Trend Research has identified Earth Lamia as an APT threat actor that exploits vulnerabilities in web applications to gain access to organizations, using various techniques for data exfiltration.
Earth Lamia develops and customizes hacking tools to evade detection, such as PULSEPACK and BypassBoss.
Earth Lamia has primarily targeted organizations in Brazil, India, and Southeast Asia since 2023. Initially focused on financial services, the group shifted to logistics and online retail, most recently focusing on IT companies, universities, and government organizations.
Trend Vision One™ detects and blocks the IOCs discussed in this blog. Trend Vision One also provides hunting queries, threat insights, and threat intelligence reports to gain rich context and the latest updates on Earth Lamia.
Introduction

We have been tracking an active intrusion set that primarily targets organizations located in countries including Brazil, India, and Southeast Asia since 2023. The threat actor mainly targets the SQL injection vulnerabilities discovered on web applications to access the SQL servers of targeted organizations. The actor also takes advantage of various known vulnerabilities to exploit public-facing servers. Research reports have also mentioned their aggressive operations, including REF0657, STAC6451, and CL-STA-0048. Evidence we collected during our research indicates this group is a China-nexus intrusion set, which we now track as Earth Lamia.

Earth Lamia is highly active, but our observation found that its targets have shifted over different time periods. They targeted many organizations but focused only on a few specific industries during each time period. In early 2024 and prior, we observed that most of their targets were organizations within the financial industry, specifically related to securities and brokerage. In the second half of 2024, they shifted their targets to organizations mainly in the logistics and online retail industries. Recently, we noticed that their targets have shifted again to IT companies, universities, and government organizations.

Map of targeted countries
Figure 1. Map of targeted countries
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Earth Lamia continuously develops customized hacking tools and backdoors to improve their operations. While the actor highly leverages open-source hacking tools to conduct their attacks, they also customized these hacking tools to reduce the risk of being detected by security software. We also discovered they have developed a previously unseen backdoor, which we named PULSEPACK. The first version of PULSEPACK was identified in Earth Lamia's attacks during August 2024. In 2025, we found an upgraded version of PULSEPACK, which uses a different protocol for C&C communication, showing they are actively developing this backdoor. In this report, we will reveal the details of Earth Lamia’s operations and share the analysis of their customized hacking tools and backdoors.

Initial access and post-exploitation TTPs

We found that Earth Lamia frequently conducted vulnerability scans to identify possible SQL injection vulnerabilities on the targets' websites. With an identified vulnerability, the actor tried to open a system shell through it to gain remote access to the victims' SQL servers. We suspect they are likely using tools like "sqlmap" to carry out these attacks against their targets. Besides the SQL injection attempts, our telemetry shows the actor also exploited the following vulnerabilities on different public-facing servers:

CVE-2017-9805: Apache Struts2 remote code execution vulnerability
CVE-2021-22205: GitLab remote code execution vulnerability
CVE-2024-9047: WordPress File Upload plugin arbitrary file access vulnerability
CVE-2024-27198: JetBrains TeamCity authentication bypass vulnerability
CVE-2024-27199: JetBrains TeamCity path traversal vulnerability
CVE-2024-51378: CyberPanel remote code execution vulnerability
CVE-2024-51567: CyberPanel remote code execution vulnerability
CVE-2024-56145: Craft CMS remote code execution vulnerability
organizations.

Trend™ Research uncovered a campaign on TikTok that uses videos to lure victims into downloading information stealers, a tactic that can be automated using AI tools.

• Trend Research uncovered a new social engineering campaign using TikTok to deliver the Vidar and StealC information stealers. This attack uses videos (possibly AI-generated) to instruct users to execute PowerShell commands, which are disguised as software activation steps.
• TikTok’s algorithmic reach increases the likelihood of widespread exposure, with one video reaching more than half a million views. Businesses can be affected by data exfiltration, credential theft, and potential compromise of sensitive systems as a result of this threat.
• Reinforcing security awareness, especially against AI-generated content, is crucial. Monitoring for unusual command execution involving PowerShell or other system utilities also helps identify malicious activity early.
• Trend Vision One™ detects and blocks the IOCs discussed in this blog. rend Vision One customers can also access hunting queries, threat insights, and threat intelligence reports to gain rich context and the latest updates on this campaign
  Trend Research has uncovered a novel social engineering campaign using TikTok’s vast user base to distribute information-stealing malware, specifically Vidar and StealC. Unlike the prevalent Fake CAPTCHA campaign — which relies on fake CAPTCHA pages and clipboard hijacking to trick users into running malicious scripts — this new campaign pivots to exploiting the popularity and viral nature of TikTok.

Threat actors are now using TikTok videos that are potentially generated using AI-powered tools to socially engineer users into executing PowerShell commands under the guise of guiding them to activate legitimate software or unlock premium features. This campaign highlights how attackers are ready to weaponize whichever social media platforms are currently popular to distribute malware.
This report details the observed tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), indicators of compromise (IoCs), and the potential impact of this trend.

