Cyber Security
ESET Research Investigates Donot Team

ESET researchers have uncovered recent campaigns and an updated threat arsenal of the infamous APT group Donot Team (also known as APT-C-35 and SectorE02). According to research findings, the group is very persistent and has consistently targeted the same organizations for at least the last two years. For this research, ESET monitored Donot Team for more than a year from September 2020 to October 2021.
According to ESET telemetry, the APT group focuses on a small number of targets primarily in South Asia — Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Nepal. However, targeting embassies of these countries in other regions, such as the Middle East, Europe, North America, and Latin America, is not outside the group’s realm. These attacks are focused on government and military organizations, Ministries of Foreign Affairs, and embassies and are motivated by cyberespionage.
Donot Team is a threat actor operating since at least 2016 that is known for targeting organizations and individuals in South Asia with Windows and Android malware. A recent report by Amnesty International links the group’s malware to an Indian cybersecurity company that may be selling the spyware or offering a hackers-for-hire service to governments of the region.
“We have been closely following the activities of Donot Team, and have traced several campaigns that leverage Windows malware derived from the group’s signature yty malware framework,” says ESET researcher Facundo Muñoz, who led the investigation into the group’s activities.
The main purpose of the “yty” malware framework is to collect and exfiltrate data. The malicious framework consists of a chain of downloaders that ultimately download a backdoor with minimal functionality, used to download and execute further components of Donot Team’s toolset. These include file collectors based on the file extension and year of creation, screen capturers, keyloggers, reverse shells, and more.
According to ESET telemetry, Donot Team has been consistently targeting the same entities with waves of spearphishing emails every two to four months. The spearphishing emails have malicious Microsoft Office documents attached that the attackers use to deploy their malware.
Interestingly, the emails that ESET researchers were able to retrieve and analyze did not show signs of spoofing. “Some emails were sent from the same organizations that were being attacked. It’s possible that the attackers may have compromised the email accounts of some of their victims in earlier campaigns, or the email server used by those organizations,” says Muñoz.
ESET has analyzed two variants of the yty malware framework: Gedit and DarkMusical. ESET researchers have decided to call one of the variants DarkMusical because of the names the attackers chose for their files and folders: many are western celebrities or characters in the movie High School Musical. This variant was used in campaigns targeting military organizations in Bangladesh and Nepal.
Cyber Security
ESET Research Uncovers Iran-Aligned BladedFeline Spying on Iraqi, Kurdish Officials

The Iran-aligned threat group BladedFeline has targeted Kurdish and Iraqi government officials in a recent cyber-espionage campaign, according to ESET researchers. The group deployed a range of malicious tools discovered within the compromised systems, indicating a continued effort to maintain and expand access to high-ranking officials and government organizations in Iraq and the Kurdish region. The latest campaign highlights BladedFeline’s evolving capabilities, featuring two tunneling tools (Laret and Pinar), various supplementary tools, and, most notably, a custom backdoor Whisper and a malicious Internet Information Services (IIS) module PrimeCache, both identified and named by ESET.
Whisper logs into a compromised webmail account on a Microsoft Exchange server and uses it to communicate with the attackers via email attachments. PrimeCache also serves as a backdoor: it is a malicious IIS module. PrimeCache also bears similarities to the RDAT backdoor used by OilRig Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group.
Based on these code similarities, as well as on further evidence presented in this blogpost, ESET assesses that BladedFeline is a very likely subgroup of OilRig, an Iran-aligned APT group going after governments and businesses in the Middle East. The initial implants in the latest campaign can be traced back to OilRig. These tools reflect the group’s strategic focus on persistence and stealth within targeted networks.
BladedFeline has consistently worked to maintain illicit access to Kurdish diplomatic officials, while simultaneously exploiting a regional telecommunications provider in Uzbekistan, and developing and maintaining access to officials in the government of Iraq.
ESET Research assesses that BladedFeline is targeting the Kurdish and Iraqi governments for cyberespionage purposes, with an eye toward maintaining strategic access to the computers of high-ranking officials in both governmental entities. The Kurdish diplomatic relationship with Western nations, coupled with the oil reserves in the Kurdistan region, makes it an enticing target for Iran-aligned threat actors to spy on and potentially manipulate. In Iraq, these threat actors are most probably trying to counter the influence of Western governments following the US invasion and occupation of the country.
In 2023, ESET Research discovered that BladedFeline targeted Kurdish diplomatic officials with the Shahmaran backdoor, and previously reported on its activities in ESET APT Activity reports. The group has been active since at least 2017, when it compromised officials within the Kurdistan Regional Government, but is not the only subgroup of OilRig that ESET Research is monitoring. ESET has been tracking Lyceum, also known as HEXANE or Storm-0133, as another OilRig subgroup. Lyceum focuses on targeting various Israeli organizations, including governmental and local governmental entities and organizations in healthcare.
ESET expects that BladedFeline will persist with implant development in order to maintain and expand access within its compromised victim set for cyberespionage.
Cloud
SentinelOne Simplifies Secure Cloud Migrations on AWS

SentinelOne today announced its participation in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Workload Migration Program. This initiative supports AWS Partner Network (APN) members with SaaS offerings on AWS to accelerate and streamline workload migrations.
Through the program, SentinelOne will provide AWS customers with accelerated, secure cloud migration support, leveraging modern AI-powered CNAPP capabilities to ensure rapid and protected transitions. With access to AWS funding, technical resources, and go-to-market support, SentinelOne will help organizations reduce migration timelines and costs while maintaining robust security.
SentinelOne’s Singularity Cloud Security delivers real-time visibility and protection throughout the migration journey—whether from on-premises or another cloud—enabling a secure, seamless transition to AWS.
“Through our participation in the AWS ISV Workload Migration Program, SentinelOne is helping customers accelerate secure cloud migrations with end-to-end protection and visibility,” said Ric Smith, President of Product, Technology, and Operations at SentinelOne. “Whether moving from on-prem or another cloud to AWS, organizations can count on us to deliver the security they need throughout their journey—realizing the performance, speed, agility, and cost benefits of the cloud.”
Singularity Cloud Security combines agentless and agent-based protection for deep visibility, continuous posture management, and real-time threat detection across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. By collaborating with AWS and ecosystem partners, SentinelOne ensures seamless integration into migration projects, helping customers move faster, reduce risk, and scale confidently in the cloud.
Availability: SentinelOne’s solutions are available globally.
Cyber Security
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