More information has come to light on the cyberattack disclosed this week by F5, including on attribution and potential risks.

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For more than a year, hackers from a Chinese state-backed espionage group maintained backdoor access to a popular software mapping tool by turning one of its own features into a webshell, according to new research from ReliaQuest.

In a report published Tuesday, researchers said that Flax Typhoon — a group that has been spying on entities in the U.S., Europe and Taiwan since at least 2021 — has had access for more than a year to a private ArcGIS server. To achieve and maintain that access, the group leveraged “an unusually clever attack chain” that allowed them to both blend in with normal traffic and maintain access even if the victim tried to restore their system from backups.

ArcGIS, made by Esri, is one of the most popular software programs for geospatial mapping and used widely by both private organizations and government agencies. Like many programs, however, it relies on backend servers and various other technical infrastructure to fully function.

For example, many ArcGIS users will use what is known as a Server Object Extension (SOE), which allows you to create service operations to extend the base functionality of map or image services” and implement custom code, according to ArcGIS documentation.

The attackers found a public-facing ArcGIS server connected to another private backend server used by the program to perform computations. They compromised a portal administrator account for the backend server and deployed a malicious extension, instructing the public-facing server to create a hidden directory to serve as the group’s “private workspace.” They also locked off access to others with a hardcoded key and maintained access long enough for the flaw to be included in the system’s backup files.

In doing so, the Chinese hackers effectively weaponized ArcGIS, turning it into a webshell to launch further attacks, and mostly did so using the software program’s own internal processes and functionality.

ReliaQuest researchers wrote that by structuring their requests to appear as routine system operations, they were able to evade detection tools, while the hardcoded key “prevented other attackers, or even curious admins, from tampering with its access.”

Infecting the backups, meanwhile, gave Flax Typhoon an insurance plan if their presence ultimately was discovered.

“By ensuring the compromised component was included in system backups, they turned the organization’s own recovery plan into a guaranteed method of reinfection,” ReliaQuest researchers claimed. “This tactic turns a safety net into a liability, meaning incident response teams must now treat backups not as failsafe, but as a potential vector for reinfection.”

This continues a consistent trend around Flax Typhoon’s behavior observed by researchers: the group’s propensity for quietly turning an organization’s own tools against itself rather than using sophisticated malware or exploits.

In 2023, Microsoft’s threat intelligence team detailed what it described as Flax Typhoon’s “distinctive” pattern of cyber-enabled espionage. The group was observed achieving long-term access to “dozens” of organizations in Taiwan “with minimal use of malware, relying on tools built into the operating system, along with some normally benign software to quietly remain in these networks.”

Earlier this year, the U.S. Treasury Department placed economic sanctions on Integrity Technology Group, a Beijing company the agency says has provided technical support and infrastructure for Flax Typhoon cyberattacks, including operating a massive botnet taken down by the FBI last year.

That may be why ReliaQuest researchers emphasized that the true threat revealed by their research isn’t about Esri or any specific vendor or their product. The real worry is that most enterprise software relies on the same kind of third-party applications and extensions that Flax Typhoon exploited to hijack an ArcGIS server. The same vulnerability exists wherever an external tool needs access that can be turned against the user when compromised.

“When a vendor has to rewrite its own security guidelines, it proves the flawed belief that customers treat every public-facing tool as a high-risk asset,” they wrote. “This attack is a wake-up call: Any entry point with backend access must be treated as a top-tier priority, no matter how routine or trusted.”

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The company said there is no evidence that confidential client data was stolen from its systems.

The post Chinese Hackers Breached Law Firm Williams & Connolly via Zero-Day appeared first on SecurityWeek.

BIETA and its subsidiary CIII research develop and sell technologies supporting China’s intelligence, counterintelligence, and military operations.

The post Security Firm Exposes Role of Beijing Research Institute in China’s Cyber Operations appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Focused on espionage, the threat actor shares infrastructure with Chinese APTs, but uses different TTPs in attacks.

