Chinese hackers target European embassies with HTML smuggling technique
Chinese cyber spies have been targeting the foreign affairs ministries and embassies of European states in recent months, according to new research.
The espionage campaign “represents a larger trend within the Chinese ecosystem, pointing to a shift to targeting European entities, with a focus on their foreign policy,” researchers from Check Point said Monday.
The hackers were spotted using a new delivery method to deploy the modular PlugX malware implant, effectively smuggling it inside HTML documents, something which Check Point warned had “until recently helped the campaign fly under the radar.” Samples of lures posted to the VirusTotal malware repository had filenames that “strongly suggest that the intended victims were diplomats and government entities,” according to Check Point, while the lure material itself “contained diplomatic-related content,” which “in more than one case … was directly related to China.”
