GINC-APT-0878 · State

Operation SalmonSlalom

Category
State · Attributed to a state or working for one.
Origin
China(high confidence)
Motivation
Information theft and espionage
Seen
2025
Sources
3 sources carry it
Identifier
GINC-APT-0878 · operation-salmonslalom

What it is

(Kaspersky) A Kaspersky ICS CERT investigation uncovered a cyberthreat specifically targeting various industrial organizations in the Asia-Pacific region. The threat was orchestrated by attackers using legitimate Chinese cloud content delivery network (CDN) myqcloud and the Youdao Cloud Notes service as part of their attack infrastructure. The attackers employed a sophisticated multi-stage payload delivery framework to ensure evasion of detection. Their techniques included the use of a native file hosting CDN, publicly available packers for sample encryption, dynamic changes in command and control (C2) addresses, a CDN hosting the payload, and the use of DLL sideloading.

Attribution

Each attribution is a claim: who makes it, and to whom. Western and Eastern sources are kept apart, as they often disagree.

Western sources

Targets

Countries
China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam
Sectors
Construction, Financial, Government, Healthcare, IT, Manufacturing, Telecommunications

Tools

The tools and malware families the sources tie to it.

  • FatalRAT

Sources