PULSE NAME
TA416 resumes European government espionage campaigns
WHITE MUSTANG PANDA AlienVault 2026-04-07 Modified: 2026-04-07
256
IOCs
HIGH VOLUME
Since mid-2025, China-aligned threat actor TA416 has resumed targeting European government and diplomatic organizations after a two-year operational shift to Southeast Asia. The campaigns primarily focused on diplomatic missions to the EU and NATO, using web bug reconnaissance and malware delivery through compromised accounts and attacker-controlled infrastructure. In March 2026, TA416 expanded operations to Middle Eastern diplomatic entities following the Iran conflict outbreak. Throughout this period, the actor continuously evolved infection chains, utilizing fake Cloudflare Turnstile pages, OAuth redirect abuse, and C# project files to deliver a customized PlugX backdoor via DLL sideloading. The group employed both broad reconnaissance campaigns and targeted malware delivery, demonstrating sophisticated tradecraft including use of re-registered legitimate domains and cloud infrastructure for command and control operations.
MITRE ATT&CK & Malware Families
MALWARE FAMILIES
PlugX - S0013 Thoper TVT DestroyRAT Sogu Kaba Korplug TONESHELL PUBLOAD
Indicators of Compromise (7 / 256 total)
All FileHash-MD5 FileHash-SHA1 FileHash-SHA256 URL domain hostname
TYPEINDICATORDESCRIPTIONCREATED
hostname dash.ghonline.net 2026-04-07
hostname epc.copenhagen2025.dm 2026-04-07
hostname web.florarevival.com 2026-04-07
hostname www.buscacnpj.org 2026-04-07
hostname www.bushidomma.net 2026-04-07
hostname www.foxmediagency.com 2026-04-07
hostname www.subusiness.org 2026-04-07