Latest cybersecurity reporting from selected sources.

Chinese-Linked Malware Campaign Targets Critical Environments With Weak MonitoringU.S. and Canadian cyber authorities say Chinese state-backed actors used a backdoor dubbed BRICKSTORM to maintain long-term access into critical infrastructure, exploiting VMware environments to exfiltrate credentials and evade detection through encrypted covert channels.

Researchers Uncover Covert Chinese Access to US Service Provider InfrastructureMandiant said it has tracked a Chinese-linked espionage campaign using BRICKSTORM malware to quietly embed within U.S. infrastructure and service providers for over a year, exploiting appliance-level blind spots to maintain persistence, evade detection and potentially develop zero-day exploits.

Threat Actors Deploy Obfuscation Tactics to Targets Windows MachinesLikely Chinese nation-state hackers are targeting European companies using previously unseen malware backdoor variants with advanced network tunneling and evasion capabilities for data theft. Brussels-based security firm Nviso links the campaign to a threat actor tracked as UNC5221.

'Weaver Ant' Used Web Shell Tunneling and Hacked Routers to Evade DetectionAn apparently Chinese cyber espionage operation lurked inside the network of an Asian telecom for four years, camouflaging its presence through nested encryption and lightweight web shells. Chinese hackers have been uncovered on the inside of telecom networks spanning the globe.

DeepSeek Comes Very Close to Producing a Keylogger and RansomwareSecurity researchers used the Chinese DeepSeek-R1 artificial intelligence reasoning model to come close to developing ransomware variants and keyloggers with evasion capabilities. The model needs prompt engineering and its output requires code editing.

Mustang Panda Uses MAVInject to Evade Antivirus DetectionA Chinese state-sponsored hacking group is abusing a legitimate Microsoft tool to evade security and install backdoors on government systems in the Asia-Pacific region. The threat actor uses MAVInject.exe to inject malware into waitfor.exe.

Chinese Threat Actor 'Velvet Ant' Evaded Detection for Years in Victim NetworkA Chinese threat actor used state-sponsored techniques to carry out a cyberespionage campaign targeting a major organization's networks after exploiting legacy technology to gain multiple footholds across the enterprise infrastructure, researchers said in a Monday blog post.