May 22, 2024 at 09:32AM
“Unfading Sea Haze,” a previously unknown threat actor, is targeting military and government entities in the South China Sea region, displaying alignment with Chinese geo-political interests. Their attacks involve abusing MSBuild for fileless malware and deploying various tools such as custom keyloggers and info-stealers. To counter these attacks, organizations require a multifaceted security approach.
Based on the meeting notes, the key takeaways are:
1. The threat actor “Unfading Sea Haze” has been targeting military and government entities in the South China Sea region since 2018, aligning with Chinese geo-political interests and focusing on intelligence collection and espionage.
2. The attack methods involve spear-phishing emails with malicious ZIP archives, fileless malware abuse through MSBuild, and the deployment of various tools such as keyloggers, information stealers, and Gh0stRAT variants.
3. Unfading Sea Haze’s attack strategy encompasses tactics for stealth, persistence, and adaptability, including the use of commercial Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) tools, scheduled task manipulation, and data exfiltration techniques.
4. To mitigate these attacks, organizations should consider a multifaceted security strategy involving patch management, MFA adoption, network segmentation, traffic monitoring, and the deployment of state-of-the-art detection and response products.
These takeaways highlight the severity and sophistication of the Unfading Sea Haze threat and emphasize the importance of comprehensive security measures to defend against such attacks.