The post Chinese APT ‘Phantom Taurus’ Targeting Organizations With Net-Star Malware appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Impacting VMware Aria Operations and VMware Tools, the flaw can be exploited to elevate privileges on the VM.

The post Broadcom Fails to Disclose Zero-Day Exploitation of VMware Vulnerability appeared first on SecurityWeek.

RedNovember has been targeting government, defense and aerospace, and legal services organizations worldwide.

The post Chinese Cyberspies Hacked US Defense Contractors appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Google’s Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant link the BrickStorm campaign to UNC5221, warning that hackers are analyzing stolen code to weaponize zero-day vulnerabilities.

The post Chinese Hackers Lurked Nearly 400 Days in Networks With Stealthy BrickStorm Malware appeared first on SecurityWeek.

The campaign targeted US government, think tank, and academic entities involved in US-China relations, international trade, and economic policy.

The post Details Emerge on Chinese Hacking Operation Impersonating US Lawmaker appeared first on SecurityWeek.

A Russian nation-state threat group has been spying on foreign diplomats, managing continuous access to their  communications and data in Moscow since at least 2024, according to Microsoft Threat Intelligence.

Secret Blizzard is gaining “adversary-in-the-middle” positions on Russian internet service providers and telecom networks by likely leveraging surveillance tools and deploying malware on targeted devices, researchers said in a report released Thursday. 

Microsoft’s discovery marks the first time its researchers have confirmed with high confidence that Secret Blizzard has capabilities at the ISP level, a degree of access that combines passive surveillance and an active intrusion. 

“It’s a shift, or a kind of movement, toward the evolution of simply watching traffic to actively modifying network traffic in order to get into those targeted systems,” Sherrod DeGrippo, director of threat intelligence strategy at Microsoft, told CyberScoop. 

Secret Blizzard — also known as Turla, Pensive Ursa or Waterbug — is affiliated with Center 16 of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and has been active for decades.

The Russian nation-state group is “the classic definition of what you think of when you think of advanced persistent threat: creative, persistent, well resourced, highly organized, able to execute projects, able to execute actions on objectives,” DeGrippo said. “Ultimately, I think that the key word is creative.”

Secret Blizzard is gaining initial access to embassy employee devices by redirecting them to a malicious domain that displays a certificate validation error after targeted victims access a state-aligned network through a captive portal, according to Microsoft.

The error prompts and tricks embassy employees into downloading root certificates falsely branded as Kaspersky Anti-Virus software, which deploy ApolloShadow malware. The custom malware turns off traffic encryption, tricks the devices to recognize malicious sites as legitimate and enables Secret Blizzard to maintain persistent access to diplomatic devices for espionage. 

“This is an excellent piece of social engineering because it plays on habit, it plays on urgency, it plays on emotions, which are the three holy trinity of social engineering,” DeGrippo said. 

“You see this pop-up that’s telling you you have a security issue, and it’s branded as a security vendor. We’ve been seeing that capability for decades,” she said. “Simply clicking through and not examining and thinking about that, especially when on a state-aligned, state-owned network in one of these surveillance-heavy countries where the government has deep technical and legal controls over those ISPs — that infrastructure is now part of your attack surface.”

Microsoft declined to say how many embassies have been impacted, but noted the group is active. Intrusions linked to this politically motivated espionage campaign allow Secret Blizzard to view the majority of the target’s browsing in plain text, including certain tokens and credentials, researchers said in the report.

“This seems relatively simple, but it’s only made so simple by the likely leveraging of a lawful intercept capability,” DeGrippo said. “Relying on local infrastructure in these high-risk environments — China, Russia, North Korea, Iran — in these surveillance-heavy countries, is of concern.” 

Microsoft previously observed Secret Blizzard using tools from other cybercriminal groups to compromise targets in Ukraine, showing how the group uses various attack vectors and means to infiltrate networks of geopolitical interest to Russia.

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