Undiplomatic Chinese threat actor attacks embassies and foreign affairs departments
Infosec outfit Checkpoint says it's spotted a Chinese actor targeting diplomatic facilities around Europe.
Checkpoint has dubbed the campaign"SmugX" thanks to its use of HTML smuggling to deploy the PlugX remote access trojan.HTML smuggling is a method of attack that places malicious artefacts in a web page, so that they download when a human visits the site. It can be an effective attack because defenses don't focus on finding threats in traffic to browsers.
Those documents were not what they seemed: clicking on the files set in train a process that installed the PlugX malware a victim machine, meaning attackers can gain access to that box. PlugX phones home using RC4 encryption to mask its output. Checkpoint asserts that the lure documents listed above, and some tradecraft, suggest the aim of the attack is to find juicy info from inside embassies and departments of foreign affairs. The firm has seen the attack deployed in Ukraine, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, and the UK, with sideswipes on France and Sweden.
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