Hackers attack Middle East experts of US thinktanks

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A nebulous group nicknamed "DEEP PANDA" by security researchers is said to be behind a targeted hack of Middle East-based employees of US think tanks.

According to a Crowdstrike blog post, the attacks happened as the situation in Iraq and the Middle East took a turn for the worse. It highlights June 18 as the date the individual attacks started as ISIS attacked the Balji Oil refinery.

The company's co-founder and CTO, Dmitri Alperovitch, claims that DEEP PANDA has ties with the Chinese government (calling it a nation-state cyber intrusion group) and that the shift of direction is a clear indication that China is keen to know what other parties involved in the region are likely to do.

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Crowdstrike says that DEEP PANDA uses powershell scripts to fool any traditional security application that may reside on the victim's computer.

They then inject the MadHatter .NET Remote Access Tool, a RAT that runs from the system's memory and doesn't need to be initalled on the system's drive.

According to Alperovitch, DEEP PANDA "presents a very serious threat not just to think tanks, but also multinational financial institutions, law firms, defense contractors, and government agencies" and that the renewed interest on cash-strapped, well-connected not-for-profit organisations can only be a worrying sign.

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