A Look at Trending Chinese APT Techniques

Category	Details
China’s Global Ambitions	Military, technological, and economic powers driving its challenge to the global order, with a focus on Taiwan and the South China Sea.
China’s Cyber Capabilities	Used for espionage, IP theft, prepositioning attacks in critical infrastructure; employed to shape narratives and secure partnerships.
Threat Actor Size	FBI Director: China’s hacking program larger than all other major nations combined, with overwhelming numbers of cyber agents vs. FBI staff.
Recent Trend in Espionage	Governments increasingly disclose Chinese cyber activities to raise awareness, prompting APT groups to adapt their TTPs and tool sets.
Zero-Day Exploits	Chinese APTs targeting zero-day vulnerabilities, particularly in edge devices like firewalls and VPNs, for mass exploitation and privilege escalation.
Volt Typhoon (Vanguard Panda)	Exploits zero-days targeting critical infrastructure, using routers, VPNs, and firewalls; designed to disrupt if needed.
Notable Attacks (2023)	Exploits in Barracuda ESG (CVE-2023-2868), Microsoft Exchange (CVE-2021-26855), targeting tens of thousands of servers.
Source of Zero-Days	Increasingly sourced domestically via bug-bounty programs, competitions, and state-controlled channels, using vulnerabilities for espionage.
Living Off the Land (LOTL)	Chinese APTs using legitimate tools like PowerShell, wmic, and Netsh to maintain undetected access and persist on IT networks.
Examples of LOTL Usage	Groups like Flax Typhoon, Ethereal Panda, and Volt Typhoon targeting U.S. and Taiwan with tools built into Windows OS.
Compromised Infrastructure (ORB)	Chinese APTs using global networks of compromised devices (routers, VPSs) for obfuscation and scaling espionage operations.
ORB Networks in Use	Groups like APT31 and APT5 using networks like SPACEHOP and FLORAHOX for proxy traffic and espionage.
Assessment of Chinese Cyber Operations	China’s increasing use of ORB networks and zero-day exploits signals a permanent shift in cyber operations, focusing on secrecy and scalability.
Future Trends	Chinese APTs expected to scale up operations in the next 6-12 months, targeting critical sectors globally, and adapting their tactics for secrecy.
Threat Hunting with Intel 471	HUNTER471 platform provides hunt packages for detecting Chinese APT behaviors, compatible with various SIEM/EDR tools.
Sample Hunt Packages	Includes detections for WMIC, obfuscated PowerShell, RDP enabling, NTDSUtil, and port forwarding commands used by Chinese APTs.
Hunt Package Focus	Detects activities such as potential malware execution, credential dumping, lateral movement, and use of restricted admin mode via RDP.

Read full article: https://intel471.com/blog/a-look-at-trending-chinese-apt-techniques

Disclaimer: The above summary has been generated by an AI language model