Trojans: Ursnif Global Distribution Networks Identified

Unit 42 maps banking-trojan distribution networks: spam botnets push Shiotob downloaders and Ursnif, KINS, Tinba at Japan and European targets via compromised web servers.

Unit 42 identified the distribution networks behind banking trojan attacks against Japan, Italy, Spain, Poland, Australia, and Germany. A spam botnet delivered 75 unique Shiotob (Bebloh/URLZone) variants across 7 million spam emails, with Shiotob acting mainly as a downloader that installs Ursnif and the Pushdo spam bot from C2 commands. Over 200 malicious files were hosted on 74 compromised, mostly European small-business web servers between April 2015 and January 2017, with localized invoice and photo-themed email lures per target country.

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

“Tick” Group Continues Attacks

Unit 42 tracks the Tick espionage group attacking Korean and Japanese defense and high-tech targets with Daserf, Minzen, 9002, Invader, and custom Gh0st RAT variants.

The Tick group has conducted long-running espionage attacks against organizations in the Republic of Korea and Japan, focusing on defense and high-tech companies holding intellectual property, and repeatedly attacked one high-profile Japanese target for three years. Unit 42 links the Daserf backdoor, the 9002 RAT, and the Invader backdoor through shared C2 infrastructure used between July 2012 and April 2013. Minzen samples install a "NamelessHdoor" backdoor derived from publicly available code over a decade old, modified with ReflectiveDLLLoader DLL injection, and the group also uses custom Gh0st RAT variants. Tick has shifted from privacy-protected domain registration to compromised websites for C2 infrastructure.

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

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 42 · Aug 17, 2026Threat actor in the wildCVE-2015-2545CVE-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 42 · Aug 17, 2026Threat actor in the wildCVE-2017-11882

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.

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

New Malware 'Rover' Targets Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan

Unit 42 reports a spearphishing attack delivering the custom Rover Trojan to India's Ambassador to Afghanistan, exploiting CVE-2010-3333 in Word.

On December 24, 2015, Unit 42 identified a targeted spearphishing email spoofing Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, sent to India's Ambassador to Afghanistan. The RTF attachment exploited CVE-2010-3333 in Microsoft Word to download a downloader from newsumbrella.net, which retrieved the Rover Trojan and DLL plugins from 46.166.165.254. Rover uses OpenCV for webcam capture, OpenAL for audio recording and libsndfile for audio files, with data exfiltration over its C2 channel; separate payload versions target Windows XP and later systems.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Threat actor in the wildCVE-2010-3333

Tracking Elirks Variants in Japan: Similarities to Previous Attacks

Unit 42 links new Elirks backdoor variants attacking Japanese organizations to 2012 Taiwan attacks, delivered via spear-phishing PDFs exploiting Adobe Flash CVE-2011-0611.

Unit 42 analyzed new Elirks backdoor variants found in an attack on a Japanese business, noting strong similarities to 2012 attacks on Taiwanese ministries. The backdoor retrieves its C2 address from attacker-created accounts on Japanese blog and SNS services. Recent deliveries used an airline e-ticket lure named "E-TKT" with a PDF exploiting Adobe Flash CVE-2011-0611. Shared infrastructure and tactics with the Scarlet Mimic campaign suggest possible ongoing cyber espionage across East Asia.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 2026Threat actor in the wildCVE-2011-0611

UBoatRAT Navigates East Asia

Unit 42 discovers UBoatRAT, a new custom RAT targeting South Korean and video-game industry personnel, delivered via Google Drive with GitHub-based C2 and BITS persistence.

Unit 42 identified UBoatRAT, a new custom remote access trojan first found in May 2017, whose initial version used a public Hong Kong blog service and a compromised Japanese web server for command and control. The latest variants target personnel or organizations related to South Korea or the video games industry, are delivered through Google Drive, and masquerade as Microsoft Word, Excel, or folder icons. The RAT checks for virtualization software and domain join, retrieves its C2 address from a Base64-encoded string in a GitHub-hosted file, uses a custom XOR-encrypted C2 protocol, and maintains persistence via Windows Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) jobs that survive reboots.

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

Tick Group Weaponized Secure USB Drives to Target Air

Unit 42 says the Tick group weaponized South Korean certified secure USB drives with SymonLoader malware to reach air-gapped Windows XP systems.

Unit 42 discovered that the Tick cyberespionage group, which targets Japan and South Korea, compromised an ITSCC-certified secure USB drive made by a South Korean defense company and used a new loader named SymonLoader to extract a hidden executable from these drives. SymonLoader only infects Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, suggesting deliberate targeting of legacy air-gapped systems used by government and defense organizations. The group also delivered HomamDownloader and SymonLoader via Trojanized Korean and Japanese software sent as spearphishing attachments. Unit 42 believes the attacks occurred multiple years ago and that this malware is not part of an active campaign.

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

Bisonal Malware Used in Attacks Against Russia and South Korea

Unit 42 details a Bisonal malware variant, active since 2014, targeting Russian and South Korean defense organizations via PDF-disguised spearphishing emails.

In early May, Unit 42 discovered a campaign delivering a Bisonal malware variant against at least one Russian communications security and cryptography company and one unidentified organization in South Korea. The variant, in the wild since at least 2014, introduces a new C2 cipher and rewritten networking and persistence code, with only 14 samples collected to date. Attackers spoofed Russian state corporation Rostec in spearphishing emails carrying an executable disguised with a PDF icon; the dropper decrypts an RC4-encrypted DLL and establishes persistence via a registry Run key. Bisonal has been used since 2013 against government, military, and defense targets in South Korea, Russia, Japan, and India, alongside successors Bioazih and Dexbia.

Palo Alto Unit 42 · Aug 17, 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

Tracking OceanLotus’ new Downloader, KerrDown

Unit 42 identifies KerrDown, a new OceanLotus (APT32) downloader active since 2018 targeting Vietnamese speakers via malicious macros and DLL side-loading.

Unit 42 tracks KerrDown, a previously undocumented downloader family used by OceanLotus (APT32) since at least early 2018, primarily targeting Vietnam or Vietnamese-speaking individuals. Delivery uses macro-laced Microsoft Office documents embedding base64-encoded 32-bit and 64-bit DLLs, and RAR archives containing a legitimate program abused for DLL side-loading. KerrDown is dropped as main_background.png, downloads a DES-encrypted payload from a URL, and executes it directly in memory. Researchers used Jaccard-index similarity analysis to identify the new family, connect campaign samples, and infer patterns in the group's working hours and days.

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

Afraidgate: Major Exploit Kit Campaign Swaps Locky Ransomware for CryptXXX

Unit 42 reports the Afraidgate campaign switched from Nuclear EK delivering Locky to Angler EK delivering CryptXXX via the Bedep downloader.

Unit 42 reported that the Afraidgate campaign, which uses gates registered through FreeDNS at afraid.org, switched in mid-April 2016 from Nuclear EK distributing Locky ransomware to Angler EK distributing CryptXXX. The Angler/Bedep/CryptXXX combination also spread from the pseudo-Darkleech campaign, with Bedep acting as a fileless, memory-resident downloader that also installs click-fraud malware. Recent Bedep updates detect virtual machines and alter behavior, complicating analyst investigation. Unit 42 published gate, EK, and post-infection indicators including gate IP 185.118.164.42 and associated domains.

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