Subscribers to a Tibetan Government-in-Exile mailing list were targeted in a recent email-based phishing campaign designed to infect them with a remote access trojan.

Dubbed ExileRAT, the trojan is capable of gathering system information, retrieving and pushing files, and executing and ending various processes, according to a blog post from Cisco Systems' Talos division, whose researchers uncovered the cyber espionage operation.

An analysis of the campaign revealed ExileRAT shares a command-and-control infrastructure with LuckyCat, an older RAT attributed to a suspected Chinese APT group that goes by the same name. Historically, the LuckyCat trojan has been used to spy on pro-Tibetan activists and sympathizers via their Android and Windows devices.

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Topics:

APT Cyber Espionage Cybercrime Malware Phishing