December 2025 APT Group Trends
2026-01-19 • Ahnlab •
North Korean state-sponsored groups are described as expanding hybrid intrusion models that combine fake IT employment schemes, remote-work abuse, and malware delivery changes. Famous Chollima targeted U.S. and Western companies through fraudulent remote worker personas, GitHub pull-request outreach, identity theft, AI-assisted hiring tools, VPN location masking, and persistent AnyDesk or Google Remote Desktop access. A related case describes fake remote employees using PiKVM hardware to bypass EDR and maintain covert access to corporate networks, with Microsoft Incident Response linking the activity to Jasper Sleet. The excerpt also reports Lazarus distribution of a malicious Pharos RAR archive exploiting CVE-2025-8088 in WinRAR to place a startup BAT file, run a Python loader, and deploy Blank Grabber against browser credentials, messaging sessions, and cryptocurrency wallets.
Indicators of Compromise
| Type | Value | First Seen | Last Seen |
|---|---|---|---|
| HASH | e73e1cca5af2ee80c3037daa1dbd2ab1 | 2026-01-19 | 2026-01-19 |