5 posts
Sekoia's Threat Detection & Research team details the two-decade evolution of APT28's tradecraft, highlighting a strategic shift from monolithic implants to disposable, single-purpose tools and compromised edge-router infrastructure. Recent operations demonstrate a return to custom cloud-resident backdoors and novel experimentation with LLM-driven infostealers.
ESET's Q4 2025–Q1 2026 APT Activity Report highlights global espionage and destructive campaigns by state-aligned actors. Notable incidents include a major supply chain compromise of the 'axios' npm library by Lazarus, destructive wiper attacks on Polish critical infrastructure by Sandworm, and the deployment of new edge-device implants like PhiliKit against Ivanti VPNs by China-aligned groups.
In Q1 2026, vulnerability registrations continued to rise, heavily influenced by AI-assisted discovery tools. Threat actors and APT groups actively exploited a mix of legacy and newly discovered vulnerabilities across Windows, Linux, and Microsoft Office, frequently utilizing C2 frameworks like Metasploit and Sliver to bypass authentication and gain initial access.
Sekoia TDR details their methodology for automating .NET malware analysis, focusing on an obfuscated Covenant Grunt implant used by APT28. The researchers demonstrate how to programmatically decrypt strings and decompile code using pythonnet and dnlib, culminating in the release of RePythonNET-MCP, a tool that enables AI-assisted reverse engineering and configuration extraction.
The Sednit threat group (APT28) has deployed a modernized espionage toolkit targeting Ukrainian military personnel. The toolkit consists of custom implants SlimAgent and BeardShell, alongside a heavily modified version of the Covenant framework, utilizing legitimate cloud storage providers for resilient Command and Control (C&C).
