Security researchers have uncovered a sophisticated cyber espionage operation deploying two previously undocumented malware families, OctLurk and SilkLurk, targeting government and public-sector organizations across Central Asia and the Middle East. Both modular backdoors utilize victim-specific decryption mechanisms, extensive obfuscation, and in-memory execution to evade detection. The malware enables credential theft, remote access, network reconnaissance, and plugin-based expansion. Operations began in January 2025, affecting entities in Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Syria, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Victims include government offices, foreign affairs ministries, law enforcement agencies, healthcare providers, logistics organizations, research institutions, urban planning facilities, and educational establishments. Attackers deployed additional tools including Impacket's SecretsDump, Browser Password Decryptor, Pandora RC, Fscan, WinRAR, 7-Zip, and PlugX. A companion utility, LurkProxy, proxies a
Unknown attackers conducted a five-month espionage campaign against a senior executive at a major global stock exchange, systematically stealing the victim's Outlook mailbox in incremental batches. The attackers demonstrated sophisticated operational discipline by using legitimate cloud services like Dropbox and OneDrive Personal for exfiltration and command-and-control infrastructure. They employed an Aspose-based mailbox stealer to extract OST files in date-range windows, beginning with historical emails from August 2025 and continuing with regular two-to-four-week intervals through February 2026. The intrusion maintained persistence through masquerading binaries and scheduled tasks themed around legitimate Adobe and Lenovo services. By extracting mailbox data incrementally and routing traffic through trusted cloud platforms, the attackers avoided detection while building a comprehensive intelligence picture of the executive's communications and organizational activities.
