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Patchwork, also known as Dropping Elephant and Chinastrats, is a cyber-espionage threat actor associated with sustained targeting of high-profile diplomatic and economic entities connected to China’s foreign relations. The group has been active since at least 2015 and is known for relying on effective social engineering and established exploitation methods rather than zero-day capabilities. Patchwork commonly gains initial access through spear-phishing and watering-hole operations. Its phishing activity has used politically themed lures and malicious Microsoft Office documents, including exploitation of CVE-2012-0158 and, in some cases, CVE-2014-6352. Observed post-exploitation tradecraft includes deployment of an AutoIT-based backdoor, staged payload delivery through PowerShell, periodic command-and-control beaconing, collection of host information, theft of browser credentials, and exfiltration of office documents and PDFs. The actor has also demonstrated defense-evasion and operational resilience through command-and-control indirection, including hiding encrypted next-hop control information within comments on legitimate websites. This technique complicates infrastructure tracking and takedown efforts while supporting continued access to compromised environments. Overall, Patchwork is characterized by pragmatic espionage operations focused on stealing sensitive information from government-linked and strategically relevant targets in Asia.
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Active in the region; generally described as less technically advanced and focused on regional government/military targets.
Dropping Elephant is conducting cyber-espionage campaigns primarily targeting diplomatic and economic entities involved in China's foreign relations. The group uses spear-phishing and watering hole attacks, leveraging old vulnerabilities and social engineering to steal sensitive documents and data from high-profile victims in the Asian region.
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