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Cisco Talos identified UAT-11587, a China-nexus espionage cluster active from at least September 2025 through July 2026, targeting government, security, diplomatic, legislative, policy, academic and civil-society organizations across Asia. The campaign targeted or affected at least 16 institutional environments and roughly 350 endpoints in Taiwan, India, the Philippines, Cambodia, Pakistan, Thailand, Myanmar and Syria.
The group used tailored spear-phishing, sender spoofing and topical decoys, including fake Gmail attachment widgets, to deliver a previously undocumented Rust-based Windows backdoor named Antino. Cloudflare-hosted infrastructure supported payload staging, victim tracking and delivery of HTA or WSF stagers; the multi-stage chain decrypted loaders in memory, abused .NET BinaryFormatter gadget chains, and DLL-side-loaded Antino via Microsoft-signed GatherOsState.exe. Antino enables reconnaissance, command and PowerShell execution, file transfer, in-memory shellcode loading and Registry Run-key persistence, while using Microsoft Graph as dead-drop C2 by polling Outlook for commands and OneDrive for telemetry, payload distribution and exfiltration, helping its traffic blend with legitimate Microsoft 365 activity.
TTPs, infrastructure, and targeting history in one profile.
4 events from the most recent confirmed update back to the earliest known activity.
By July, Talos had identified at least 10 confirmed and five probable affected institutional environments, plus one intended target, across eight countries. The campaign had compromised approximately 350 endpoints.
The largest observed activity wave continued, with the June 8–9 activity accounting for approximately 57 newly observed India-associated endpoints.
Talos identified approximately 57 newly observed India-associated endpoints during the campaign's largest observed activity wave.
Cisco Talos first observed UAT-11587 conducting a cyber-espionage campaign against government, policy, security, diplomatic, academic, and civil-society organizations across Asia. The cluster used spear-phishing and Antino, a Rust-based Windows backdoor.
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Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 reported that the Chinese-speaking intrusion cluster **CL-STA-1062**, assessed with high confidence to overlap with Cisco Talos' **UAT-7237**, conducted sustained operations across East and Southeast Asia from at least 2022 through 2025. In 2025, the group targeted Southeast Asian government entities and state-owned critical energy infrastructure, using web application exploitation, **ASPX web shells**, reconnaissance, lateral movement, and data exfiltration to maintain access and steal information. Investigators said the actors combined open-source tooling including **SoftEther VPN**, **VNT**, **yuze**, **Mimikatz**, and **JuicyPotato** with a newly documented custom .NET backdoor, **TinyRCT**. The malware supports command execution, file listing and exfiltration, screenshot capture, encrypted HTTP-based command-and-control, and a self-destruct feature intended to erase forensic evidence. Unit 42 also reconstructed an infection chain in which a malicious `chrome_setup.zip` archive used **AppDomainManager Injection** to load a malicious DLL, download `PerfWatson2.exe` from attacker infrastructure, and establish persistence through a scheduled task.
Aug 11, 2026
Cisco Talos disclosed that **UAT-7290**, a threat actor active since at least 2022 and assessed with high confidence as part of the **China-nexus APT ecosystem**, has conducted sustained intrusions against high-value **telecommunications and critical infrastructure** organizations in **South Asia**, with more recent activity extending into **Southeastern Europe**. The group reportedly performs extensive pre-attack reconnaissance, then compromises public-facing edge devices through **one-day exploits**, proof-of-concept exploit adaptation, and **target-specific SSH brute force**, seeking deep and persistent access inside strategically important telecom environments. Researchers said the actor relies heavily on a **Linux-focused malware** toolkit that includes **RushDrop**, **DriveSwitch**, **SilentRaid**, and **Bulbature**, alongside overlaps with **RedLeaves** and **ShadowPad** and activity previously associated with **Red Foxtrot/APT10**. Talos assessed that UAT-7290 appears to serve a dual role: carrying out espionage while also acting as an **initial access provider** that converts compromised devices into **Operational Relay Box (ORB)** nodes for possible use by other China-linked operators. SilentRaid supports modular capabilities such as remote shell access, file management, and port forwarding, while Bulbature was tied to ORB infrastructure through a self-signed certificate observed on at least **141 hosts** in **China or Hong Kong**, reinforcing the attribution assessment.
Jun 29, 2026
Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 reported a **previously undocumented Chinese threat actor**, tracked as **CL-UNK-1068**, conducting a multi-year intrusion campaign (observed since at least 2020) against high-value organizations across **South, Southeast, and East Asia**. Targeted sectors include **aviation, energy, government, law enforcement, pharmaceutical, technology, and telecommunications**, with Unit 42 assessing **moderate-to-high confidence** that the primary objective is **cyber espionage** (while not fully ruling out criminal motives). The assessment cites tool provenance, linguistic artifacts in configurations, and consistent long-term targeting of Asian critical infrastructure as key factors supporting attribution. The activity features exploitation of **internet-facing web servers** to deploy **web shells** and establish persistence across both Windows and Linux environments, using a mix of custom malware, modified open-source tools, and **living-off-the-land binaries (LOLBINs)**. Reported tooling includes **Godzilla** and **ANTSWORD** web shells, the **Xnote** Linux backdoor, and **Fast Reverse Proxy (FRP)** for tunneling/relay; post-compromise behavior includes lateral movement and targeted file theft from Windows web servers (e.g., `c:\inetpub\wwwroot`) focusing on files such as `web.config`, `.aspx`, `.asmx`, `.asax`, and `.dll`, consistent with credential access and follow-on exploitation discovery.
Jun 29, 2026