• Trend Research has identified multiple IP address ranges in Russia that are being used for cybercrime activities aligned with North Korea. These activities are associated with a cluster of campaigns related to the Void Dokkaebi intrusion set, also known as Famous Chollima.
• The Russian IP address ranges, which are concealed by a large anonymization network that uses commercial VPN services, proxy servers, and numerous VPS servers with RDP, are assigned to two companies in Khasan and Khabarovsk. Khasan is a mile from the North Korea-Russia border, and Khabarovsk is known for its economic and cultural ties with North Korea.
• Trend Research assesses that North Korea deployed IT workers who connect back to their home country through two IP addresses in the Russian IP ranges and two IP addresses in North Korea. Trend Micro’s telemetry strongly suggests these DPRK aligned IT workers work from China, Russia and Pakistan, among others.
• Based on Trend Research’s assessment, North Korea-aligned actors use the Russian IP ranges to connect to dozens of VPS servers over RDP, then perform tasks like interacting on job recruitment sites and accessing cryptocurrency-related services. Some servers involved in their brute-force activity to crack cryptocurrency wallet passwords fall within one of the Russian IP ranges.
• Instructional videos have also been found with what it looks like non-native English text, detailing how to set up a Beavertail malware command-and-control server and how to crack cryptocurrency wallet passwords. This makes it plausible that North Korea is also working with foreign conspirators.
• IT professionals in Ukraine, US, and Germany have been targeted in these campaigns by fictitious companies that lure them into fraudulent job interviews. Trend Research assesses that the primary focus of Void Dokkaebi is to steal cryptocurrency from software professionals interested in cryptocurrency, Web3, and blockchain technologies.
• Trend Vision One™ detects and blocks the IOCs discussed in this blog. Trend Vision One customers can also access hunting queries, threat insights, and threat intelligence reports to gain rich context and the latest updates on Void Dokkaebi.

We dive into one of the most sophisticated and impactful ecosystems within the global cybercrime landscape. Our research looks at tools and techniques, specialized forums, popular services, plus a deeply ingrained culture of secrecy and collaboration.

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CVE-2024-49112: A remote code execution (RCE) bug that attackers can exploit by sending specially crafted LDAP requests, allowing them to execute arbitrary code on the target system.
CVE-2024-49113: A denial-of-service (DoS) vulnerability that can be exploited to crash the LDAP service, leading to service disruptions.
In this blog entry, we discuss a fake proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for CVE-2024-49113 (aka LDAPNightmare) designed to lure security researchers into downloading and executing information-stealing malware.

In December 2024, two Windows Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) vulnerabilities were identified by independent security researcher Yuki Chen: CVE-2024-49112, a remote code execution (RCE) flaw with a 9.8 CVSS score, and CVE-2024-49113, a denial-of-service (DoS) flaw with a 7.5 CVSS score.

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• The malicious actor used public IP lookup services and various system commands to gather details about the compromised machine.
• The attack involved downloading and executing multiple shell scripts to install Titan binaries and connect to the Titan Network with the attacker’s identity.
• The malicious actor connects compromised machines to the Cassini Testnet, which allows them to participate in the delegated proof of stake system for reward tokens.

We provide a technical analysis on how CVE-2023-22527 can be exploited by malicious actors for cryptojacking attacks that can spread across the victim’s system.

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• On Feb. 19, 2024, Operation Cronos, a targeted law enforcement action, caused outages on LockBit-affiliated platforms, significantly disrupting the notorious ransomware group's operations.
• LockBit’s downtime was quickly followed by a takeover of its leak site by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), spotlighting the concerted international effort against cybercrime.
• Authorities leveraged the compromised LockBit leak site to distribute information about the group and its operations, announce arrests, sanctions, cryptocurrency seizure, and more. This demonstrated support for affected businesses and cast doubt on LockBit's promises regarding data deletion post-ransom payment — emphasizing that paying ransoms is not the best course of action.
• Trend Micro analyzed LockBit-NG-Dev, an in-development version of the ransomware. Key findings indicated a shift to a .NET core, which allows it to be more platform-agnostic and emphasizes the need for new security detection techniques.
• The leak of LockBit's back-end information offered a glimpse into its internal workings and disclosed affiliate identities and victim data, potentially leading to a drop in trust and collaboration within the cybercriminal network.
• The sentiments of the cybercrime community to LockBit's disruption ranged from satisfaction to speculation about the group’s future, hinting at the significant impact of the incident on the ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) industry. Businesses can expect shifts in RaaS tactics and should enhance preparedness against potential reformations of the disrupted group and its affiliates.
• Contrary to what the group themselves have stated, activities observed post-disruption would indicate that Operation Chronos has a significant impact on the group’s activities.

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