SideWinder APT Targets Nepal, Afghanistan in Wide-Ranging Spy Campaign

guest · Dec 9, 2020

SideWinder APT Targets Nepal, Afghanistan in Wide-Ranging Spy Campaign
Convincing email-credentials phishing, emailed backdoors and mobile apps
December 9, 2020
https://threatpost.com/sidewinder-apt-nepal-afghanistan-spy-campaign/162086/

The SideWinder advanced persistent threat (APT) group has mounted a fresh phishing and malware initiative, using recent territory disputes between China, India, Nepal and Pakistan as lures. The goal is to gather sensitive information from its targets, mainly located in Nepal and Afghanistan.

According to an analysis, SideWinder typically targets victims in South Asia and surroundings – and this latest campaign is no exception. The targets here include multiple government and military units for countries in the region researchers said [...]
Click to expand...

Espionage Effort
The campaign also includes a malware element, with malicious documents delivered via email that are bent on installing a cyberespionage-aimed backdoor. And, there was evidence that the group is planning a mobile launch to compromise wireless devices.

“We identified a server used to deliver a malicious .lnk file and host multiple credential-phishing pages,” wrote researchers, in a Wednesday posting. “We also found multiple Android APK files on their phishing server. While some of them are benign, we also discovered malicious files created with Metasploit.”
Click to expand...

Trend Micro: SideWinder Leverages South Asian Territorial Issues for Spear Phishing and Mobile Device Attacks

SideWinder has been very active in 2020. Earlier this year, we published a report on how the SideWinder APT group used the Binder exploit to attack mobile devices. The group also launched attacks against Pakistan, Bangladesh, and China using lure files related to Covid-19.
Conclusion
As seen with their phishing attacks and their mobile device tools’ continuous development, SideWinder is very proactive in using trending topics like Covid-19 or various political issues as a social engineering technique to compromise their targets.
Click to expand...

Log in or Sign up

SideWinder APT Targets Nepal, Afghanistan in Wide-Ranging Spy Campaign

guest Guest

Log in or Sign up

SideWinder APT Targets Nepal, Afghanistan in Wide-Ranging Spy Campaign

guest Guest

Useful Searches