Operation Tainted Love | Chinese APTs Target Telcos in New Attacks

By Aleksandar Milenkoski, Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, and Joey Chen, in collaboration with QGroup

Executive Summary

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  In Q1 of 2023, SentinelLabs observed initial phases of attacks against telecommunication providers in the Middle East.
  


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  We assess that this activity represents an evolution of tooling associated with Operation Soft Cell.
  


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  While it is highly likely that the threat actor is a Chinese cyberespionage group in the nexus of Gallium and APT41, the exact grouping remains unclear.
  


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  SentinelLabs observed the use of a well-maintained, …

actor apt41 apts attacks chen chinese collaboration cyberespionage executive gallium love malware analysis middle east nexus operation soft cell qgroup sentinellabs target telecommunication telecommunication providers threat threat actor tooling