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XenoRAT malware campaign targets South Korean embassies

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📰 3 unique sources, 4 articles

Summary

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A state-sponsored espionage campaign has targeted foreign embassies in South Korea with XenoRAT malware since March 2025. The attacks, involving at least 19 spearphishing attempts, use sophisticated techniques and contextual lures to deploy malware from GitHub and cloud storage services. The campaign's attribution remains uncertain, with indicators pointing to both North Korean and Chinese actors. The attackers leveraged GitHub as a covert command-and-control channel, and the campaign is assessed to be the work of a North Korean hacking group called Kimsuky, which was recently linked to phishing attacks that employ GitHub as a stager for an Xeno RAT known as MoonPeak. Despite the infrastructure and tactical overlaps, there are indications that the phishing attacks match China-based operatives. The malware, XenoRAT, is a powerful trojan capable of extensive surveillance and remote control. It is delivered through password-protected archives containing .LNK files, which execute obfuscated PowerShell scripts to download and execute the payload. The campaign's lures are highly contextual, multilingual, and timed to match real events, targeting European embassies with fake meeting invites and official letters. The attackers used GitHub repositories for command-and-control (C2) purposes, blending their espionage with normal network traffic. The attackers modified the text file containing the payload download instructions multiple times per hour, making the malware lifecycle harder to detect. The campaign's activity aligned with a Chinese work schedule, suggesting possible collaboration or masking as a Chinese operation. The attackers likely operated from or through China, benefiting from reliable hosting and weak enforcement. The North Korea-linked Kimsuky cyberthreat group has started using ChatGPT and other AI services to create images for fake identities to enhance social engineering attacks. The latest attack used deepfakes of South Korean military identification documents to target journalists, researchers, and human-rights activists. The attack targeted a defense-related institution and requested the targeted individuals review a draft of the identity documents. The social engineering attack is designed to make the recipient perceive the email content as personally or professionally relevant. The military IDs lend credibility to the phishing lure and are tailored to the target. The scheme relies heavily on social engineering, requiring the victim to click on a link, download a zip file, and open an LNK file to compromise their system. The attack included documents on economic issues in North Korea and a government investigations report on last year's crisis in South Korea. The threat researchers connected Kimsuky to the attacks through correlating specific threat indicators, including IP addresses and specific malware.

Timeline

  1. 17.09.2025 03:00 📰 1 articles · ⏱ 18h ago

    Kimsuky uses AI-generated deepfakes of South Korean military IDs

    The North Korea-linked Kimsuky cyberthreat group has started using ChatGPT and other AI services to create images for fake identities to enhance social engineering attacks. The latest attack used deepfakes of South Korean military identification documents to target journalists, researchers, and human-rights activists. The attack targeted a defense-related institution and requested the targeted individuals review a draft of the identity documents. The social engineering attack is designed to make the recipient perceive the email content as personally or professionally relevant. The military IDs lend credibility to the phishing lure and are tailored to the target. The scheme relies heavily on social engineering, requiring the victim to click on a link, download a zip file, and open an LNK file to compromise their system. The attack included documents on economic issues in North Korea and a government investigations report on last year's crisis in South Korea. The threat researchers connected Kimsuky to the attacks through correlating specific threat indicators, including IP addresses and specific malware.

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  2. 18.08.2025 22:38 📰 4 articles · ⏱ 29d ago

    XenoRAT malware campaign targets South Korean embassies since March 2025

    The attackers used GitHub repositories for command-and-control (C2) purposes, blending their espionage with normal network traffic. The attackers modified the text file containing the payload download instructions multiple times per hour, making the malware lifecycle harder to detect. The campaign's activity aligned with a Chinese work schedule, suggesting possible collaboration or masking as a Chinese operation. The attackers likely operated from or through China, benefiting from reliable hosting and weak enforcement. The North Korea-linked Kimsuky cyberthreat group has started using ChatGPT and other AI services to create images for fake identities to enhance social engineering attacks. The latest attack used deepfakes of South Korean military identification documents to target journalists, researchers, and human-rights activists. The attack targeted a defense-related institution and requested the targeted individuals review a draft of the identity documents. The social engineering attack is designed to make the recipient perceive the email content as personally or professionally relevant. The military IDs lend credibility to the phishing lure and are tailored to the target. The scheme relies heavily on social engineering, requiring the victim to click on a link, download a zip file, and open an LNK file to compromise their system. The attack included documents on economic issues in North Korea and a government investigations report on last year's crisis in South Korea. The threat researchers connected Kimsuky to the attacks through correlating specific threat indicators, including IP addresses and specific malware.

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