A team of researchers have analysed the development of new and existing campaigns, and have unveiled Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) trends for the second quarter of 2023. An APT is a type of hacking in which a stealthy threat actor gains unauthorised access to a computer network and remains undetected for a long period of time.

According to Kaspersky‘s latest report on Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) trends, APT activity during this period include the updating of toolsets, the creation of new malware variants and the adoption of fresh techniques by threat actors.

A new revelation was the exposure of the long-running “Operation Triangulation” campaign involving the use of a previously unknown iOS malware platform. Experts also observed other developments that they believe everyone should be aware of.

Key highlights from the report
Asia-Pacific witnesses a new threat actor – Mysterious Elephant: Kaspersky claims that there is a new threat actor, dubbed “Mysterious Elephant”, that belongs to the Elephants family and is operating in the Asia-Pacific region. In their latest campaign, the threat actor employed new backdoor families, capable of executing files and commands on the victim’s computer, and receiving files or commands from a malicious server for execution on the infected system.
Lazarus’ develops new malware variant: The report said that the threat actors are constantly improving their techniques, with Lazarus upgrading its MATA framework and introducing a new variant of the sophisticated MATA malware family, MATAv5.

BlueNoroff, a financial attack-focused subgroup of Lazarus, now employs new delivery methods and programming languages, including the use of Trojanised PDF readers in recent campaigns, the implementation of macOS malware, and the Rust programming language.
Geopolitical influences a primary driver: APT campaigns remain geographically dispersed, with actors concentrating their attacks on regions such as Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and various parts of Asia. Cyber-espionage, with a solid geopolitical backdrop, continues to be a dominant agenda for these endeavours, the report said.